Photoshop
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Adobe's next mobile photo editor could be revealed in October
When Adobe announced it was discontinuing its mobile Photoshop Touch app earlier this year, it hinted at greater things to come in a mysterious project code-named "Project Rigel." While it listed a vague "late 2015" availability at the time, a recent CNET report suggests we'll be formally introduced to Adobe's new offering this October. The company's latest pro-level mobile effort will reportedly come in the form of a free iOS editing app that looks to offer much of the desktop software's capability wrapped in a touch-friendly UI that won't scare away novices.
The surprising joy of Time's virtual reality cover starring Palmer Luckey
It's amazing to see Palmer Luckey -- creator of the Oculus Rift and custodian of the tech industry's current obsession with virtual reality -- on the cover of Time magazine this month. It's another sign that virtual reality has a real shot at entering the mainstream conversation, following previous signals like Facebook buying Oculus for $2 billion in 2014, and Sony, Valve, HTC, Samsung and dozens of other companies revealing their own VR headsets. As amazing as Luckey's Time cover is, it's also really, really odd. Why is he on his tippy-toes? Does he really need to be squatting like that? What are his hands doing? Where's the controller? And why the hell is he in front of a fake beach? The world may never know, but through the power of photo-editing tools, we certainly can imagine. See some of our ideas below and please add your own chops in the comments (feel free to use our cutout).
Palette's modular controller is ready to steer your creative apps
Palette crowdfunded its unique modular controller in the hopes of giving you customizable, hands-on control over your creative apps, and it's finally ready to make that technology available to everyone. As of today, you can pre-order Palette kits that scale up depending on just how much tactile fine-tuning you want. The base is a $199 kit with a dial, two buttons and a slider; the $299 Expert and $499 Professional kits throw in more gear, and you can even snag an $899 limited edition in cherry wood. Of course, you can also buy individual parts if you need more. The controller is mostly useful if you thrive in Adobe software like Photoshop and Premiere Pro, but it's also helpful in MIDI music, gaming and most any other program where keyboard shortcuts just don't feel right.
Adobe Creative Cloud update boosts speed, adds stock photo library
Moving to a subscription-based plan of cloud-run apps allows Adobe to push regular updates, and the company is keen on at least one major update a year for the entire suite. In the 2015 installment, Adobe improved performance with speeds up to 10 times faster than CS6 in some apps. Besides that welcome tweak, the company also announced its own stock photography service: Adobe Stock. As you might expect, Stock is integrated with Creative Cloud apps so you can nab those images easily and CC subscriptions will save you 40 percent on photo purchases. You'll be able to search the Stock library from within apps like Photoshop before placing selections in a mockup. And yes, there is an additional fee required. You'll pay $10 per image or $30 a month for a collection of 10 ($50 if you're not a Creative Cloud user).
AfterShot Pro 2 from Corel is a competitive Mac photo manager
Corel's latest Mac OS release, AfterShot Pro 2 (currently on sale for US$69.00) is hard to quickly characterize. It combines elements of Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop. It excels as a RAW-file importer and manager with very fast performance. It easily catalogs and can search for images in extremely large libraries. It supports sophisticated batch processing and has world class noise reduction from Athentech. Images can be tagged with your own categories in addition to the standard EXIF tags your camera creates. Image editing is non-destructive, with both manual and automatic adjustments. Among the features is lens correction to reduce distortion in any of your DSLR lenses. For output, you can easily create contact sheets, templates for standard print sizes, and even create web galleries to show off your images. There is complete on-board help as well as web-based videos to walk you through the application. In this latest edition, AfterShot Pro shows you how to create HDR images and adjust them. I gave the app a spin and found it powerful, but it took a while for me to adjust to it after many years of using Photoshop. The GUI is efficient, but very different. It took a few sessions to get comfortable with where controls were located, but once I did I found the program to be fast and efficient. The HDR mode is powerful, with plenty of adjustments. I found it superior to Photoshop's HDR tools, but not quite up to where Photomatix and the NIK HDR programs are. There are several presets to get you close to your desired "look", but most people will want to adjust from there. Import of raw files is very speedy, but in the HDR mode when I had five files open, my Mac Pro would hesitate for a couple of seconds on each adjustment. Curves and the usual tonal adjustments are easy to apply, and the application supports layers which most experienced photo editors will want. There is so much here, it's worth a trip over to the Corel website to watch the videos and get an idea of what the program will do. Although reasonably priced for an app this professional, it's not going to unseat Photoshop and Lightroom, which Adobe now makes available at reasonable subscription prices for advanced amateurs and professionals. Also, Corel has an on again-off again relationship with Apple and the Mac. Corel Draw was offered and then withdrawn in 2001. They had Word Perfect for the Mac which was pretty popular as an alternative to Microsoft Word, but it was pulled off the market back in 1997. If Corel will stay with the Mac platform, the company has a chance to build up a loyal audience, especially offering this kind of software at very competitive pricing. AfterShot Pro 2 is a solid application. Although it's an excellent editor on its own, it has the ability to hand off work your to another editor like Photoshop if you want to. AfterShot Pro 2 runs on any Mac with OS X 10.7.3 or higher. It ran fine on Yosemite. It wants 250 MB of hard drive space, and at least 2 GB or RAM, but the more RAM the better. There are separate 32- and 64-bit editions. Corel AfterShot Pro 2 looks very good. I expect some areas of performance could be speeded up a bit, but for less than 70 dollars, this is a pretty incredible package. Expect to spend some time learning it, but in my tests I saw no glitches or crashes. If you are interested in AfterShot Pro 2 you can download a fully functional demo, and there is a 30 day money back guarantee.
Adobe Creative Cloud updates continue to boost mobile productivity
Adobe has offered mobile apps with a variety of tools for quite some time. With the arrival of the new suite that accompanied Ink and Slide earlier this year though, it became clear the creative software outfit wanted to equip those slates and smartphones to do useful work. At Adobe Max 2014, the company's annual conference, new updates are on tap that continue the mobile focus for Creative Cloud.
Photoshop for Chromebooks begins long-awaited beta test
If you've been eyeing a Chromebook to replace that Windows or Mac machine, Google's OS is about to get a massive boost in productivity. Starting today, Photoshop is headed to the machines thanks to a partnership with Adobe -- if you meet certain criteria. A cloud-based streaming version of the creative software will be available for Adobe Creative Cloud education customers in beta form, and for now, there's no word on when regular folk will be able to opt in. This version of Photoshop is designed to run on Chromebooks straight from the cloud and packs in Google Drive integration for easy file management. The rest of Creative Cloud is said to follow, however this trial run only includes the popular photo-editing app. As is usually the case with testing phases, there's no clear indication as to when this version of Photoshop will see its widespread release.
Dog Days of Summer: Pluto, in the flesh and in Photoshop
We've come to the end of the summer -- it was Monday evening in North America -- which means that it's time for us to switch over to our regularly scheduled Caturday programming. But since at least part of the week was spent in summer and we had a wonderful photo to show you, we thought it was a good idea to have just one more pup. The handsome fellow in the photo above -- several times -- is Plutarch, also known as Pluto. At the time the image was captured, he was just 14 weeks old. That young age doesn't seem to have stopped Pluto from getting interested in Photoshop! Here his human Mark Sieber snapped a shot of both the real dog and the dog captured on his MacBook Pro. And with that, we end the Dog Days of Summer. Many thanks to all of the dog owners who sent us photos of their companions using or lazing near Apple gear, and to the patience of the cat owners who now have their chance to send us kitty pictures! We'd love to see photos of your favorite feline soaking up the warmth of an Apple product, chasing a Magic Mouse, or just being a general nuisance while you're attempting to work on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Please let us know via our feedback page and please remember that your cat photo has to have some sort of connection to Apple or its products. For security reasons we can't accept inbound attachments, so you should host the photo (Dropbox, Flickr, iPhoto Journals, etc.) and send us the link. Many thanks to Mark Sieber and Pluto!
Perfectly Clear migrates from iOS to Mac
I first got a look at Perfectly Clear when it came out for iOS. It was a nice, quick and easy, one-touch solution for improving photos without a lot of editing pain. Perfectly Clear now works on the Mac as a plug-in for Photoshop or Lightroom and maintains the same philosophy it did on iOS -- one click and your photo is improved. Now you might assume a Photoshop or Lightroom user wants more control, but the reality is that with Photoshop on a monthly subscription plan, a lot of new Photoshop users are coming on board. In addition, Perfectly Clear gives you the kind of micro-control advanced Photoshop users may want, so users can adjust photo quality automatically or to taste. Automatic corrections include many portrait features, like face slimming, blemish removal, eye enhancement, teeth whitening and more. For non-portrait photography, Perfectly Clear offers sharpening, noise reduction, vivid adjustments, fix dark images, fix tint, and more. If you don't like the one click fix, there are very in-depth adjustments available for each pre-set. Yes, you can accomplish many of these things with Photoshop adjustments, but Perfectly Clear is easier and faster, and the results can look as good. This version 2.0 of Perfectly Clear has optimized algorithms so it operates at about twice the speed as the pre-update version. Split views with zoom make seeing your changes very obvious, and your custom adjustments can be saved and even shared with other Perfectly Clear users. I consider myself a pretty experienced and advanced Photoshop user, having been enjoying it all the way back to version 1.0. I know enough about the Photoshop tools to get what I want out of almost any image, but Perfectly Clear really works well and with a minimum of hassle. In my testing I found that the enhancements were logical and never over the top. It's not hard to use, and the built-in app help links you both to the manual and video tutorials. It's definitely worth a look for both advanced and newer Photoshop or Lightroom users. You can learn more at the Perfectly Clear website. The Photoshop and Lightroom plugins are US$149.00 each or $199.00 as a bundle. There are free trial versions available. This software is available direct from the publisher and is not on the Mac App Store. Another similarly useful suite of tools is NIK Tools for Mac, now owned by Google. These tools are also priced at $149.00. NIK Tools are excellent and useful, and I find that with Perfectly Clear, I like using whichever package makes the most sense with a particular image. The NIK Tools don't have any portrait features, however. They do have an excellent ability to apply enhancements selectively in the image, something Perfectly Clear lacks. Perfectly Clear plug-ins requires either Photoshop or Lightroom to host them. You need Mac OS X Leopard (10.6) or later. The company is also in late beta for a standalone version that doesn't require any of the Adobe software. Recommended.
Adobe Photoshop Mix lets you undo mistakes, nab Dropbox files
Adobe's Photoshop Mix offering for Apple's slates arrived a few months back alongside its Ink and Slide drawing tools, and it's not letting the app sit too long before adding new features. The latest version adds an undo/redo option that'll help with missteps, swaps background/foreground images by dragging thumbnails and saves full-res JPEG and PNG files to that iPad you're working on. For those of us that don't keep a lot of work files on our tablets, you can now import images from your Dropbox repository to edit or add to Creative Cloud-stored PSDs whilst on-the-go. The update is now available over at iTunes, so if your device hasn't yet alerted you or if you've yet to take the slate-style editing for a spin, have at it.
ModCloth leads the charge against Photoshopped models
What's the quickest way to lose 5 pounds? Why Photoshop, of course. If you've picked up a magazine anytime in the last 15 years, you've probably been treated to a digitally manipulated parody of the human form. The practice of photoshopping flaws out of models, celebrities and musicians has become so commonplace, we almost don't think about it -- but the unrealistic expectations set these visual falsehoods creates artificial (and unobtainable) standards of beauty. Now, the Brave Girls Alliance is fighting back, asking advertises to take a "Hero's Pledge" to not alter the shape of size of their models or, if they do, to clearly mark the altered images as photoshopped and unrealistic. The first company to sign up? ModCloth, a popular online clothing retailer.
Image-editing technique lets 2D objects get flipped, turned upside-down
Sure, Photoshop and other image editors are becoming increasingly good at transforming elements of a photo, but most of those tweaks are limited to two dimensions (resizing, rotating, repositioning, etc.). Researchers at Carnegie Mellon are pushing into the third dimension, using a technique that compares the 2D objects in a regular photo with 3D models freely available online. The result? The ability to manipulate part of photo as if it were a real, three-dimensional object, even exposing angles and sides that weren't visible in the original image.
Adobe overhauls Creative Cloud with new touch features and cheaper pricing
Adobe updates don't get the same amount of attention that they used to. No doubt, this is largely due to the company's Creative Cloud platform, which pushes gradual improvements to more than 1 million subscribers automatically. But the company reckons there's still room for major overhauls every once in a while, and it claims today's is the "biggest software release since CS6." The update brings new features to pretty much all of Adobe's desktop applications, as well as four new mobile apps (which we'll get to in a minute), plus a permanent $10-per-month subscription deal for access to Photoshop CC and Lightroom CC (which has already been widely available through time-limited offers.)
Adobe adds cross-platform photo editing for Creative Cloud users
Photographers who use Adobe's Creative Cloud suite of graphics apps are getting some love today. Both Photoshop and Lightroom have been updated to improve synchronization of photo workflows between compatible devices (ie. the Mac and the iPad). You can edit a photo on one platform and watch the changes show up on the other side; while this was already in the iPad app. now there's a feature-equivalent iPhone version of Lightroom for even more portability. To make this power more accessible to pro and enthusiast photographers, there's a new Photography plan for Creative Cloud -- launching today -- that includes Photoshop CC, Lightroom for desktop and iOS, and more for US$9.99 per month. Adobe is presenting the whole shebang in a live webcast today at 1pm Eastern. There are some really important developments here, so let's dive right in. Photoshop CC Photoshop's new features include perspective warps, new motion effects in the blur gallery, improved focusing routines and improvements to the content-aware tools. LightRoom 5 Meanwhile, Adobe has now supplemented the three-month-old iPad version of Lightroom with a build for iPhone. Both versions let you seamlessly edit photos with sync between all your iOS devices. Lightroom now synchronizes star ratings and sort order between the desktop and mobile versions, as long as you're running Lightroom 5.5 or better on the desktop. The iOS Lightroom app is free but requires a Creative Cloud subscription to work. Photoshop Mix Adobe also released a new iPad app called Photoshop Mix, which lets you open images from your camera roll, the Creative Cloud, Lightroom Mobile or even Facebook. It's like a lite version of Photoshop that's been redesigned for the iPad. Most of its operations are carried out on Adobe's cloud servers, which let you open PS documents, individual layers from PSDs and images from Lightroom Mobile. You can perform sophisticated edits on your iPad, including computationally intensive operations like content-aware moves and fills. The resulting changes will be available in Photoshop on your Mac or PC. Likewise, changes made on the desktop will appear in Photoshop Mix. The app has dozens of presets for quick edits, and a host of sophisticated tools that you would not expect to find in an iPad app. Your work can be saved back to the Creative Cloud, or to your local camera roll. Photoshop Mix is a breakthrough for photographers who want to do heavy editing on their iPad. You'll find more details on the app on the Adobe website. Integration Adobe provided me advance versions of Photoshop Mix and the new Adobe Lightroom for the iPhone. Everything worked as expected. I loved performing sophisticated edits on my iPad and then seeing them reflected back in Photoshop on my Macs. Adobe's aim is to let customers work on images no matter where they are or what device they're using. Meanwhile, Apple will make it easy to shuffle data between iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. When you sit back and consider it all, a lot of little breakthroughs add up to a significant change in how and where we work with photos. Pricing All these new apps and services are available now. The Photoshop and Lightroom updates are handled through the Creative Cloud updater. Photoshop Mix and Lightroom Mobile for iPhone and iPad are in the App Store and do require a Creative Cloud ID/subscription, but there is no additional cost for any of the apps or updates. The Creative Cloud Photography plan is available at US$9.99 per month and includes Photoshop CC, Lightroom desktop and mobile versions, access to Creative Cloud Learn and ongoing feature updates and upgrades. If you are already enrolled in the original Photoshop Photography plan bundle, you are grandfathered in to receive these new apps and features. This new level of features and services from Adobe is going to appeal to professionals and serious photographers. Take a look at what is on offer (or join the webcast today) and see if it fills your needs.
Adobe is working on a touch-friendly, full-powered version of Photoshop CC
Microsoft is breaking out the big guns for the launch Surface Pro 3. It trotted out creative software powerhouse Adobe to show off a new version of Photoshop CC it's got in the works. This edition is designed specifically for use with a touchscreen and stylus. Icons and other UI elements have been doubled in size so that they're easier to tap with a free finger and gestures like pinch-to-zoom work flawlessly. And this isn't some hobbled, half-featured version like Photoshop Express or Photoshop Touch. What's more, it should be ready to support high-density displays like the one found on the new Surface. While the focus today may have been on how the Creative Cloud app would work on Microsoft hardware, it should excite avid Adobe users regardless of what brand PC they rely on. The lack of touch and high-density display support has been a bit of a pain point. And don't worry, there's "more on the way" according to Michael Goff. Besides, the tiles for other Adobe CC apps that popped up during the demo kinda gave that away.
It's way too easy to fake a photo of a "new" iPhone
There have been a whole lot of supposedly leaked photos of the mythical 4.7-inch iPhone 6 lately -- or at least bits and pieces of it. A production mold pops up here and a front panel shows up there, and the Internet eats it up because, hey, it's photographic evidence, right? The already grainy photos get filtered through Twitter and other social networks that downgrade the image quality even further, and before long we're left with a low-res picture that is hard to pick apart. To be clear, I'm not doubting the theory that Apple is indeed working on a 4.7-inch smartphone. Apple clearly wants to make something bigger than the iPhone 5 and 4.7 inches is a happy medium between the current 4-inch display and the maybe-too-big land of the 5-inch crew. But relying on uncredited photos to back up a rumor is something the tech world loves to do, and the trend is even more pronounced when it comes to stories about Apple. Want a "photo" of the still-rumored 5.5-inch iPhone "phablet"? Coming right up! The photo above was created in photoshop in about 25 minutes. It didn't take much to whip it up, and I'm definitely no Photoshop wizard. A couple of crappy photos, some Photoshop tweaking, and a noise filter or two and you have yourself a genuine "iPhablet" that has a good chance of catching on with the social media crowd who crave anything that looks even remotely like an Apple product. You could tear apart the photo and analyze it enough to prove its true identity, but 9 out of 10 people who see the story won't bother. As far as they're concerned, it's as believable as anything else, which is why these types of rumors run rampant. So whether you're a skeptic by nature or you buy every rumor being sold, this is a friendly reminder to take everything with a grain of salt. Wait, no, a bucket.
Adobe backs ConnectED Initiative, sends free software to schools
Microsoft, Apple, Sprint and Verizon have already shelled out millions to help the president bring high-speed broadband to schools and amp up the role technology plays in education. Now Adobe's on the bandwagon too, and it's bringing along gobs of software and educational resources for kids and teachers. Students at some 15,000 US schools get access to Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, while the staff gets tools from Adobe's Education Exchange, electronic signature software and presentation tech for distance learning. The company's total commitment weighs in at over $300 million, but it's not hard to see what it gets out of the deal. Looking past the potential for a hefty tax writeoff, the company said its plans are in line with the Common Core State Standards Initiative's emphasis on media production and criticism. In other words, Adobe wants to help foster creative skills in youngsters. Getting a new generation of media-savvy kids interested in its production tools is just icing on the cake.
PhotoScissors for Mac is an easy way to cut out part of an image
Photoshop is the alpha and omega of photo editing apps, but every once in awhile someone comes up with a way to do a specific function even better than Adobe. A case in point is PhotoScissors, a US$19.99 Mac app that makes it easy to remove an object from a photo, then paste it in somewhere else. This can be done in Photoshop, and I marvel watching pros do this. It takes more than a few steps, and can involve the Photoshop Magic Wand or the Quick Selection Tool. PhotoScissors works differently. Take your photo, and paint some broad green strokes on what you want to preserve. A remove tool is used to paint red on objects you want to remove. You often want to remove a background, while you want to preserve a foreground object or person. The app does a quick smart analysis of what is highlighted, and quickly gets rid of the unwanted background. There are lots of reasons to have a tool like this: product photos, separating objects from a background, creating an isolated image with a new background, etc... I tried the app on a variety of photos, and it worked well. It's not always perfect, but with a little effort you can clean up anything that is missing in the cutout. PhotoScissors is often faster than any other method I've used, including Photoshop. PhotoScissors isn't a replacement for Photoshop or other high-end editors -- it just makes cutouts easy. There are tools to zoom, undo, and change background color, as well as controls to change the size of the brush. Help is built in, although it is pretty basic. On some objects, I found the Photoshop Quick Select tool just as effective and quicker, other times PhotoScissors was more efficient. If the foreground and background object have similar colors, PhotoScissors will confuse them, but it is easy to clean up and re-render. PhotoScissors is a tool for someone who spends a lot of time cutting out objects to separate them from a background. At $19.99 it is a lot cheaper than Photoshop, but of course the app is a one-trick pony. If it's a trick you need, PhotoScissors is a worthwhile investment. PhotoScissor is not in the Mac app store, but you can buy it direct online. You can also download a demo version and see if it works for you. The app requires an Intel Mac running OS X Lion or later, with a 1 GHz processor, and at least 256 MB of RAM.
Adobe's Photoshop guru John Nack is heading to Google's photography team
If you needed further proof that Google was serious about its photography efforts, one of Adobe's main Photoshop folks is heading for Mountain View to pitch in. John Nack, former Senior Product Manager for Photoshop, has been with the creative software outfit for about 14 years and led the software's first public beta (CS3) and the introduction of notable features like Smart Objects. Most recently, Nack has worked on Adobe's mobile efforts as Principle Product Manager. It's no surprise that Google is looking to dive further into photo editing after debuting Auto Awesome last year and snatching up Snapseed before that. In a blog post announcing the move, Nack noted that the two companies have collaborated for quite some time and that he hopes to pursue that relationship further, writing "There's so much we can all do to help photographers & storytellers of every sort." For now, we'll just have to bid out time until Google's next snapshot-focused software release.
Adobe redesigns Photoshop Express for Android, makes it compatible with KitKat
On mobile devices, Photoshop Express is one of Adobe's most crowd-pleasing applications. Now, to make things better for Android users, the software maker has released a completely revamped version of its handy app. Aside from being friendly with the latest flavor of Android, KitKat, the Photoshop Express app's been tweaked to access/process images from an SD card in much faster fashion. Adobe states that the goal of this update was to bring the most popular features front and center, including things like Looks, Corrections, cropping, red eye reduction and a bunch of other useful tools. There's also the debut on Android of Adobe's new engine for rendering photos (which the company says is great for handling large files), as well as integration with its own photo service, Revel. And hey, above all, it still won't cost you a dime to download it to your device.
