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So what’s the buzzzz with the new Adobe Photoshop CS5?!

Katrin Eismann, chair of the MPS in Digital Photography at SVA, spilled the beens and gave us a demonstration of some of the new features in CS5!

List of new features:

- Adobe Photoshop CS5 is now 64 bits.

Photoshop CS5 64 bits now has the capacity to use more than 4 GB of Ram. This is due to the high memory consuming features included in the new CS5.

- The Raw processor has been completely reworked = sharper images.

In the older processor an amount of blurring to the image was added to dissimulate other artifacts that appeared in the photos. This new processor is so powerful that it simply eliminates the need for this extra blur, resulting in sharper images.

- Mini Bridge panel.

A new panel window where you can see the thumbnails of the images in Bridge. It is like a shortcut to Bridge.

- Better noise reduction.

In order to eliminate the need to buy third parties noise reduction software, the engineers at Photoshop reworked the noise reduction features and drastically improved it.

- Add grain feature.

You can add grain directly using Camera Raw, to give a film like grain effect to the photo.

- Vignettes are reworked.

Traditionally the vignettes simply darkened the edges by adding gray, which killed the highlights and resulted in a mushy look. Now the vignette feature darkens the edges with a more realistic way of how light actually works. I think the difference is highly noticeable.

- New HDR processor.

Creating an HDR image in Photoshop was very time-consuming and a tedious process, while in Photomatix the process was made so simple and user-friendly! In the new CS5 creating an HDR image could not be easier! You simply have to select the source images to create the HDR from Bridge, or mini bridge, go to tools > Photoshop > merge to HDR, and the images open in Camera Raw, where you can directly adjust and tweak the image as you want. It offers diverse sliders and a curve to give the user a high level of control over the image. This is a very cool new feature.

The very cool feature about the new HDR is a “Remove Ghost” button, which eliminates the elements that move between frames, such as water, leaves, clouds, etc, you can actually select which photo to use as source image for this removal.

- An HDR look for non-HDR images.

You can now add an HDR look for photos which are single jpegs.

- New brush engine.

For personally, one of the coolest new features. With the new Mixer Brush, you can actually create a custom brush for your specific needs. You can adjust the amount of bristles a brush has, the shape of the brush, how it interact with the layer, even if you want a dry or wet brush!

You can adjust the brush so it affects the pixels of the image, and mix colors between a pigment you select and the actual image. Lets suppose you have a photo of a blue sky, and you paint with a yellow brush on it, you actually create green! It works as a painters canvas. You can use a transparent bush as well to mix the already existing colors.

A preview of the brush you are creating appears while you are adjusting it. It is sensible to the tilt and brush pressure of the Wacom tablet.

For more info of the new brush engine click here.

- Sharpen tool brush improved.

It is a more acceptable version of the sharpen tool brush, now it is actually usable.

- New puppet warp.

This is a new feature for Photoshop, imported from After Effects. This tool works as the transform warp, but instead of having only 9 points to pull and modify from, you have practically infinite of pin areas to manipulate the image, its like having a sheet of rubber. This means you can actually change the pose of a person in a photo by pulling and stretching points.

For more info on the puppet warp feature click here.

- Refine edge window.

The refine edge tool is more advanced and gives the user more control over the selection and mask. It works as a smart edge and is said that it can make the difference between a soft and a hard edge. You can paint with a brush the area you want it to analyze, and it will create a selection based on the edges. It is also said that has a learning curve where it learns what the user wants by analyzing his decisions stroke after stroke.

This will be especially useful when masking hair out of a background for example.

- Layer style “Default” option.

You can change and customize the default option in the layer styles dialog box.

- Eliminate the “copy” word when copying a layer.

You have the option to eliminate the “copy” word when you create a copy of a layer.

- Straighten image.

It automatically straightens and crops the image when you use the measuring tool and click on the “straight” button.

- Content aware fill option.

The software can create new information (new pixels) in a selected area by clicking shift+delete, and then selecting the content aware option. For example, if you have some branches in the sky which you want to eliminate, you can select the branches, and fill it with the content aware option, it will eliminate the branches by analyzing the surrounding pixels, creating new clouds if there were clouds, or simply blue sky.

This is also very useful when creating a panoramic in Photoshop and a strange shape appears, where you would have to either crop it, or stretch it to achieve a rectangular shape. Now you have the option to add sky, or grass, or whatever element you need to make the image have a rectangular format.

For more info on content aware feature click here.

For in depth CS5 info click here … and also here.

This finalizes the ling list of new features in Adobe Photoshop CS5. Thanks to Katrin Eismann for the demonstration.

The only question that remains is how will this new technology influence todays artist’s visions? What impact will it have on the way we perceive images? What does this represent for professional and amateur photographers? This is another blog post…