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Hello and welcome to chapter 1 part 3 of my new series START UP WITH PHOTOSHOP.
In today's video we'll be looking at Photoshop's preferences again, especially the submenu “File Handling”.
I'll be explaining every single option of the “File Handling” submenu and give advices. Let's start.
On a Mac you get to the preferences with the shortcut Cmd + K or by clicking the menu Photoshop > Preferences.
On a Windows PC you get to the preferences with the shortcut Ctrl + K or by clicking the menu Edit > Preferences.
Now you choose the submenu “File Handling”
We'll be going through the settings chronologically from top to bottom.
We'll be starting with the Options box “File Saving Options”.
You have to know that this Box looks different on a Macintosh than on a Windows PC. But I'll come to that later.
Let's check out the first option “Image Previews”. You have the possibility to choose between the three settings “Never Save”, “Always Save” and “Ask When Saving”.
This option has the effect that every image gets a small Thumbnail when you save it. It's a small symbol that shows you how the image looks like even before you opened it.
Because most of nowadays operating systems are able to generate thumbnails by their own it's recommendable to switch this option to “Never Save”.
Users who work with Adobe's “Bridge” don't need to turn that Option on at all.
If you want to use this option once in a while you should switch it to “Ask When Saving”.
I will now show a picture of Macintosh's Preferences > File Saving dialogue box.
Because when the option “Ask When Saving”'s activated Mac users have the possibility show the thumbnail as a symbol, a full sized symbol, a Windows miniature or a Macintosh miniature.
Moreover you'll find some different settings about the option “File Extension” on a Macintosh either.
You'll have again the choice between the settings “Never Save”, “Always Save” and “Ask When Saving”. If you are a Macintosh user you should totally switch to the setting “Always Save” otherwise a Windows PC might not be able to open your document anymore unless you put the file extension for example .jpeg manually behind your file's name.
Furthermore you should switch on the option “Use Lower Case” this has the effect that Photoshop puts a lower-case character file extension behind your files name and this increases the probability of an accurate data exchange between Macintosh and Windows.
Let's go back to the Windows display.
Here the “File Extension” option looks a little bit different. You have the choice between the settings “Use Lower Case” and “Use Upper Case”.
Here it's recommendable also to switch to the setting “Use Lower Case”.
Let's go to the options box “File Compatibility”.
First of all you have the possibility to edit the “Camera Raw Preferences” “Camera Raw is a plugin which works with so called “Raw-Files”. “Raw Files” are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be printed or edited with a bitmap graphics editor. I'll come to that topic in a different video.
The option “Prefer Adobe Camera Raw for Supported Raw Files” should be activated because it has the effect that if you open a “Raw File” it'll be directly opened in “Camera Raw”. If you deactivate this option you don't have the possibility to edit your “Raw Files” with “Camera Raw” anymore.
You should deactivate “Ignore EXIF profile tag” otherwise Photoshop would ignore the meta data and pick the correctly embed profile.
The option “Ask Before Saving Layered TFF Files” is available because there some programs that aren't able to work with layer based TIFF-data. For example some “Office Products” or older versions of “Quad Express”. If you activate this option Photoshop'll ask you before every data saving if you really want to save it or if you want to merge layers. If you only work with programs of Adobe's “Creative Suite” you don't have to mind this problem because the “Creative Suite”'s programs don't have any problems to work with TIFF files.
If you activate the next option “Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility” the following'll happen. As soon as you save a file with multiple layers a dialogue box'll appear where you can set if you want to maximize compatibility. To maximize compatibility means that Photoshop saves your image two times inside your PSD-file. One version with all layers and one version with merged layers. This option has the following purpose. If this data shall be opened with a older version of Photoshop that isn't able to this version will resort the merged file. You should only activate this option if you have to be compatible with older versions of Photoshop. That means Photoshop 7 and older. You can switch this option off if you exclusively work with products from Adobe's “Creative Suite”. If you really have to be compatible with Photoshop 7 or older versions you should ignore this option and save you file as a TIFF-file instead of a PSD-file because TIFF-files are much more compatible with older versions of Photoshop. There could be some problems with a TIFF-file either because TIFF-files support so called “Smart Object” which really old versions of Photoshop can't work with. In this case you should save you file as a “Photoshop 2” document which is compatible down to Photoshop 2. But “Photoshop 2-files” don't support “Smart Objects”, Layers etc. that means your file gets save as a really primitive document.
The advantage that the option “Maximize PSD and PSB File Compatibility” has is that if you work with really big files which you want to import in Adobe's “InDesign” this program is able to work much faster with your file because if you import a file with multiple layers in “InDesign” the program has to merge the layers first before it isable to show a previe of your file. If you maximize your file this process is not necessary anymore. So you should choose between the settings “Never”, “Always” and “Ask” how you personally need it. I choose the setting “Never” because I never work with Adobe's “InDesign” or a program outboard the “Creative Suite”
Let's switch to the “Version Cue” options box. If you want to be compatible with Adobe's “Version Cue” you should activate this option. I never work with this program so I switch off. The deactivation also has an advantage. Photoshop launches a lot faster.
The last option “Recent file list contains X files” shows how many files are displayed in the submenu File > Open Recent. Here it is recommendable to put Adobe's standard value 10.
So guys that was chapter 1 part 3 of my new series START UP WITH PHOTOSHOP. I hope I was able to help you and show you some new. I apologize for not uploading this video earlier but just the German script took me about 3 hours. The translation didn't take so long. I will also add the subtitles for the previous videos of my START UP WITH PHOTOSHOP SERIES soon. That's it so far. I hope to see you again in chapter 1 part 4 where we'll be looking at the submenu ”Performance” which is really important because if you choose the settings wrong you can make you Photoshop inoperative. Alright. See you next time. Take Care.