Chapter 13. Applying Effects to Objects and Images

When Adobe first introduced the concept of filters in Photoshop, it was a risky move. To allow other developers to access the inner workings of the Photoshop graphics engine and develop their own filters to alter images was brilliant or a huge mistake. History has now validated that the move was, indeed, brilliant.

Filters are found mainly in Photoshop, but Illustrator has taken the concept one step further with the introduction of effects. Effects are essentially filters applied in memory, allowing them to be edited or even removed at any time from the Appearance palette without affecting the rest of the attributes. This same benefit can be realized in Photoshop using Smart Filters. Both Photoshop and Illustrator include filters and effects.

The variety of filters and effects found in both Photoshop and Illustrator are quite diverse, covering everything from unique brush strokes and object distortion to color adjustment and even 3-D effects.

Many filters in Photoshop are moving into complex interfaces like the Filter Gallery that lets you explore, preview, and apply many filters at once. Other common filter interfaces include the Extract, Liquify, and Pattern Maker interfaces.

Using Photoshop Filters

All the filters that may be applied to an image are contained within the Filter ...

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