What is this? (Photoshop tips)

[peternelson]

When I open up Photoshop CC I get a screen that says "Suggestions" and then under that "Tips" and it starts off with a picture of a guy with blotchy, acne-covered skin and the caption "Smooth Skin".   And a button that says "Try It Now".   So I click the button and it opens a JPEG of the image along with a dialog box labeled "Discover" that has stuff in it like "Layer basics" and "Work with layers" and other elementary stuff. 

See attached image.

The caption "Smooth Skin" suggests that I'm going to get a tutorial about how to smooth skin, like maybe a workflow.   But I don't see one.  Am I overlooking it?   What is Adobe doing here?   Thanks in advance.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

@peternelson these are built in tutorials available for you. You can hide suggestions using the top right navigation. Clicking in the Discover panel starts the tutorials for the subject.

[peternelson]

There was nothing obvious in the Discovery panel related to the "Smooth Skin" topic.  There was generic layer stuff  and obviously smoothing skin probably involves the use of layers, but so does practically everything in Photoshop.

My question is, when I see one of these headings, what is it?   Is there, in fact, a "smooth skin" or "remove background" (another heading I've seen there) tutorial or workflow associated with it, and how do I get there by clicking on the image?   Or is it just some kind of clickbait?

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

It's not clickbait. If you have a image open with the Discover Panel - it has various items like tutorials, help articles and in this case "Smooth Skin" is a Quick Action you can run to automate. When I clicked "Smooth Skin" it opened up and added a smart filter for the Neural Filter along with Related tutorials (Remove spots and imperfections)

[peternelson]

How did you get that?    Since posting this, "Smooth Skin" has been replaced by "Blur Background" (why did it change?) , so using that, when I click the Try It Now button I get the same thing I got when I clicked that button with "Smooth Skin" which is the "Discover" panel with a bunch of generic topics, nothing called "Smooth Skin" or "Blur Background". (see attached)

[J E L · Accepted solution]

For me, it's under Quick actions:

[peternelson]

For me, it's under Quick actions:

Ah, good, thank you!     But how would anyone ever guess that?    Does Adobe think we have nothing better to do than just randomly clicking on stuff?   They should make these things context-sensitive so when you click "Try It Now" it takes you to that action. 

[J E L]

Ha, you're welcome, Peter. I spend so much time randomly clicking! Each section also gives you more options from the little menu at the top right (and there is a gear setting at the bottom right for more options). For example, from the Quick actions panel, you can sort a variety of ways, which may be helpful to you, too. I try to set it and forget it, but the Quick actions panel I use quite a bit.

[Kevin Stohlmeyer]

Hi @peternelson the panel is contextual so it will change. Try searching at the top for "Smooth Skin" if you are looking for that.