For nearly 30 years, Adobe Photoshop has remained the top application among most available on the market for working with graphics and photography, offering the most comprehensive set of tools compared to similar programs from other companies. Today, it is Adobe's most well-known and largest project, supporting animation, video, image printing, web design, and even working with charts.
We all know this application well, many of us use it almost daily—and let's face it, Adobe has no plans to retire it anytime soon. With the release of Photoshop CC 2017, a number of improvements and new features have been introduced that even web designers can’t ignore—especially following the latest updates.
The work of a web designer is creative by nature. Coming up with a website or landing page layout is one thing, but designing it down to the smallest detail, including editing background images, preparing videos, and adding animated effects, is something else entirely. Photoshop is indispensable here, which makes the innovations in version 2017.1.1 both interesting and useful.
Important: many keyboard shortcuts that we’ve been used to over the years now trigger different functions and windows. However, you can revert to the traditional shortcuts in the keyboard settings window.
For examples, we’ll use the light interface in CC 2017 and the dark one in CC 2015.
Creating a Document
The first thing you’ll notice when starting to work in CC 2017 is the new document creation interface. This is especially striking if you previously used a version without CC. Now you’ll be greeted with a universal start screen that allows you to open recent documents, samples from Creative Cloud or Adobe’s mobile apps, create a new document with custom settings, or select from a wide range of templates categorized by Photography, Print, Illustration, Web, Video, or Mobile App. Choosing the right document size has become more intuitive and visually convenient.
Even mobile device screen sizes are now available as ready-made templates, eliminating the need for certain plugins, extensions, and tedious online searches for screen dimensions.
It’s also worth mentioning the support for Adobe Stock templates, which appear as thumbnails in the same window—if you have a Creative Cloud subscription. Without it, you’ll be limited to the built-in document presets.
We’ll discuss this in more detail at the end.
Toolset Updates
There are many new and improved UI settings, but before diving into those, let’s look at the more exciting creative tools.
Cropping and Fill
The Crop and Frame tools—commonly used to trim images or expand canvas size—have seen notable improvements. The older functionality is shown below.
Starting from Photoshop CC 2015.5, you can expand an image and have the app intelligently fill in the new areas. Select the image, check the “Content-Aware” option, and confirm the action. The results are impressive, as the "fill" blends beautifully. You may only need to smooth out some edges. It works best with forest, sky, ocean, meadow scenes—but not as well with people or animals.
Here’s what we achieved. You can enlarge just one side of the image or all four. Version CC 2017 processes large images faster.
Fonts
We’ve often discussed why vector SVG images are preferable to standard fonts in web design. Photoshop supports SVG files, can save documents in that format, and convert them to vector graphics. Vector fonts are easily scalable, making them ideal for use in responsive design.
Photoshop now supports Trajan Color Concept and EmojiOne as working font options.
But there’s a twist: a single “text” glyph can now include gradients, different colors, or even emoji. You can also change the color of each emoji. These features are available in the Glyphs panel, but you can’t use them to type text directly. In the EmojiOne font, which adds SVG emojis, the glyph characters don’t match keyboard letters—and when combined, they can form national flags using international codes.
As for color customization, it only works with yellow-toned glyphs. You can choose from five skin tone variations included in EmojiOne. Just select a yellow emoji, double-click the skin tone swatch, and a new version will appear. Pressing Backspace will remove the color.
These objects can be converted to outlines for further editing or saved as SVG vector images—but the color information will be lost, and the lines will adopt your text color.
Web designers may not use this feature often, but colorful text, especially in Latin alphabets, can be very handy. Trajan Color does not support Cyrillic characters.
Liquify
Another major update worth noting is the “Face-Aware Liquify” feature. Previously, the Liquify tool (Filter menu) was used cautiously—it could be challenging to apply correctly unless the artist had a strong understanding of facial structure. Creating a smile was tricky, and unless you're making caricatures or humorous images, it rarely turned out right. Often, just subtle tweaks are needed—slightly opening the eyes, softening a smile, reducing an overly retouched commercial look to make the photo feel more real. Even in web design, not every photo fits without a little editing.
Face-Aware Liquify first appeared in Photoshop CC 2015.5 but received improvements in the 2017 version. The updated feature now allows you to adjust each eye separately or symmetrically. Simply unlock the property to toggle between modes.
Previously, adjustments affected both eyes simultaneously.
Overall, the tool now provides more control and consistency when editing facial features. While it’s not revolutionary, the ability to edit eyes separately can be quite useful.
The second enhancement in Liquify is a new preview toggle for liquify actions, which you can disable if desired.
Select and Mask
Object selection, edge refinement, and masking—these may not be the most exciting tasks, but they are essential in nearly all image editing workflows. Even when creating cinemagraphs or double duotone effects, where foreground and background are tinted in different color combinations, masks and selections are key.
So any new or improved features in this area are always welcome. Retouchers and digital artists already have their routines, and most new features won’t drastically change their workflow. But if you’re not a pro, the transformation of Select and Mask into a separate workspace will definitely be appreciated.
What exactly is the Select and Mask workspace? First, don’t go to the top-right of the interface. Instead, activate the Selection tool or go to the Select menu and click “Select and Mask.” A new workspace will open, and your image will appear slightly transparent.
Tools are located on the left, including the new Lasso tool. Simply draw around the object, and it will highlight so you can preview the edge quality before saving. The interface is intuitive, as always with Adobe. You can adjust transparency and edge refinement. As you've guessed, this new workspace replaces the old “Refine Edge” tool. Whether it's more convenient or overly complex depends on the user, but it's certainly not unnecessary.
Search
Let’s begin the UI improvements with the Search feature—a brand-new and truly expansive function. Previously, Ctrl+F was used to repeat the last filter. Now, this shortcut opens the Search window, where you can look up anything related to Photoshop or your current document, including external resources.
You can search Photoshop commands, help articles, and Adobe Stock. For example, if you’ve forgotten where a function or tool is located, the Help section will display tutorials, while Stock provides templates and samples.
You can reassign the Ctrl+F shortcut to restore the old repeat function, or access Search from the Edit menu. This feature is great for beginners still learning Photoshop, searching for functionality or missing tools. Even pros will find it useful—especially since it supports searching within document layers.
Templates and Artboards
This is now more convenient—creating a new document and selecting dimensions. Adobe has made major strides in mobile web design. Not only can you use templates from the start screen, but you can also install the Adobe Preview CC mobile app (iOS only) to see how your project looks on a mobile device while editing it live in Photoshop on your PC.
Artboards allow you to design websites from multiple perspectives at once. They sit above layers and groups, containing both. Web designers may find it hard to get used to this, especially since Adobe Stock templates come with predefined settings and design elements. Changing them takes more effort. However, artboards let you create mockups for different site pages or screen sizes simultaneously. Think of them as folders for layer groups.
Artboards and presets were available in earlier CC versions, but now they’re emphasized more and clearly presented in the welcome screen.
Ready-made sets include predefined screen sizes for various devices. However, you can modify and save your custom settings before clicking “Create.”
What Else?
Other improvements may seem small, but they streamline workflows significantly.
Every object, element, and tool now includes a “Properties” panel. It existed before, but now it’s pinned in the workspace by default. This allows real-time editing of essential parameters—no more floating windows in sidebars. Everything is compact and conveniently placed.
Some features were removed, such as the Design Space workspace. It had fewer tools but made layout management easier. Still, most web designers stuck with the more robust default workspace, so Adobe simply dropped Design Space from the app.
Camera Shake Reduction under Filter → Sharpen → Shake Reduction has improved. If a client sends blurry photos for a site design, you can try making them clearer and more vibrant. The feature already existed, but Adobe refined its color and processing algorithms.
There's also integration with Adobe Experience Design CC. We've covered this too. While Experience Design is useful for UI/UX and mobile web design, Photoshop still leads in creative features.
Improvements in Summary
Overall, there are many small improvements in color grading, contrast, lighting, font grouping, and more. It’s hard to say which feature will “shock” web designers. Everything is practical—nothing is unnecessary. As the saying goes: "Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it." Each update, especially CC 2017, makes Photoshop better than before. That’s why it remains the most powerful and comprehensive toolset—even for web design. Yes, there are many free competitors, but they lack its depth and features.
Whether to upgrade to CC 2017 or stick with an older version is up to web designers. It depends on their habits, needs, and how much they value convenience.
Our verdict: 10 out of 10.
It may not be revolutionary, but even the small updates and new features allow Photoshop to remain the best creative application available.