The latest version of Adobe PhotoShop CS6 has launched and it’s impressive. In addition to a visual makeover, Adobe has packed the software with some innovative and much-requested features. It’s currently in beta and you can download the normally $699-$999 application for free – for a trial period, at least. Here’s a look at some of the image-editing goodness packed inside.
Bring on the black
The first thing you’ll notice when you install PhotoShop is its new look. Gone is the lighter interface, now your images are set against a dark black backdrop. For some reason, this makes what’s traditionally looked like a cluttered and complicated application a little sleeker and simpler. Personally, I find the black makes me focus on what I’m editing more instead of my toolbox. But if the black just isn’t doing it for you, color schemes are adjustable and you can find something else you prefer.
Content-aware move tool
A content-aware tool isn’t new to this version of PhotoShop, but it’s hugely refined with the move feature and does the job of patching up the leftovers as well. In your healing tools, you’ll see the content-aware move tool, which lets you select something and put it somewhere else. The end result is far more realistic looking than it previously was, and PhotoShop has enhanced its ability to repair the area you moved the object in question from.
As you can see in the above image, there’s still some need for clean up (get out your stamp tool), but it’s a really nice improvement.
Raw
Adobe has given PhotoShop’s Raw editing capabilities a big boost. Now, even if you didn’t shoot something in Raw, you can edit it in the format. You’ll also get more metadata about your images and increased clarity for even higher resolution and detail. The highlight and shadow controls, newly added, will grab more detail from your shots so you can work with what you saw in your mind’s eye, even if it isn’t necessarily what you captured. There are a variety of new and improved options here, so take some time to explore them.
Video
For obvious reasons, PhotoShop has never been a go-to for video editors. It remains a home for stills, but updated features make it a compelling option for photographers who occasionally shoot video and want an editing option without anteing up serious cash. Finally, PhotoShop has some features that will ease this pain. You can drop in video and audio, use whatever familiar PhotoShop tools you like to adjust them, all within a simple, iMovie-like format. Is it professional? No. Will it replace Sony Vegas or Final Cut? Hardly. Will it get the job done? Yes – and then some.
Blur gallery
The new version of PhotoShop gets a little more creative, noticeably in the blur department. Yes, filters and blur filters have always been available, but they’ve never really been a photographers’ friend. But the addition of field blur, iris blur (used in the image below), and tilt-shift have been oft-requested, much-anticipated tools that have been implemented.
Crop
Sometimes a subtle tweak to an important feature can make all the difference. The crop tool has received a little makeover with its key purpose to help you change aspect ratio without also messing up resolution. You can also get creative and peruse various composition options (rule of thirds, grid, etc).
There are some other essential differences here as well. You can move and rotate the image within the cropping area to set the composition, which sort of streamlines the entire process of trimming and realigning an image. The straighten tool has also gotten a nice simplification; you just draw a line under what you want to establish as the horizon and the application aligns it for you. These are all upgrades, but they are also significant changes to what are some of the most PhotoShop tools, so give yourself a minute to get reacquainted with them.
PhotoShop: It’s not just for photographers!
PhotoShop has traditionally been for photographers and Illustrator for designers. Now PhotoShop has some new tools for graphic creators as well. The InDesign users among us will also appreciate how PhotoShop has woven some of its formatting features in as well. You can now edit blocks of text much more easily. There’s also a much-requested Lorem Ipsum paste feature for throwing in sample type. All in all, using PhotoShop for whatever copy needs you have should be a much less painful process.
Graphics have gotten some nice enhancements as well. You can add shapes without creating a new layer, there are new and expanded manipulations, more patters and options, and styles and their abilities have increased. You can adjust the brightness and contrast of your manipulations as well.
Nice overview. The content aware tool, blur tools and cropping / alignment changes are my favorites so far. I like what Adobe is doing lately with Photoshop.
I hope they really start to focus more on their products for tablets, though. I much prefer editing on a tablet than a laptop when it comes to photos.
Agreed, I want a fully functional PS for my iPad. I am a photographer and the iPad version just leaves me wanting more because I am used to working on my desktop.
At least put RAW manipulation in the iPad version to make my workflow portable.
It just feels so much more intuitive, in my opinion. But hey, if Adobe doesn’t do it, someone else will eventually…
Question is will you and enough others be willing to fork over the $$ to pay for PS to be written to run natively on an A5… The performance and mem size req alone are crippleing. $150 for an app, plus $$ for updates that don’t include what you still have to pay to get your laptop/desktop version?
I think the professional market is big enough that people would be willing to pay for photo editing software on a tablet if it was done right. But it could go either way
If its there, but I can tell you none of our graphic pros I support were willing citing size of image, accuracy of even the jot-pro, lacking their actions/custom jestures… They said it would have to mimic the desktop with at least som semblance of performance and even then they couldn’t see how it would benefit them in the field vs having a perf. Laptop or just bringing back to office.
So the market may be out there, just not for us or a few other shops we’ve discussed portable options with.
If I could pull files wirelessly (big as they are) and work on my RAW files while on the bus or train, that would make my life much easier and easily worth 150bucks. Hell, I spent $2,000 on a lens, why wouldn’t I spend 150 on a program that makes my work more accessible.
But I agree that the memory requirements are probably years away from being met and the technological limitations means that a “real” photoshop app will show up on the Android devices (who are more concerned with “specs”) first.