Photoshop CC: The Missing Manual, 2nd Edition

Rendering 3D Objects

While you’re working on a 3D object, Photoshop is actually only showing you a low-resolution preview. When you’re finished with your work, or when you just want a glimpse of the fabulosity of your talent, you need to tell Photoshop to render the scene—generate a high quality version that you can use online, in print, or in an animation. Rendering uses ray tracing and a higher resolution than what you see in the preview to generate more realistic lighting and shadow effects. (Ray tracing is a lighting technique that generates realistic reflections and shadows by following rays of light as they emerge from their sources, pass through semi-transparent objects, and reflect off surfaces.)

When Photoshop renders a scene, it uses the Properties panel’s render settings, which only appear when you have a scene active in the 3D panel. (You can tell you’re looking at these settings because you’ll see the word Scene at the top of the Properties panel.) The Properties panel has 16 rendering presets (they’re listed in the aptly named Presets drop-down menu); some are useful only to 3D pros, while others are fun for everyone (wireframe presets, for example).

Unless you’re a 3D pro, your best bet is to stick with the presets. But if you’re feeling adventurous, you can make hundreds of choices in the Properties panel’s Cross Section, Surface, Lines, and Points sections. And there are a handful of simplification options that do things like remove shadows, back faces (literally ...