
The general rule with the interpolation options is that we use Bicubic Sharper for reducing the size of an image, and Bicubic Smoother when enlarging images.

Photoshop CS3 comes with the same interpolation options that we've had since version CS, so there's nothing new here, but it's important that we set this option correctly because it affects image quality. "Image interpolation" has to do with how Photoshop handles the pixels in your images when you resize them. The "Image Interpolation" option in the General Preferences. Regardless of how you get there, you'll be presented with the Photoshop Preferences dialog box, set to the "General" options: Or, an even faster way to access the Preferences is to use the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+K (Win) / Command+K (Mac). Rather than going up to the Edit menu, go up to the Photoshop menu instead, then choose Preferences, and then choose General.

If you're on a Windows system, go up to the Edit Menu at the top of the screen, choose Preferences, and then choose General. Before we do though, we need to know how to access the Preferences. If you've been using a previous version of Photoshop, one of the things you'll notice with CS3 is that Adobe has reorganized and renamed some of the Preferences and even added a couple of brand new categories which we'll look at in a moment.

But if it did, boy, these are the ones I'd be changing if I was looking to get my money's worth.ĭownload this tutorial as a print-ready PDF! How To Access The Preferences Or at least, they would if it actually, you know, cost something to make changes to the options, which it doesn't.

We're not going to cover every single preference, since your head would undoubtedly fall onto the keyboard before we made it to the end, but we'll look at some of the more essential ones, the ones that give us the biggest bang for the buck. You may not find any options here that would, say, cause your computer to explode if set incorrectly, but there are definitely some options that will help both you and Photoshop work more efficiently. If you've just installed Photoshop CS3, whether you've upgraded from an earlier version of Photoshop or this is your first experience with the program, one of the first things you should do is make sure you have everything set up properly in Photoshop's Preferences, which have been changed quite a bit in CS3.
