Despite lacking the aesthetic sensibility of its cousin Lightroom 3 Windows Mac , the overall layout of Photoshop remains consistent. It's not easy to use, nor is it hard to get used to the modular layout of adjustable panels.
Further optional improvements can be made courtesy Adobe Labs' Configurator , for customizing some parts of the navigation. Although the CS4 interface improvements were appreciated, the UI is essentially mundane and in desperate need of refinement. It's sadly ironic that the premiere image editor looks like a cockpit.
Features and support The new features in Photoshop CS5 completely sell the program. It's a bit hard to fathom that a program that's been around for 20 years continues to innovate and improve as much as Photoshop has, but this version of Photoshop, officially v12, doesn't just stretch itself here.
It expands the limits of editing achievement, simplifying previously complex tasks and introducing new ones. It's not reinventing the wrench as much as it's making it do new things that everybody can immediately understand.
This review won't cover all the new features and enhancements since there are more than three dozen feature changes alone, but we'll look at some of the best and most important. The new Mini Bridge should directly affect every user's workflow. It opens a functional version of Adobe Bridge in a panel, speeding up processing by cutting down how often users have to jump out of the main Photoshop interface. Mini Bridge can be launched from the top of the interface to the right of the menubar, from the MB icon.
As with any of Photoshop's panels, the Mini Bridge can be resized and moved around the window as needed. On first launch, the Mini Bridge took longer than expected to read files before it could be used. After that initial sluggishness, it loaded smoothly, even after rebooting the computer. It was noticeably faster to launch images from either Bridge or Mini Bridge into Photoshop compared with the previous version, but sticking Bridge access directly into Photoshop is a long-overdue innovation.
Automatic Lens Correction automates a task that previously could be completed by hand only. As CNET has noted elsewhere , Adobe based the tool on close measurements of multiple camera bodies and lenses so that Photoshop can take over the time-consuming effort of removing barrel and pincushion distortion, darkened corners from vignetting, and colored fringe on the edge of images from chromatic aberration.
You can tell that Adobe expects this feature to be a big selling point because it's one of the few new features that comes bound to a hot key. You can toggle on or off vignetting, chromatic aberration, and lens distortion correction, which are the three major fixes that the filter looks for; adjust how the filter affects the edge of the image; edit camera and lens profile search criteria; or create custom profiles. The camera profiles seemed to be limited in our testing to more-recent models.
For example, the tool lacked profiles for Canon bodies older than the 50D. A new feature in the Merge to HDR panel called Remove Ghost will tidy up any minor alignment issues between your three HDR source images, and you can select which of the three images to base the final image on. This works fairly decently, but expect best results on images that have tricky lighting situations or are underexposed.
Content Aware Fill improves Photoshop's ability to intelligently replace part of an image with pixels derived from other, nearby colors, noise, and tone. The feature can be used as part of the spot healing brush tool for fine replacements, or lassoed selections to replace large or unusually shaped chunks from an image. The feature introduces a redone method of resampling from the image. The differences between how the tool performs here versus in CS4 are not readily apparent since the changes in pixelation and accuracy depend too greatly on the situation.
Tests with the spot healing brush revealed no differences to its CS4 predecessor, but that doesn't mean its not working. In general, it felt like there was less of a problem with incorrect sampling, but this wasn't really quantifiable, as it still occurred in some cases. One of the most difficult Photoshop tricks has just gotten strikingly easier thanks to what Adobe calls " intelligent selection. It worked extremely well with hair, and slightly less so with the more discernible echidna spikes.
It sounds simple, but the introduction of the Smart Radius and Decontaminate colors functions in intelligent selection provides a stunning breadth of control during image masking. Following the tutorials for this is essential, because learning to do it right can impressively enhance your image control while cutting down on your workflow from CS4. Puppet Warp sounds like it could be a filter to Muppetize people in your photo. It's actually a localized warping tool that gives you the ability to accurately recompose selected aspects of an image, such as changing a straight leg to bent.
It can't add content where it hasn't existed, so it works best when used on a subject shot in profile, but the tool itself worked well. Once you've created a selection, choose Puppet Warp from the Edit menu and apply pins where you want to create pivot points in the image. Playing around with them, you can stretch a selected area between two pins. Unlike the complicated intelligent selection, Puppet Warp took seconds to learn. Of all the new tools, this is probably the most fun to use. The tool may not appear to have much practical use, but it can easily lend itself to basic but creative 3D implementation without having to upgrade to Photoshop Extended.
Photoshop is not the best digital painting program around, but the new Mixer Brush and Bristle Tips features give it a much stronger easel to stand on. Briefly, the Mixer Brush lets you add multiple colors to a single brush tip and then blend them to whatever colors already exist on your canvas. Users can define how wet the canvas is, how fast paint gets re-added to the tip, the mix rate between brush and canvas colors, and whether the brush is refilled, cleaned, or both after each paint stroke.
Bristle Tips provides similarly fine-tuned control over the brush tip, including shape, length, stiffness, thickness, angle, and spacing. Although some photographers might swear otherwise, it's not necessary to use a tablet for photo editing. This was not the case with the new painting tools, where a standard mouse did not provide the kind of detailed control required to manipulate the tools properly.
Still, by building out the painting options, Adobe's clearly trying to keep Photoshop competitive across all major disciplines. If you don't need them, don't get the more expensive version. If you do, though, there are several notable new features. Adobe Repousse streamlines the process for converting 2D artwork into 3D, then provides a bucketload of options for altering the design. There's nothing revolutionary here except a reasonable, solid effort at reducing workflow. It's effective, and it's hard to argue with less than six steps to creating a 3D letterform.
Photoshop Extended users will get an equally quick workflow for adding realistic textures to 3D models. The program comes with a stack of textures, which users can edit and save as their own, as well as create custom textures from scratch and download new ones off the Web.
There's also new options for introducing image-based lights for dynamic light sourcing on complex models, shadow capturing, and improved ray tracing. Much like the painting tools, the 3D options are not a full-on replacement for a 3D renderer, but they will do quite admirably for users looking to regularly add 3D pop to their art without having to shell out for a modeling suite.
Other changes include tweaks to everything from the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in to tool menus. Raw processing has earned itself some better tools for reducing noise, and adding vignettes and grain to give stills a more filmlike quality. The Raw tool in general also feels less jittery than its CS4 predecessor, and it now will automatically downsample your or bit raw image down to 8-bit JPEG when you save it. The relatively complicated process of straightening images has been replaced by a Straighten button in the Ruler tool.
Throw in the Alt or Option key and you'll straighten without cropping. Note that to fully undo the straighten, you have to go back through your Actions panel. When cropping, you can add an overlay grid after you set your crop boundaries. You can now prevent the Sharpen tool from creating artifacts by using the Protect Detail option, copy colors as a hex number, and gain a modicum of collaborative tools via the deeper hooks to Adobe's online CS Review.
You can now change the opacity of more than one layer at a time, create layer masks from transparent layers, and use lens correction profiles when stitching using Auto-Align in Layers. Layer settings will also remember your previous settings. Mac users will see some specific improvements for their computers.
Trackpad gestures can be disabled, too. There's no doubt that the major features changes create a strong framework for CS5, but its the addition of these detail-oriented fixes that sell the picture of CS5 as an upgrade worth getting.
Photoshop support is available on several levels. There are the free Adobe-sponsored forums, FAQs, and knowledge base articles. Given Photoshop's popularity, these should be sufficient for individual users. Technical phone support is available Monday through Friday, 5 a.
PST, and customer service phone support is available seven days a week during the same hours. Though this may seem stingy, Photoshop's complexity is best-suited for users who don't mind learning stuff on their own or from a forum. The Help menu also comes with a direct link to Adobe's Photoshop Support Center, which provides an Adobe AIR-based interface for accessing Adobe's collection of how-tos and community advice.
Performance For users who didn't make the jump to CS4, the new version of Photoshop will feel like it's got jet boots on. There are still noticeable lags during resource-intensive tasks, but without a doubt it feels like a better-performing version.
Of course, Photoshop is compatible with Windows 7 as well. The minimum requirements for basic Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended are fairly rigorous, so if you've got an older computer it's recommended that you make sure it's compatible before purchasing. Conclusion Because of its position as the industry standard for professional image-editing and the use of its name as a colloquialism for all kinds of image manipulation, many users mistakenly believe that Photoshop is a must-have program.
It's needed for professional work, but contains far too many tools, far too much power, and is far too complicated for casual use. Not convinced? There are effective alternatives to Photoshop, including Adobe's own Photoshop Elements Windows Mac , as well as a multitude of freeware. That said, some photographers might not want to wait for the upcoming Lightroom 3. For them and others considering upgrading or buying new, there's simply no reason not to get it.
The comprehensive range of improvements to Photoshop CS5 makes this version compelling and nearly impossible to ignore. Adobe Photoshop delivers magic that helps you bring your creative vision to life. Edit raw image files and other photos with state-of-the-art photo editing. Create compelling HDR images, black-and-whites, and panoramas. Retouch images with astonishing ease and control. Design anything you can imagine--at amazing speed. Paint and draw naturally and expressively. Premiere Pro has more than 40 video transitions to make a smooth jump from one video clip to the other.
If you feel that you need more transitions, you can either install a transition plugin for a larger variety or create a custom transition in Adobe After Effect and upload it through the Creative Cloud library.
Using the Transitions is a simple drag-and-drop feature. Open the Effects menu to the left of your timeline and open the Transition Effect folder. Then, simply drag the file and place it at the beginning or end of the clip. You can see how the transition works by playing the clip and seeing it in the video preview. Premiere Pro comes with all the video effects that you need to correct lighting issues, change the coloring, and transform tool to ensure everything looks perfect.
In the latest update, Adobe added the Warp Stabilize feature that is included with After Effects to fix shaky video clips. There are several different options that you can use when stabilizing the videos, including cropping the video, choosing how smooth you want the video, and auto-scale the borders.
Premiere Pro has the tools to produce degree videos that can be viewed on most VR devices. You have the ability to change the view and angle so nothing gets missed. When you produce the video, make sure you tag it as degree video so that sites like Facebook and YouTube will understand and treat it like a video. There is no limit to the number of camera angles that you edit with Premiere Pro. Highlight the clip you want to edit and open the multi-camera source sequence.
The software will automatically sync the different clips based on several factors, including the audio, which is helpful in cases where there are no internal timestamps. The multi-camera editing gives you the ability to change the video angle while the original file is playing.
Once you choose the angle you want, you can make all the edits you need to complete the scene. You can change the white balance, increase or decrease exposure, and add highlights and shadows through the keyframes. The Lumetri tool also has filters for the videos that can give you clip an HDR look, change it to a vintage style, or simply find a better color combination than what naturally appears on the screen.
Premiere Pro is a complex program with a lot of advanced tools. That being said, as far as the editing tools are concerned, it is very intuitive, and if you have the basic background, you should be able to master the basics and advanced tools fairly quickly.
If you have no prior knowledge or background in video editing, I recommend taking advantage of the in-depth tutorials that Premiere Pro offers. There are both in-app guides, which give you hands-on experience, and tutorials through your browser that use videos to walk you through different editing techniques. Premiere Pro uses the same dark-style layout as the other Adobe software.
I find it difficult at times, but it helps keep the focus on the work, and not on the busy toolbars and panels. The workstation is fully customizable, and you can choose which tools you want in the menu bar for quick access.
The default workstation is made up of four sections:. In addition to the default workstation, Premiere Pro has several other preset workstations, such as Assembly, Editing, Color, Effects, Audio, and Titles. The workstations are listed on the top menu bar, and when you click on it, it will automatically change your layout, adjust visible panels, and tools. Just change the quick access tools and available panels. The interface is very flexible and works with drag-and-drop capabilities.
You can move panels around, dock them or undock them, and add or remove tools to the various menus, to streamline your work process and save you time from searching for specific tools or features. When you cancel your account, you will instantly lose access to Premiere Pro. Adobe Premiere Pro is part of the subscription-based Creative Cloud collection of apps. This gives you time to test the software and possibly even finish working on a specific project.
You can edit images in Photoshop , InDesign , and Illustrator , and seamlessly integrate those files into your videos. To prevent unwanted charges, make sure to cancel your account before the free trial ends. WizCase is an independent review site.
