Adobe continues rolling out new features for Photoshop, and two recent additions deserve your attention if you work with text or color adjustments regularly.
Coming to you from Anthony Morganti, this practical video walks through two features that are now available in the current version of Photoshop, not just the beta. The first is Dynamic Text, which fundamentally changes how you handle typography in your projects. Instead of the traditional workflow of selecting text, adjusting font sizes through dropdown menus or scrubby sliders, and manually spacing elements using the character panel, this new feature streamlines the entire process. You simply click the lightning bolt icon next to the type tool, and Photoshop automatically resizes and repositions your text elements with improved spacing. The feature creates a bounding box around your text that makes resizing and repositioning much more intuitive than the previous method.
The second feature focuses on color relationships within your images through a new Variance slider in Camera Raw's Color Mixer panel. This tool addresses a common challenge when working with images that contain similar color tones that need better separation or unification. You select a color using the eyedropper tool, then adjust the variance slider to either make similar shades more distinct from each other or bring them closer together visually. Morganti demonstrates this on an image with various red tones, showing how moving the slider right creates more distinction between similar colors, while moving it left brings them closer together. The feature also works within the masking panel, allowing you to apply the effect to specific areas of your image rather than globally.
What makes these additions particularly valuable is their integration into existing workflows without requiring you to learn completely new interfaces. The Dynamic Text feature alone can eliminate multiple steps when creating thumbnails, social media graphics, or any project requiring text overlay. Rather than constantly switching between selection tools, character panels, and adjustment options, you get immediate visual feedback through the bounding box system. The Variance slider similarly provides real-time preview of color adjustments, letting you see exactly how it affects color relationships in your specific image rather than working blindly with numerical values. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Morganti.
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