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Adobe Photoshop celebrates its 20th anniversary this year with an estimated 10 million users worldwide, exceeding the dreams of its founders who hoped it would sell 500 copies a month when it was first released. Now in its 12th iteration, Adobe Photoshop CS5 remains the go-to image editing application for photographers, graphic designers, and other creatives. The Photoshop Extended, in addition to 3D, offers special options for professionals such as architects, engineers and doctors.
The latest version of Photoshop offers a huge number of updates and new features—large and small—so I’m going to concentrate on the standard version of Photoshop CS5 and its photo-centric features. Two factors that may affect whether or not you use Photoshop are cost and a misperception that this program is only for professionals. There’s nothing we can do about Photoshop’s price (although Adobe offers more affordable pricing for students and teachers) but be assured that, despite a learning curve, Photoshop has a broad user base that includes photographers who want to be able to use the best tool available for post-processing images, regardless of their experience level.
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The list of new and improved features is long and impressive. In addition to major updates, Adobe included more than two dozen of user inspired enhancements that individually, and collectively, improve workflow. Here’s a list of some of Photoshop CS5’s key features, including more than a few of my personal favorites.
Major Updates:
Intelligent Selection Technology
Content-Aware Fill
HDR (High Dynamic Range) Pro
Adobe Camera Raw 6.1
Automated Lens Correction & Lens Profile Creator
Painting Effects and Brushes
Puppet Warp
Enhanced black and white conversion
Mini Bridge
Cross-platform 64 bit support
User-Inspired Updates:
New layer command for deleting all empty layers via scripts
Straighten button on the Ruler tool options bar
Close All Open Images Without Saving option
Save As option for always defaulting to the folder to which you last saved an image.
Zoom in and out with the new scrubby zoom tool
Faster color sampling via the new on-screen color ring
Option to change the opacity of multiple selected layers
Print settings saved with the image file for one-button printing
Photoshop CS5 in action
To test Adobe Photoshop CS5 I used an older (i.e., a couple of years old) MacBook Pro 3.1 Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4GHz machine with 2GB of RAM. With a recent installation of Snow Leopard, the laptop is running on Mac OS X version 10.6.3. Although Adobe has increased the speed of Photoshop CS5, I didn’t notice a huge increase on my machine but it did run faster than CS4. Whether or not you’ll notice improved performance depends on your computer configuration, of course.
A Closer Look at the New and Enhanced Features
Meanwhile, here’s a closer look at several of Photoshop CS5’s top new and enhanced features.
Intelligent Selection Technology
Creating accurate selections is time-consuming and often frustrating. With Photoshop CS5’s new intelligent selection technology, the process has been simplified and streamlined to a large extent. The caveat is that if you’ve struggled with fine-detailed selections before, the new refinement tools and technology won’t automatically make you an expert. But if you have a good understanding of the selection and masking process and decent technical skills, then you’ll be able to take better advantage of the accuracy and efficiency this feature offers.
Some of the controls in the Refine Edge dialogue box such as Radius, Contrast, Smooth and Feather will be familiar to CS4 users. But Photoshop CS5 is much more advanced thanks to new, smarter technology and additional refinement tools that, combined, that make the process easier and more accurate. For example, the Smart Radius option takes into account the different widths of refinement borders necessary when working with softer edges like people’s hair and hard, higher contrast edges such as a person’s limbs and clothing. A new decontamination feature helps reduce background color that might break through around the selection edges. Although it still takes some skill and practice to make the most of this feature, once you understand what these powerful tools can do, you’ll really appreciate how well this feature works.
Content-Aware Fill
One of the most talked about features in Photoshop CS5 is content-aware fill and there’s a good reason for all the chatter. While not quite as “magical” as some imply, content-aware fill is as close to magic as you’ll find in CS5—or probably any other software.
Using one of a few different options, you can eliminate specific elements (objects, people, etc.) from an image and automatically—and seamlessly—fill in the blank space(s) with the same details as the surrounding areas. For objects line power lines and other similar objects, the Spot Healing Brush tool works best to “paint out” the target object. Larger elements are best removed by making a rough selection and then using content-aware fill. (See tutorials below.)
While the new intelligent selection technology works on most images, successful use of content-aware fill is much more dependent on the photograph’s composition and, most importantly, the content surrounding the person or thing you want to remove. For example, when trying to remove a model from a runway shot, the content-aware fill did a good job on the runway itself duplicated some of the people in the audience. A turtle surrounded by various twigs and sticks was ideal for content-aware fill since the area was more abstract and the twigs and sticks could be used to replace the turtle without noticing the repetitive fill. Adobe’s example of a man standing against a brick wall also worked well.
Used with the appropriate images, content-aware fill is amazing. Fortunately, it’s so quick and easy to use that you don’t have to invest more than a minute or two to see if it works on a specific image. Content-aware fill is definitely one of the star features of Photoshop CS5.
HDR (High Dynamic Range) Pro
I have to confess that I’m not a huge fan of the HDR craze that has produced more extreme photos than any technique I’ve seen in years. High dynamic range—expanding or retaining details in highlights and shadows for a full tonal range—can be achieved by sandwiching two or more bracketed images (with different exposures). Although not a new concept for Photoshop, Adobe has added more controls and new algorithms in CS5 giving users more sophisticated options to create HDR images—from photo realistic to super-surrealistic. Presets are included for a range of styles but you can also create your own “looks” and save them as presets for later use.
One of the really useful additions to HDR Pro is the deghosting of images. Even when using a tripod, images are not always exactly the same—a breeze might move a tree’s leaves just slightly or the slap of the mirror when the shutter is triggered might cause a slight misalignment. HDR Pro automatically corrects for the ghosting or a master image can be selected against which the software will align the others. It does a pretty good job but you still need to be as accurate as possible when shooting; Photoshop CS5’s deghosting feature is not a miracle worker but it’s pretty accurate and effective.
If you want the HDR look or need to expand a single image’s dynamic range but don’t have multiple image files of the same shot, Photoshop CS5’s HDR Pro also offers an option that mimics tone-mapping. You’ll get better results by stacking multiple images, but this faux-HDR feature does a respectable job on its own.
Theano Nikitas, a full-time freelance writer and photographer, has been writing about photography for the past 15 years. Her digital imaging reviews, features, “how to” articles and images have appeared in a wide variety of publications and on Websites including American Photo, CNET.com, DigitalCameraReview.com, Digital Photographer, First Glimpse, Imaging-Resource.com, macHOME, PCPhoto, PC How to Digital Photography Buyer’s Guide, Photo District News, PopPhoto.com, and Popular Science. Although she loves digital, Theano still has a darkroom and a fridge filled with film thanks to her long-time passion for alternative processes and toy cameras. More »
The included links are for the Extended Edition. I could find no reason for me to spend the extra money on this edition. The regular edition does all I need it to.
I'm currently a week or so into the trial version of Photoshop CS5. I must admit I'm impressed with the new features in CS5. (I'm a current user of CS3.)
My favorite new feature set is the "blend" paint brush tools which facilitate making photos look like paintings. (My first attempt with ~20 minutes of work.)
When using Bridge one can't enlarge the size of the folders or the printing under the folders. Makes it difficult for some of us to read at all and we have to open the folder to see what images are in it.
Also, CS5 will not open images from Kodak Photo CD's. You have to buy another program or use an older program if you want to view images from them. How long before they stop RAW support as well?
