what’s new for CS5

essential skills

• Overview of the new and changed features in Photoshop CS5.

‘New and revised’ for CS5

With some releases of Photoshop, the spread of new tools and features on offer seem to cater for the broader user community, rather than photographers specifically, but happily this is not the case for CS5. A quick glance at the top features list will reassure you that there is much here for the digital shooter and I can safely say that this is the strongest release for photographers for quite a while.

 

Two CS5 flavors

As with the last few releases of the product, the CS5 release includes two versions of the program – Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended. Photoshop CS5 contains the lion’s share of the new tools and features, with the Extended version adding new and improved 3D options (see the table on the next page). Photoshop CS5 Extended ships with most Creative Suite packages and, as more and more photographers are seeing the value of buying these suites, many of you will be getting ‘Extended’ without having to make a decision about if you need the extra 3D imaging power. But more on this later.

More editing power to you

Photoshop has always provided photographers with a plethora of controls aimed at giving them tools needed for the precise enhancement of their images. CS5 continues this tradition with a very important update of Adobe Camera Raw (ACR6) featuring a complete rewriting of the demosaicing engine to produce higher quality raw conversions, a quantum leap forward in noise reduction, better sharpening, and more control of post-crop vignetting. The changes here are so good that it has me reworking raw files I have already processed, just so that I can take advantage of the quality gains offered by ACR6.

The new Merge To HDR Pro dialog offers substantially more creative control and precision over the processing and styling of High Dynamic Range photos and the lens correction features (available as a filter in Photoshop, in ACR6, and via batch processing) provide customized correction of key lens aberrations.

Creative control as well

Alongside editing precision, Photoshop CS5 also delivers new tools and features to help you achieve your creative photographic vision. In a massive shake-up of Photoshop’s painting abilities, the program now includes the new Mixer Brush and Bristle Tips, which enable you to realistically blend colors and paint with naturalistic strokes. Don’t feel like you have the artistic ability to create masterpieces from scratch? No problem. Simply start the painting process with a photo original. Use the incredible new Puppet Warp tool to easily reposition an image element and employ the almost ‘magical’ powers of Content-Aware Fill to intelligently recreate missing picture content.

Terrific as these new options are, many might say the true ‘killer-feature’ of this release is the new selection technology. The changes made to the Refine Edge dialog box include great tools and controls that help you make complex selections of difficult subjects such as hair and foliage more quickly and easily than ever before.

64-bit is here…

If you are sitting in the Windows camp, then this news is a little less exciting than if you are a Mac user. Why? Well Windows got a 64-bit optimized version of Photoshop last time around. With CS5, now Mac users can also take advantage of the better performance that native 64-bit support yields.

Expect to see real gains when working with large image files in particular.

Photoshop CS5 is further enhanced with dozens of timesaving features suggested by Photoshop users like you. The engineering team put aside time in their busy development cycle to address a bunch of improvements that, although not ground breaking, will make their impact felt immediately in your day-today workflow.

These improvements include the ability to save to unsupported bit depths, easily reverse clone sources images, save layer style presets, more easily straighten crooked photos, create masks from the transparent area of a layer and heaps more. Check our complete list later in this chapter.

	photoshop CS5	photoshop CS5 Ext.
Mixer Brush and Bristle Tips
Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in with support for more than 275 camera models
Re-engineered noise removal and additive grain
Enhanced post-crop vignetting
Enhanced sharpening
Automated lens correction
HDR Pro for high dynamic range imaging
HDR Toning
Puppet Warp
Content-Aware Fill
LAB B & W Action
New black-and-white presets
Intelligent edge-selection technology
Color decontamination
Refine Radius and Erase Refinements tools
Adobe Bridge CS5 and Adobe Mini Bridge
Cross-platform 64-bit support
More flexible custom panels
Workspace Switcher and Live Workspaces
More powerful printing options
GPU-accelerated Crop Guides, on-screen Color Picker, Eyedropper and color sampler ring
Broader file format support
More than three dozen customer-inspired features and enhancements
Adobe Repoussé technology
Shadow catcher
3D materials library and picker
Overlays for materials and mesh boundaries
Depth of Field for 3D
Enhanced ray tracer with progressive rendering
Image-based light option
Context-sensitive widget for easy control of objects, cameras, meshes and lights
3D merging and scene compositing improvements
3D workflow improvements
Preferences that allow for the customization of 3D features

Better 3D more easily

Previous releases of Photoshop Extended have concentrated on providing easier ways to work in allied areas such as video, animation, medical and technical imaging and architectural illustration. In CS5 we see the Adobe team put a lot of effort into creating new tools and features to help photographers better explore the creative opportunities available in the world of 3D. Taking much of the confusion out of building simple 3D models, Adobe Repoussé lets you take your work to the next level by adding 3D elements to 2D designs. The feature gives photographers the ability to easily create 3D extrusions from text and shapes. In addition, you can enhance the realism of your 3D artwork with one-click shadow creation, a rich library of easy-to-apply 3D materials and the option to use image-based-lighting.

Over the next few pages we ’ll take a closer look at the key new features in this release, highlighting specifically as we go, how you can take advantage of them in your own individual workflow.

Producing realistic composites of two or more images relies heavily on creating high quality selections/masks which are then used to blend the image content. The adaptive, edge detection technology located in the Refine Edge dialog box provides powerful, easy-to-use tools to help with this task.

Faster, more accurate, selections of complex subjects

The editing Holy Grail for many Photoshop users is the ability to quickly, accurately and seamlessly create a composite of two images. This task often involves the creation of complex masks or selections in order to hide parts of one layer while revealing sections of another. It is not that the process, in its simplest form, is a difficult one. After all, anyone can create a selection. Right? Well yes, but it is when we want to create complex, accurate, selections of difficult subjects to increase the appearance of a seamless transition between the two picture parts, that things start to get a little tricky.

No where is this more apparent than when trying to extract a portrait subject with fly-away hair from one background and layer it upon another. The wispy nature of the subject makes the task of accurate selection a difficult, tedious, and often, time-consuming one. Photoshop has a large range of selection tools that can be thrown at the job, but most of these options are ‘dumb’ in their approach to creating selections.

Experienced Photoshop users know that the best selections are created by constantly adapting the selection approach to variations in the qualities of the subject’s edge. This process involves the user changing tools, approaches and techniques in order to customize the selection to better match the subject’s edge. What is really needed is a selection technology that intelligently adapts to changes in edge characteristics of a subject. With Photoshop CS5 you have such technology at your fingertips in the form of the revamped Refine Edge dialog box. The tools and controls found here allow you to produce highly accurate masks and selections faster and simpler than before.

The revamped Refine Edge dialog now includes new View options (1), powerful Edge Detection features (2), selection refinement tools (3), Edge adjustment controls (4), and new Output settings (5).

The process starts with the creation of a rough selection of the key subject. This can be created with any of the Selection tools in Photoshop. Often the Quick Selection Tool is the fastest option to use. Next, the edge of the selection is modified with the set of new adaptive selectionedge modification controls located in the Refine Edge dialog box.

The Smart Radius setting and Radius slider automatically matches the best selection approach with the subject’s changing edge characteristics — soft for hair and hard for the side of a building. The quality of the selection can be fine-tuned further with two refinement brushes. One for adding to the edge and one for subtracting from it. The new dialog box also includes two extra view modes, On Layers and Reveal Layer, as well as Show Radius and Show Original settings to assist you when previewing the quality of your selections. New output options control how your selections will be used when exiting the dialog box. You can choose from creating selections, masks, new masked layers or even a new document with the masked layer included.

The secret of creating great selections with the features in the updated Refine Edge dialog box is to adjust the Smart Radius so the selection around the hard edges of the subject are accurate and then brush in the softer edges using the Refine Radius Tool.

Finally the Decontaminate Color setting helps eliminate any residual background color from around the edges of your selections. This feature is particularly useful for creating seamless compositions as it increases the effectiveness of the blend between the masked layer and its new background.

Tests that we conducted during the Photoshop beta period have shown that the adjustment options in the new Refine Edge dialog box do provide a faster route for the creation of good selections. It is true that power users will still be able to create better selections through the use of tried-and-true masking methods, but in all cases, the creation of such superior selections took much longer for very little perceptible gain than when employing the new workflow.

When combining multiple overlapping photos together to form a panorama you are often left with areas of the frame that are missing details. Content-Aware Fill provides an efficient way to rebuild this missing detail and, although not perfect, the feature does the job faster than traditional methods.

Intelligent retouching

Photoshop has many tools that the image maker can use to repair problem areas of a photo. The Spot Healing brush is great for hiding sensor dust; its bigger brother, the Healing Brush works well with larger areas and for the traditionalists amongst us, the Clone Stamp tool also has its place. But as any retoucher knows, these tools, great as they may be, are not perfect. Most repair jobs require switching between tools to ensure a good result.

Well the good news is that Photoshop CS5 introduces a new tool to your editing arsenal. Actually, it is not so much a tool, as a new way of using existing tools such as the Fill command and Spot Healing Brush. To my mind, the Content-Aware Fill (CAF) option is one of the most exciting features in the new release as it has the remarkable ability to remove an image element and magically replace the missing pixels with details that match the lighting, tone, and noise of the surrounding area. In many instances the results are so good that it looks like the deleted content never existed.

Content-Aware Fill is perfectly placed for the removal of large objects in photo compositions or the creation of missing content in montaged images.

Two ways to use CAF

You can use Content-Aware Fill with the Spot Healing Brush or as an option of the Fill command to replace content in an active selection.

The feature can also be selected as an option when using the Spot Healing brush.

1. Selecting the Content-Aware setting from the Options bar of the Spot Healing brush changes the way the tool fills in the areas you paint. This retouching approach is designed to account more fully for the structure and detail of the image elements that surround the painted area, providing a near-invisible result when removing unwanted objects.
2. Alternatively, you can select the object to be removed, and then replace the area with synthesized details from the area surrounding the selection. Just create the selection and then choose the Content-Aware option in the Fill dialog box (Edit > Fill).

Compared to what was available in previous versions of Photoshop, the Merge To HDR Pro feature in CS5 dramatically changes a photographer’s ability to control HDR merging and processing.

Getting creative with HDR Pro

The ability to build High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos in Photoshop first appeared a few revisions ago. At the time, I can still remember heralding the feature’s arrival as an answer to shooters who are regularly faced with high-contrast dilemmas with their subjects.

After all, the idea of going beyond the capture range of your camera by stitching together several differently-exposed photos does solve one of our fundamental problems, namely how to record the massive contrast range that typify many outdoor scenes. It is not unusual for an architectural photographer to be working with a scene that has a 15 f-stop range from darkest to lightest areas. With the average digital camera only capable of capturing 8–9 f-stops this means sacrificing detail (clipping) at either the highlight or shadow end of the tonal range.

The promise of HDR is with multiple source photos, the photographer can record detail of the darkest shadows, the brightest highlights and the midtones. Photoshop then magically combines the exposures to produce a single HDR file that preserves the full tonal range of the high contrast scene. The HDR photo is different from traditional Photoshop documents in that it is a 32-bit file capable of storing up to 15 f-stops in brightness range or a contrast ratio of 100,000:1. That’s the promise of the HDR system. In reality, Photoshop provided a fairly basic toolset for working with HDR images. It contained controls for the creation of precise merges of source files that produced objectively accurate 32-bit renditions of the file, but there was little in the way of creative tools for the HDR photographer. CS5 changes all this. The new version introduces a completely new take on HDR photo creation and processing.

Shooting moving subjects or without a tripod have traditionally been big no-nos when capturing the source files for HDR photos.

Both these scenarios produce blurry results as the merging software is unable to align the source files. The deghosting feature in Merge To HDR Pro helps with this problem by giving priority to the content of one source image over the others. This can happen automatically or you can select the photo to use as the basis of the correction.

More creativity and control

Renamed HDR Pro, Photoshop CS5’s High Dynamic Range system now provides far more control over the HDR merging process, a greater degree of adjustment power when mapping tones and when styling the HDR output. You can still produce ‘accurate’, photo-realistic images using the system but it is now also possible to create highly stylized and dramatic renditions of the scene as well.

This is massive step forward as HDR Pro offers extended controls via a completely revamped and enhanced dialog box. New algorithms enable more accurate alignment of source files and an in-built deghosting system does its best to fix any problem areas caused by camera shake or moving subjects. New tone-mapping tools and adjustment controls give photographers the power to implement their own HDR styles, producing photos that range in style from fully textured images of high-contrast scenes to wildly hyper-realistic creations. The production of HDR monochromes is even possible.

HDR photos can be processed in a wide range of different styles. A good starting point for producing different looks is to select one of the many presets that ship with the feature and then fine-tune the settings to suit your image. (1) Photorealistic, (2) Monochromatic. (3) Surrealistic Low Contrast. (4) Surrealistic High Contrast.

Processing presets

Processing settings can be saved making styling of successive HDR images faster and more efficient. The settings presets can also be shared using the Save/Load options in the pop-up presets menu located in the top right of the dialog box.

Single image HDRish

And for times when you don’t have multiple source files, you can create the look of an HDRprocessed image from a single photo with the HDR Toning feature that allows you to mimic the tone-mapping results traditionally achieved in high dynamic range photos. Find this feature in the Image > Adjustments menu.

ACR Gets an Engine Change

Even though it has only been a few short years, it seems like the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) plug-in has been with us forever. During its lifetime the raw editing and conversion utility has undergone some major changes, including the ground-breaking, non-destructive, local adjustments, tools of the last release. So the first time you run ACR 6 you may be left thinking that there are no big, game-changing features this time around. Well, you would be wrong! Drastically wrong!

Where are the changes?

It is true that at first glance the big song-and-dance changes seem few and far between. Okay we have the addition of a new FX tab which houses an add Grain type filter and revamped postcrop

The new noise removal system is all the more powerful when tied to the default image settings and in turn to specific cameras and ISO settings. This way of working automatically attributes a group of noise reduction settings to images based on their camera and capture ISO. (1) Noise Reduction settings. (2) Camera Raw Default. (3) Camera Raw Preferences.

crop vignetting controls, but apart from these features, what else has changed?

The answer is, the very way that Camera Raw functions has changed. The plug-in has received a complete revamp of its demosaicing algorithm. In layman’s terms, this means that the very engine used for converting the semi-processed data of a raw file into a format that we can preview, edit, and enhance has been completely rebuilt. This is the first time since 2003 that such core changes have been made to the way that ACR works.

The Noise Reduction system in ACR6 is a substantial improvement over the offering previous versions of the plug-in.

But wait there is more!

The new engine not only provides better processing (interpolation) of the raw file but also ties in with ACR’s new sharpening and noise removal systems. Yes, you read right! Adobe has opted to call their method for decreasing the appearance of digital noise in high ISO photos Noise Removal, not Noise Reduction. At fist, I was a little sceptical, thinking that this change in terminology was more marketing spin, than reality. Boy how wrong was I. A few passes of old low-light photos through ACR6 was enough to convince me of the power of this new system. Shots that were initially rejected because of the presence of ugly grain and the inability of any of my existing software tools to render the pics usable, have now been reworked with great results.

It’s your choice

The changes are so substantial that I am now in the process of reworking my catalog of raw files achieving better results than I thought possible. Now when you open a file that has been processed with a previous version of ACR an exclamation mark warning appears at the bottom right of the preview space. Clicking the icon switches the processing of the file to the 2010 algorithm. Don’t panic, you can always switch back (if you really want to) by selecting the 2003 entry in the Process menu under the Camera Calibration tab.

Photoshop turns painterly

In the hands of a master skilled in illustration techniques Photoshop’s Brush tool is capable of producing fantastically creative effects. And I think that most users would agree that the development in this area of the application over the last few revisions has been steady more than spectacular. The same can’t be said of CS5!

It is now possible to produce extraordinary painting effects with the inclusion of three new technologies – the Mixer Brush, Bristle Tips, and a new mechanism for sampling and blending colors. Even if you are not a naturally gifted artist, CS5 will redefine the way that you interact with your pixels. More natural and realistic painting effects make it easy to produce illustrations from photo originals and to create sketches and paintings from scratch.

Introducing the Mixer Brush

The Mixer Brush lets you define multiple colors on a single tip, and then blend them with the underlying hues on your canvas. This ability helps achieve lifelike control over the colors you use, and how those colors are blended. When starting with a photo original, a dry, empty brush can be used to blend the existing colors while, at the same time, adding a painterly effect to the image.

Color can be loaded into the reservoir well by selecting the color in the Foreground Color Swatch, or by loading a color from the canvas by holding down the Alt/Opt key while clicking the mouse button over the picture part to be sampled. The color in the pickup well is continuously loaded from the canvas as the brush moves over the image.

Starting with a photo original (left above) this example photo illustration was produced (right above) using the new Mixer Brush. The new brush tips feature a Bristle Brush Preview which displays a live 3D view of the brush tip in action. When used with a Wacom tablet the preview mimics the movements of the stylus in 3D space.

A key aspect of the new painting system is being able to quickly select the colors you paint with. To help with this process Adobe engineers created a new color picker HUD (Heads Up Display).

Right-click while pressing Shift+Option/Alt keys to display the HUD Color Picker.

There are two different styles of the HUD Color Picker–Hue Strip (above left) and Hue Wheel (above right). The new picker provides a quick way to select colors and alter their saturation and lightness. You can change display modes with the settings in the General pane of the Preferences dialog box.

Adjust the qualities of Bristle Tips using the controls in the Brush panel.

How the contents of these color wells interact is determined by the Wet, Load and Mix settings in the Mixer Brush options bar. The Wet setting controls the amount of paint picked up by the brush from the canvas, Load adjusts the amount of paint stored in the reservoir of the brush, and Mix determines the mixing rate between reservoir and pickup colors used for the stroke.

…and Bristle Tips

In conjunction with these new mixing features, Photoshop CS5 incorporates unprecedented control over stroke characteristics of its painting tools with Bristle Tips. The settings contained in the Bristle Qualities section of the Brush Presets panel enable you to define key bristle properties such as shape, length, stiffness, thickness, angle, and spacing, affecting how the color is laid on the image as you paint.

The Live Tip Preview provides a visual representation of these changes and, when used with a stylus, shows a 3D version of the brush in use. Options in the Brush panel Settings menu allow you to save the tip for future use, allowing you to build a customized collection of Bristle Tips to experiment with when creating photo illustrations.

 

 

The Mind-Bending Power of Puppet Warp

The Liquify Filter is one of those Photoshop features that you either love, and use a lot, or are pretty ambivalent about. There is no doubting the power of the feature in its ability to apply free-form transformations to photos, but it does have its limitations. Especially if you want to push and pull your pixels around in the main editing space rather than a dedicated dialog box.

Starting with a base image, and a text layer to act as a guide, a series of image parts were warped to fit the different letter shapes. The Puppet Warp tool provides the ability to manually distort a group of pixels to fit any shape.

The Puppet Warp feature in Photoshop CS5 gives you picture reshaping power right in the main workspace. The new feature allows the precise repositioning of any element within a Photoshop document by simply clicking and dragging. The feature works equally well with selections, layers, and whole photos (just as long as the content you are trying to transform is not a background layer).

The tool works by overlaying a mesh on your picture. You place a series of pins on the mesh and then click-drag any pin to deform the mesh, and in turn, the photo. The other pins anchor the rest of image but can be used at anytime to reshape the section of the image they are anchoring. Settings in the feature’s options bar provide controls for:

• the Density of the mesh,
• the deformation approach or Mode – Rigid, Normal, Distort,
• how the mesh fits with the picture element – Extension,
• Pin Depth, used for layering one meshed element over another, and
• a setting for how the element Rotates when warped.

Warping effects

As a rough guide I have found that I am able to get more precision when warping picture elements by using the Rigid mode, the More Points density setting, and the Fixed rotation option. If I am looking for more creative, some may say wacky results, then I choose the Distort mode, Normal mesh density and the Auto rotate setting.

 

Photoshop gets into the lens building business

Well not quite, but almost! When I apply the new Lens Correction features found in Photoshop CS5 to my photos it certainly feels like I shot the images with a new lens. Designed to provide a quick and accurate way of correcting three of the most common lens-based errors (geometric distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting), your processed images will take on a whole new lease of life when you pass them through the new Lens Correction dialog (Filter > Lens Correction).

The Lens Correction features in Photoshop CS5 automatically correct three typical lens based errors. Here the barrel distortion (1) is corrected removing the bent-line syndrome (2). The corrected image is then automatically scaled to fill the frame (3).

 

Lens- and camera-specific

Photoshop has had manual lens correction controls for several versions now, but the feature employed a hit and miss approach that produced good results, but took time and wasn’t accurate enough for many purists. Third-party camera and lens manufacturers too provide a range of correction options, of which the most notable is Nikon’s Capture NX2 software which offers rectilinear correction of fish-eye photos. But Photoshop CS5’s new Lens Correction system beats both these approaches hands-down. It provides not only the mechanism for correcting images but also a utility for characterizing your own camera and lens combinations. The system corrects bulging photos suffering from barrel distortion, removes bands of color that are often seen on the edge of contrasting objects and applies a graded exposure adjustment across the whole photo to fix lens-based vignetting.

 

DIY profile creation

Yes, you read correctly. You download the free Adobe Lens Profile Creator application from labs.adobe.com and, with the aid of the included instructions and test charts, you set about profiling your own camera setup. The resultant Lens Correction Profiles are then used by Photoshop to correct your images. Adobe has tried to build depth to the system as well. Lenses can be tested using different focal lengths, and focus distances, ensuring that a variety of shooting scenarios are covered for any given lens.

If you don’t have time to make your own profiles, the utility ships with some profiles pre-installed, plus a special Search Online button, that looks in Adobe’s database for a suitable profile and then automatically fetches and installs the profile in the dialog.

With the aid of the Adobe Lens Profile Creator (pictured above) which is available free from labs.adobe.com, you can produce custom profiles characterising the optical aberrations of your camera lenses. When installed and selected in the Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5, the resulting profile automatically removes or corrects the three types of distortion.

For some lenses the changes are dramatic. Others less so. The utility works with all manner of glass including fish-eyes and extreme telephoto lenses.

Repoussé – Photoshop’s Fast Track to 3D Modelling

In the last few years there has been a growing interest and involvement of photographers in the world of 3D imaging. You don’t have to look too far before seeing some great examples of what is possible when you mix 2D photos with 3D models to create a convincing composite. I firmly believe that this is an area that will become more and more important for the commercial and editorial photographers as client’s commission sales images of virtual products, but for the average image maker, it is pretty difficult to know where to start.

The Extended version of Photoshop has always had a few 3D bells and whistles and for those image makers who have experience with full-blown 3D modelling programs, the tools and features, and how to use them, were pretty self evident. But for the rest of us mere mortals, the workflow, language, range of settings and even the way that you interact with the model all seems pretty alien. Well, the changes in Photoshop CS5 go a long way to address these concerns.

Repoussé for creating and editing 3D models

In this release, Adobe has included a new feature called Repoussé, to help ease us all into the world of creating and working with 3D models. The name comes from a French term for a process where parts of an illustration on a sheet of metal were beaten to add depth and form a low relief sculpture. The feature performs a similar function in Photoshop allowing you to easily turn a two dimensional artwork into three dimensional object. It creates a sense of depth by extruding the artwork to form a 3D model.

Fast track the creation of new 3D objects with the settings in the Create New 3D Object section of the 3D panel.

Simple Creation Steps

The process for this is simple. Start by making a selection or choosing a text or layer mask from the Layers panel. Next,convert the content to three dimensions by selecting the entry that matches your content type from the 3D panel. After the conversion is complete, the Repoussé dialog box will be displayed. Here you can alter the look of your 3D model by manipulating five of its key extrusion properties: depth, scale, bend, shear or twist.

In addition to these controls, you can also inflate the cap of the extrusion and apply a custom bevel to the front or back of your model. The Scene controls include tools for positioning your 3D model and for setting the mesh quality, view and render settings presets. And the toolbar on the left of the dialog box provide direct control over the mesh/model.

The Repoussé dialog box groups together the key controls for adjusting the look of your 3D object. The Shape Presets provide a fast way to get a specific look to your extrusion. Once applied these default settings can be fine-tuned to suit the specific design.

The surface qualities of the model can be easily changed by altering the Materials settings. Select from the materials that ship with CS5 or even make your own. Here the same model is rendered with the following ray-traced materials: (1) Brushed Metal, (2) Chrome, (3) Frosted Glass and (4) Glossy Plastic. These materials ship with CS5 Extended but must be loaded separately into the Materials Selector.

With the ever-increasing power of Photoshop Extended in the area of 3D manipulation I believe that tasks such as combining 2D photos and 3D models will be undertaken more and more by photographers and not be relegated to CGI experts. In this simple example you can see how plausible such a scenario is.

 

 

Photoshop 3D continues to grow

Along with the Repoussé feature, Adobe has been busy revamping and increasing the power of the 3D features in the Extended version of Photoshop. It is true that the ability to play with 3D models in a Photoshop document has been around for a couple of versions now, but in CS5 it feels like Adobe is getting a better idea of where they want to be positioned in the world of 3D.

Use the Light Rotate tool to interactively position lights around your model so that you can quickly preview changes in texture, highlights and shadows.

A modeller’s best friend

Don’t expect Photoshop CS5 Extended to be a replacement for your favorite 3D modelling tool. This is not its role. Instead, think of Photoshop more as a best friend to your modelling program. You can’t create complex 3D models in Photoshop but you can certainly create complex compositions that include complex models.

Thankfully, this sophistication doesn’t come at the cost of increasing complexity. On the contrary, Adobe is working hard to try to make sure that the interface is as simple as possible, and, even more important, easy to use. Now simple and easy are relative terms, and when you first look at the 3D feature you may think that I wasn’t paying attention when I wrote those lines, but in 3D terms, the Photoshop approach is pretty simple. Believe me!

Images can also be used as light sources to illuminate 3D models, making it easier to add realistic scene-based reflections to your images.

What’s new in CS5 Ext.?

Changes for Photoshop CS5 Extended include new overlay controls which provide instant feedback about where specific materials and meshes are located in your model and the updated 3D axis widget works more intuitively with lights, cameras and objects.

Also included is a new one-click Shadow Catcher feature that lets you easily generate a shadow on the ground plane of the scene, and then adjust how the shadow interacts with image content of other layers by altering its opacity and its softness. This will be a photographer’s favorite for sure.

To further enhance realism you can create a light source from a photo making it possible to use any picture, Photomerge panorama, or even a 32 bit HDR image to light your model. It is also possible to recreate traditional depth of field effects in your rendered scene where you control the zone of sharpness with the new Distance and Blur controls in the Camera Zoom tool.

Change the look of the model by selecting new materials from the entries listed in the Materials Preset Browser.

You can quickly change the look of your model using the range of materials such as chrome, glass, grass, and cork that ship with Photoshop CS5 Extended. You can select materials from the included presets, create your own, or even edit existing materials to customize them for your needs. Options in the 3D panel allow you to apply a single material to all surfaces as well as the ability to choose different treatments for individual sections and surfaces of your models.

The Material Selection tool can be used to select individual materials directly on the canvas and the Material Pick and Drop tools work like the traditional Eyedropper and Paint Bucket tools, allowing you to sample and apply materials interactively.

Dozens of customer-inspired improvements

Photoshop users have never been backward in offering an opinion about how best to improve their favorite imaging product. The very popular Beta programs for both Photoshop and Lightroom demonstrate just how vocal the ‘faithful’ can be when given the chance. And Adobe, to their credit, take on board as many of their comments and ideas as possible and use them to continuously improve their products. But with Photoshop CS5, the engineering team went one step further, taking a couple of weeks of the normal production cycle to work on refining existing tools and features. The result is dozens of small changes that may at first go unnoticed, but will in the end, help to boost productivity and creativity throughout the whole of your editing workflow.

Some of these user inspired changes include:

A new convert to Black and White action (needs to be loaded from the goodies folder on the install DVD) that uses the LAB mode to help preserve detail during the conversion mode and the Hue/Saturation control to tint the final result.

An option for reversing the clone source using the flip buttons in the Clone Source panel.

A neutral-density preset for the Gradient tool to facilitate darkening of skies and bright foreground details.

The ability to move a selection while the active layer is hidden

The ability to save 16-bit Photoshop documents in 8-bit JPEG format in a single step without the need to change bit-depth first.

A new layer command for deleting all empty layers located in the File > Scripts menu.

A Straighten button on the Ruler tool options bar...at last!!

A Close All Open Images Without Saving option accessed by first selecting the File > Close option and then Apply To All before clicking the No button.

New Paste Outside and Paste Into commands, along with the previously existing Paste In Place option, are included in a new Edit > Paste Special menu.

Layer groups can be nested more than five levels deep.

An overlay grid, with an option for two different grid layouts, can be displayed when using the Crop tool.

Customized print settings can be recorded as part of an Action providing an automated way to print with different settings.

Printer-specific profiles are selected automatically when choosing a printer reducing searching for the right profile.

Selecting a printer automatically lists the profiles installed for that printer at the top of the profile list.

Print settings saved with the image file, allowing one-button printing with userselected values

Pick and mix colors faster using the new on-screen color HUD displayed by rightclicking while pressing shift and Alt/Opt.

The ability to create a selection from the transparent areas of a layer with the rightclick menu options of the layer thumbnail.

An option for changing the opacity of multiple selected layers with one action.

New 3D shapes added to the list of meshes that can be created from a layer.

New creative resources, including actions, tools, presets, brushes, swatches, shapes, gradients, styles and tool presets.

Default value for Shadows/Highlights changed from 50% to 35% which represents a more realistic starting setting.

Multiple improvements in Lens Correction filter options, including:

• Move to the Filter menu from the Filter > Distort menu.
• Grid Display is off by default
• Show Grid, Grid Size and Grid Color settings are now sticky
• Default grid size is increased from 16 to 64 pixels
• Decimal point adjustments are allowed as values for the Chromatic Aberration sliders
• A third Chromatic Aberration slider enables the correction of green/magenta fringing
• The Background Color Edge setting is replaced with the Black Color entry
• A White Color option is available in the Edge menu
• Reset options are changed so that only the calibration settings are reset, not the Grid options

A Save As option for always defaulting to the folder to which you last saved an image.

The ability to drag and drop a file onto an open Photoshop document to create a new layer.

Zoom in and out with the new scrubby zoom tool activated via a setting in the Zoom tool’s options bar.

The ability to use keystrokes to set values in the Adjustments panel text fields.

A new Cache Tile Size control in the Performance section of the Preferences dialog box.

Sample colors faster using the new onscreen color ring built into the eyedropper tool.

Customizable default values for Layer styles.