Photography News

Photoshop is the standard from which all other image editing programs are measured. You’d wonder how improvements can be continually made to such a substantial program as this but Adobe always seem to find ways.

Some criticism has been made to the lack of new and improved features with some previous versions of Photoshop CS. However this version seems to justify itself with the amount of improvements and new features added.

Here are some of the new and improved features.

• Adobe Camera Raw 6 – ACR enables the ability to edit RAW images in its own workspace. ACR 6 is the latest version available with CS5. With this new version there is a variety of film-like effects, post-crop vignetting, noise removal with better control and higher quality sharpening.

• Refine Edge Tool – The new Refine Edge feature makes the job of creating complex selections with both hard and soft edges so much easier and more accurate. This is very apparent when attempting a selection around hair. A rough selection can be made, activate Refine Edge and brush around the intricate border of hair and this becomes a perfect instant result.

• Content-Aware Fill and Heal – In CS5 you can make a simple selection around an object and fill it via the new content-Aware option. which gives completely seamless results. You can also use CA technology with the spot healing brush painting out imperfections in a single stroke. Content-Aware makes healing simple and easy

• HDR Toning – This enables the creation of HDR images without taking bracketed exposures. The tool enables the creation of faux HDR image from one image. Even with this, all the HDR tools can be used including a Toning Curve.

• Lens Correction – A great tool for correcting lens distortion, particularly handy when correcting images taken with a compact camera. This has now been further enhanced with auto presets to make correcting lens distortion easier. It still has the capability of manually adjusting the image.

There are many more additions and tweaks to this program as compared with previous versions. Unlike some previous versions, CS5 is a worthy upgrade, particularly if you have CS3 or below. The increased speed of the program is also a welcome addition. Adobe was never accused of selling their Photoshop programs cheap but if you need the power this program provides, then it is reasonable value for money.