Photoshop CS6: The best just got better
Creative minds and fine artists please give a warm welcome to the all new Photoshop CS6 as what it has to offer might be of your interest.
Few days ago, adobe has finally revealed the beta version of the long-waited for, 2 years to be precise, Photoshop CS6 and from the first look its fantastic. This free beta, offers content-aware patching, new design tools and a whole new interface and that, is just the beginning. I am sure by now you are eager to know what has changed therefore do read on.
Thanks to the newly updated features, the new graphic engine and the new beautifully crafted interface, this software aims primarily at saving time for professionals on the day to day work style. This time, adobe added 65 user-feedback-inspired features including, a new crop tool, expanded video editing options and the ability to search for specific layers. The dotted lines in the Illustrator, now gets the same vector tools in Photoshop. Moreover, every slider for the Camera Raw 7.0 plug-in (exposure, contrast, etc.) has a freshly tweaked algorithm.
Existing features
The already existing features have got their share of modification as well. The liquefy tool, now has larger maximum brush size, it also work in real time meaning whatever effect you apply will be shown in real time. Adobe’s also added two features to complement Content-Aware Fill, which was first introduced with CS5. These include one for moving objects to different part of the image, and one for patching up a spot with content taken from another part of the picture.
Faster Performance
Click for enlarged previewAdobe has given a boost to CS6, including the bridge which was rewritten for the 64-bit processors, by using Mercury Graphics Engine. What Mercury Graphics Engine does is, use your system’s graphic hardware as to increase the speed of image processing. Such trick was only used with the video processing feature, however, this time, adobe brings it to image processing as well hence saving you time and patience! Projects can now be saved automatically in the background, every 10 minutes by default much like Microsoft word, while you concentrate on other more important tasks. Adobe claims that the program can perform some of the operations a 1000 times faster, though I am not really sure about that as sometimes such as the new content-aware move and patch tools take some time to save.
Brand new Camera Raw feature
As with adobe Lightroom 4, adobe have introduced a similar feature for the Photoshop CS6 which is the all new Camera Raw. This feature is designed primarily to aid photographers specially with editing large quantities of pictures. The sliders have been changed both in name and operation, for instance, the sliders adjustments for brightness, contrast and black are now set as a baseline of 0 instead of the previous defaults which were usually +50 for photo brightness slider and Contrast would indicate +25, and Blacks +5 right after importing. But with the new setup, everything is set to a baseline of zero allowing you to slide it up to 100 and down to -100.
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Another thrilling addition, would be the fact that the lens correction is now able to remove some chromatic aberration, along with vignetting and geometric distortion. This novel sub-app is now capable of supporting over 400 lens profiles, with all the brands you could think of.
Auto correction is now content aware as well. The auto setting option could be used on a hundred different images and in return you can get different rather unique adjustment combinations.
Another, nifty tool would be the Adaptive Wide Angle. This clever option allows you to correct photos distorted by a wide angle lens in an adaptive manner. All what needs to be done is entering the focal length of the lens and voila, the magic happens and image would be corrected, but you could also draw lines on what should be straighten in the image. This feature is highly useful as non-adaptive correction only works with photos that are shot without any bending or curves, straight on shot to be more precise.
Video
The video editing feature used to be available only on the extended version of Photoshop, but not this time! Adobe was kind enough to introduce the video feature even on the standard edition. This option offers a lot of impressive options for video editing, whats more is that it gives you the ability to apply still image adjustments to video clips, from exposure to filters and it goes on. Even though only a few transitions options are available, Photoshop CS6 is capable of multitrack and keyframing, using the same extremely fast rendering engine that powers Adobe’s Premiere pro video editor. Any video track that is added becomes a layer that could be adjusted separately.
Click for enlarged previewAll the standard digital, video-editing tools are available, i.e joining splitting and trimming clips. The audio is not much of a treat, it is pretty basic really, you can set an audio track, fade in, fade out or mute it all together but honestly I was looking forward for more options to be available for video editing yet again Photoshop is about images, after all its called Photoshop for a reason! The files are saved in PSD formats but by exporting and rendering the video, you can create a video file with H.264, quickTime or even DPX encoding. The resolution available is quite decent you can choose between 720p or 1080p High Definition.
3 Dimensional
Click for enlarged previewThis feature, or option, is only available with the extended version. Adobe introduced new features in the 3D content including, faster performance, new alignment and object distribution tools, drag-able shadows and reflections. This feature, however, is available with the free to download Beta so you could toy with them for a while. What I found most impressive about this magnificent freshly baked application, is the ability to extrude your visual objects into 3D forms and choose a lighting source from any direction in 3D space! Cool! Isn’t it?!
New Text Tool
Adobe paid more attention towards text editing, for instance, CS6 comes with text and paragraph formatting capabilities. Also, it added a new (Type) menu choice and typography workspace option. What’s more, CS6 offers the capability to blend alphabets in the same document, for example English with Japanese or Hebrew, maybe Russian or even Arabic!
Layers and JDIs
The JDI-“Just Do It” feature is responsible for all the small features that does not require a massive amount of development time or effort but does make a significant effect on the images you are working on. The CS6 comes packed with no fewer than layer involved 65 JDIs. Some of the JDIs include a new menu option which allows you to delete a layer effect rather than disabling it, dither options to Layer Styles for Gradient Overlay and Gradient Stroke, and bicubic sharper & bicubic smoother options when free transforming layers.
Drawing
Artists, illustrators, and typographers, also get their share of new a la mode tools. The first change that artists will love is the most-requested feature, the dotted and dashed lines. CS6 offers these lines with lots of control; they can be simply added from the Stroke Option box with any object selected. Everything now could be customized when using this feature. For instance, you can change the length, thickness and color of both the dashes and even fill the dashes or the dots using the gradient.
Shapes now offer more flexibility as Photoshop lets you copy shape attributes, such as the fill pattern, and paste them to multiple objects. Additionally, you can now add new shapes without the need of creating more layers. More control over the vector is now offered along with raster shape manipulation, such as alignment.
Content Aware Move
One of the most fabulous new tools the Adobe has introduced with the all new Photoshop CS6 is the Content-Aware Move. What’s magnificent about this tool is the fact that while preserving the background, this tool allows you to select an object and move it in. Additionally, it lets you place multiple instances of an object onto a background. Worth mentioning, that this tool works best with consistent background textures like grass, sand, or sky.
The Content Aware Move offers another cool feature, the Blur Gallery which lets you apply hot effects like selective focus and “tilt-shift” , which gives images a miniature look. It also offers excellent control over what’s in focus in the image, often a face.
Click for enlarged previewThe Features menu has been slimmed down to eight filter group instead of the 13 groups. One cool new filter that gets its own place on the Filter menu is Adaptive Wide Angle. This new tool lets you draw lines on distorted wide angle shots to correct their geometry. It can also simply apply a focal length correction.
Photo applications, now come with basic geometry correction, such as ACDsee Pro, allowing you to correct things like the pincushion and barrel effects that result from extreme wide angle shots. As if that is not enough, Adobe takes this sort of correction to a whole new level with the Adaptive Wide Angel tool. This tool can come in really handy as, most of the time, when we are taking wide angle shots we do not usually pint directly at the object we are taking its photo. Photoshop CS6 lets you correct the fish-eye correction further, by drawing lines on the image to indicate what should be a straight line.
Click for enlarged previewTo sum up, here is a list of what the all new Photoshop CS6 has to offer:
New Features
Layers
- Add a contextual menu item that deletes a layer effect not just disables it
- Add dither options to Layer Styles for Gradient Overlay and Gradient Stroke
- Allow 00 or Shift 00 to work when setting layer/fill opacity (previously no way to get 0%)
- Add bicubic sharper & bicubic smoother options when free transforming layers
- Allow changing of blend modes for multiple layers at once
- Allow locking of multiple layers
- CMD+J to duplicate layers and layer group
- Allow changing color labels to multiple layers at once.
- Read common stereo image pair formats (JPS, PNS) Allow for more bit depths in TIFF files
- Read BIGTIFF format
- Give the user choices regarding how they want transparency treated in OpenEXR on file open
- Policed throughout app
- Use consistent grammar style in the title of dialog windows (no commands such as “Choose a color:”)
- HUD brush resize and hardness can now change opacity
- Increase brush size to 5000px
- Change color dynamics to per stroke instead of per tip (user option for old behavior)
- Brightness/contrast slider for textures when painting
- Brush projection for static tips
- Brush cursor reflects brush dynamics for round and captured tips
- Show the sample size popup for the various eyedropper tools (black point, white point,etc.)
- Add ignore adjustment layers options bar item for the eyedropper
- New mode for eyedropper to select layers current and below
- Layer tooltips to include layer name (if defined)
- Opt+click on toggle arrows (groups and effects) in layer panel should close all targets
- Show blend if/Blending Effects badge on layer
- Show correct opacity and blend mode values for hidden layers
- Tab goes to next layer on inline layer rename, SHIFT + TAB goes to previous
- New command to raster layer effect into layer, merging the selected layers into themselves
- Reorder effects in the layers palette to match the Z-order style/blend mode (bottom most effects in termsof blending order, drop shadow is below the other effects
- Add new document presets for common devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, etc.)
- Add new Gradient Map presets for toning and splittoning
- Sticky reorganization of tool presets (changes persist after re-launch) Add Contact Sheet II as an Automation option
- Resize Liquify brush with shortcuts
- Increase maximum Liquify brush size Add option to load last mesh
- Improve dragging of vector curves
- Don’t hide smart object icon when transforming a layer
- Rotate 90 with even x odd pixel dimension to be smooth (bjango.com)
- Undo or disable auto-rotate on open
- Remove the app bar and reduce the drag/app bar over 30%
- [Windows] New/open document to context click on a document tab (has always been on Mac, now Windows too)
- Add “Don’t show again” checkbox to Purge warnings
- Add the ability to return an array of guides in a document from the scripting SDK
- Add ability to access tool name associated with the tool preset name via scripting
Selections - Make the marquee, lasso, and mask panel feather values support decimal places like the feather dialog
- Remember feather radius when showing dialog for selection from a path
- Enable Split Channels for documents with layers
- Select Hex field by default and allow clipboard pastes with # in contents (i.e. #fffffff)
- Increased GPU stability by prequalifying GPUs on the fly before use
- Auto-select the best resample method based on the type of resize
- Enable Invert and Threshold adjustments for masks in 32-bit
- Hold SHIFT during startup to disable 3rd party plugins
- Add warning message that 16-bit images cannot display their file size in the Save as JPEG dialog
- Add command to insert “lorem ipsum” for type
File formats
Grammar
Brushes
Eyedropper
Presets
Liquify
Click for enlarged previewTransform
UI
SDK
Miscellaneous
Conclusion
This article my seem really long yet, I do not feel I was able to cover all the new awesome, cool additions that adobe introduced in Photoshop CS6.
Just when we thought that Photoshop could not get any better, Adobe introduced the CS6 which now gives artists more abilities, freedom and flexibility to craft eye-candy graphics or images that would take art to a whole new level.not only did Adobe introduce new features, they also improved the existing ones as to save up your time and unleash your creativity. The final release is expected in the first half of 2012 so not much left to wait for the long waited arrival of the Photoshop CS6. As always, Photoshop is not a cheap investment at $699 for the standard edition and $999 for the extended edition.