Whatâ€™s new in Adobe Photoshop CS P

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What’s new in Adobe Photoshop CSChapter 1

What’s new inAdobe Photoshop CS

Chapter 1

What’s new in Adobe Photoshop CS

P hotoshop CS offers a wealth of features thatwill truly be of benefit to photographerseverywhere. In this first chapter I am going togive a you a quick run through all the new

major features that will be of interest to photographers. Ifyou are a Macintosh user Photoshop CS will only run usingMac OS X 10.2.4 or later (10.2.6 or 10.3 is recommended),and only a G3, G4 or G5 computer. If you are using a PC,you will need to use Windows 2000 (with Service pack 2)or Windows XP operating systems running on an IntelPentium class III or 4 processor.

Martin EveningAdobe Photoshop CS for Photographers

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Custom Keyboard ShortcutsFor some time now, just about every keyboard shortcutcombination shortcut in Photoshop has been exhausted.Furthermore, the keyboards in some countries differ quitesignificantly from the standard US English keyboarddesign, sometimes missing keys such as the tilde (~) on thecomputer keyboard. In the past, because of theserestrictions, not all language users are able to make the fulluse of the program. And not everyone has the samepriorities and objectives when using Photoshop. With theKeyboard Shortcuts editing dialog, you can now decidewhich keyboard shortcuts you want to use to call specificPhotoshop actions and save these as custom shortcut sets.

File Browser and Camera RawThe first thing you will notice about the File Browser isthat it is no longer a dockable palette. The File Browser isopened and closed by clicking a button on the Tool Optionsbar. The File Browser operating speed is noticeably fasterin Macintosh OS X 10.2 and the Camera Raw plug-in isfully integrated, including updates for the latest raw camerafile formats. Many existing customers will have alreadypurchased the Camera Raw plug-in for Photoshop 7.0. Andto my mind, this is one of the most useful productivityplug-ins for Photoshop that has ever been built. UsingCamera Raw is like injecting rocket fuel into your digitalcapture work flow, because it enables you to shoot rawcaptures with your digital camera and process the data inPhotoshop at a much faster speed compared to the softwaresupplied with most of today’s digital cameras. The knock-on effect of the Camera Raw plug-in has made a hugedifference to the way photographers are able to processtheir capture files and make full use of the high quality of araw file compared to shooting in JPEG mode.

The image file management in the File Browser hasbeen improved. Images can be flagged and this provides anice simple way in which to designate the pictures you likebest. Using the Thumbnail View options, you can then hideall unflagged images, making it easier to conduct the image

Editing metadataCertain metadata information is editablewithin the File Browser, so you can edit theFile Info text entries, add keywords andconduct metadata or keyword searches, allfrom within the browser interface. An edithistory log can be kept as you edit animage. This can be saved within themetadata or as a separate log file.

Improved Mac OS X performanceWhen Apple released the Mac OS X 10.2update (code name: Jaguar), a number ofMac OS X users experienced terriblecrashing problems when using the FileBrowser. Initially the problem was fixedwith a free plug-in patch for Photoshop7.0, but now Photoshop CS runs moresmoothly and faster in Mac OS X 10.2.

Figure 1.1 The Keyboard Shortcuts dialog.

Quick folder accessYou can get the File Browser to target on afolder by dragging the folder from the MacOS X Finder or from the Windows Explorerto the File Browser Preview pane.

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Figure 1.2 The layout of the new improvedFile Browser can easily be customized to suit theway you work. The panes on the left hand sidecan be rearranged any way you like and thepreview pane can be scaled to display larger,rendered previews. A custom size can be set forthe Thumbnails which makes it possible tocompare images side-by-side more easily.

Figure 1.3 The Camera Raw plug-in enablesyou to process raw camera file images and openthem directly in Photoshop. The revised interfacealso contains extra controls for advanced users,providing greater control over the image colorand the ability to suppress noise and othercamera file artifacts.

selection process. Folder navigation is made easier too. Thefolder menu allows you to quickly access recently visitedfolders and assign favorite folders. The File Browser has itsown menu which among other things, allows you to runautomation routines within the Browser interface directly.

Backward compatibility optionsYou can save files with the ‘MaximizeBackward Compatibility’ option set toNever in the General Photoshoppreferences and not keep being bugged bya warning dialog every time you come tosave a layered image.


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Extended 16 Bit supportThe Camera Raw plug-in takes full advantage of the factthat most digital cameras are capable of capturing a greatertonal depth than 8-bits per channel. And manyphotographers prefer to scan their originals using 16-bitsper channel mode. Over the years, the number ofPhotoshop features that will work in 16-bit mode haveincreased. Now for the first time, you can use tools such asthe brush tool and history brush in 16-bit. Even moreimportantly, you can add image and adjustment layers aswell. The image bit depth is always indicated in the title barjust after the color mode. For example, the document statustitle bar may show: CMYK/8 or RGB/16.

Live Histogram paletteThe new Histogram palette provides a live histogram of theimage or the active selection contents. This is especiallyuseful if you wish to view graphical feedback of the Levelshistogram when making any type of image adjustment (notjust Levels), such as when making a Curves adjustment.The Histogram palette can display the composite channelinformation along with an expanded view of the individualcolor channels, or a luminosity histogram (as used to bedisplayed in the Image menu Histogram). This latter modeis preferable for accurate image assessment. And lastly, acolor histogram bar mode, like the one you see in theCamera Raw dialog.

Interface changesThe first thing you will see When launching Photoshop CSis the Welcome screen. Use this to access the latestinformation about what is new in the program, learn abouthot new tips and access the latest Photoshop tutorialswhich are available on-line.

The canvas area has been extended. If you are usingone of the full screen viewing modes, you can scroll theimage beyond the limits of the document bounds. This isparticularly useful if you are viewing a large image at anActual Pixels display view but the Photoshop palettes are

Figure 1.5 The Histogram palette.

Figure 1.6 The Photoshop CS Welcomesplash screen.

Figure 1.4 Photoshop CS provides extendedfeatures for images in 16-bit per channel mode.The bit depth is always indicated in the documentwindow status/title bar

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obscuring part of the picture and you want to draw a penpath that extends outside of the image area.

As before, you can use the Window ➭ Arrange menu toforce all open image documents to display in a cascade ortiled view. In Photoshop CS you can now hold down theShift key to apply zooming and scrolling simultaneously toall open documents. And if you thought the previous30,000 pixel limit was too limiting, this has been raised to300,000. However, there is still a 4 GB cap on the size offile that can be saved using TIFF and 2 GB for the nativePhotoshop file format. If you need to save a larger image,you can do so by enabling the new PSB file format in thegeneral preferences.

Image AdjustmentsPhotoshop CS offers some useful new image adjustmenttools. The Shadow/Highlight Correction can be simplydescribed as an image adjustment that can be used toselectively bring out detail that was otherwise hidden, suchas in images that have heavy shadow areas or where thehighlights appear to be almost completely blown out. Thisadjustment tool can apply a shadow or highlight correctionbut without affecting the contrast in the midtone areas. TheMatch Color adjustment enables you to match the colorand tonal range between two images. This worksexceptionally well if you have a series of almost identicallooking pictures, but where the white balance of thelighting has maybe shifted a little and you want theappearance to match, such as a portrait series shot underchanging lighting conditions.

The Photo Filter adjustments simulate the KodakWratten™ series of photographic filters. Applying one ofthese image adjustments is just like adding a Kodak™color correcting filter over the lens at the post-productionstage. You can warm or cool the colors in your photos orcolor correct pictures that were photographed using thewrong white balance setting, the same way as using thewhite balance controls in the Camera Raw dialog.

Figure 1.7 The extended canvas area allowsyou to work up close without having palettes getin the way.

Figure 1.8 The Shadow/Highlight Correctionadjustment can be used as shown here, to lightenthe shadows and darken the highlights, to producean improved full tone image. The advanced optionsprovide even more subtle control.


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Figure 1.9 The Photo Filter image adjustment can replicate inPhotoshop the effect of adding a colored camera filter over thelens. The naming scheme used matches the Kodak Wratten colorcorrection camera filters. So if the image you are editing looks toocool, you can use the 85 filter setting in Photoshop to ‘warm up’the picture.

Figure 1.10 If you have a series ofphotographs where you wish to make the colorsall match, then the Match Color imageadjustment can be used to select a sampleimage, sample the colors and apply as an imageadjustment to another photograph. Thisadjustment tool can also work using selectionsfrom a sample image, or a separate layer in thesame picture. In this example the photograph onthe right shows a split view of before and afterwhere this image was made to match the color ofthe one on the left.

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Image interpolationPhotoshop CS provides two new interpolation options thatwill produce better results when you increase or decreasethe number of pixels in an image. Bicubic Smoother willproduce smoother results when enlarging an image andBicubic Sharper will preserve more detail when you reducean image in size. These interpolation methods will produceresults as good as if not better than using what was knownas the ‘step interpolation’ method, and more quickly too.

FiltersThe Photoshop Effects filters namely the Artistic, BrushStrokes, Distort, Sketch, Stylize and Texturize series, canall be accessed via a single dialog in the Filter menu calledthe Filter Gallery, which is shown in Figure 1.12 Instead oftrying out one filter after another, you can use the FilterGallery to quickly compare the outcome of using differentfilter effects. And as you try out different filters, theindividual effect settings are stored in the dialog’s history.

The Fibers filter is new. It is located in the Filter ➭Render menu and can be used to generate natural fibertexture effects. The Lens Blur filter is also new and can beused to simulate camera lens blur and is capable of making

Figure 1.11 The Filter Gallery dialog makes iteasier to navigate the Photoshop special effectsfilters and compare the outcome of the variousfilters more quickly using the filter historysection.

Figure 1.12 The new Fibers filter dialog.

Hard Mix blending modeThe new Hard Mix blending modeproduces a posterized image consisting ofup to eight colors: red, green, blue, cyan,magenta, yellow, black and white. Theblend color is a product of the base colorand the luminosity of the blend layer.

Scrubby slidersYou can change the unit values for anumeric field by C L clicking anddragging the ‘scrubby slider’ cursor to theleft or right. If the field label has a name,you can simply mouse-down over the labelname and drag. Holding down the Skey at the same time will make the unitschange ten times faster and holding downthe O A key will change them tentimes more slowly.


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Figure 1.14 The Liquify dialog interface hasbeen updated to provide improved brush settingcontrols, masking and backdrop viewing options.

Figure 1.13 The Lens Blur filter has a rangeof controls that enable you to simulate the blurproduced when something is photographed outof focus. The results this filter produces are moreconvincing than the simple gaussian blur. Youcan also use a variable density layer mask togovern the focal blur amount.

a background look realistically out of focus. This isachieved by accentuating flare from the brightest highlightsand producing iris-shaped highlights. And you can use thetransparency of a layer that is being filtered to create agraduated focus effect.

Extracting texturesThe Extract command features a texturedimage mode which utilizes the imagetexture as well as the color to calculate animage extraction. This can come in handywhen there is a contrast between thetexture of the subject and that of thebackground you want to cut out from.

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Layer managementThe Layer Comps palette can help you organize your layersby saving the layer visibility configurations. This featurecan have many applications, but will be particularly usefulto web page designers who very often work with lots oflayers and who need to quickly switch between differentlayer visibility settings. With layer sets you can now createnew sets by dragging linked layers to the layer set button inthe Layers palette. And layer sets can also now be nestedwithin Layer Sets, up to five levels deep.

AutomationSeveral new changes have been made to the Automateplug-ins (located under the File ➭ Automate menu). Mostof the Automate plug-ins can also be accessed via the FileBrowser Automate menu and applied directly to selectedimages in the File Browser.

The Crop and Straighten Automate plug-in will neatlyauto-extract single or multiple images from a scannedimage, like the example shown in Figure 1.16, applyingrotation as necessary and automatically cropping to theedges of the picture.

There are many applications that can be used to createslide shows (such as iPhoto). The new PDF Presentationfeature will enable you to produce a simple self-containedPDF format slide shows of selected images which canincorporate a variety of image dissolve effects. PDFPresentation files will work best with Acrobat 6 and thelatest Acrobat Reader programs. They will be able toactivate special features such as ‘Picture Tasks’, that allowoperations to be done on each image individually, such asordering prints and uploading images to other pictureservices, etc. As a professional tool it is unfortunatelysomewhat limited, but nonetheless it has interestingpotential for the future.

Photomerge was first introduced in Adobe PhotoshopElements and has now been included with Photoshop CS.This new version of Photomerge has none of the file sizerestrictions that were associated with Photoshop Elements.

Figure 1.16 You can use the Crop andStraighten Photos automate plug-in toautomatically prepare scanned images that needto be cropped and rotated. In this example, twophotographs were scanned at the same time. TheCrop and Straighten Photos command willextract both images, rotating and trimming themand preparing them ready for you to edit.

Figure 1.15 The Layer Comps palette andNew Layer Comps dialog.


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Figure 1.17 The Photomerge plug-in firstappeared in Photoshop Elements 1.0. Now for thefirst time, it is included in Photoshop CS androbust enough to allow you to make quite largecomposite files compared to the limitations of theElements version of this plug-in. You also havethe facility to save a Photomerge document withthe layers preserved. This makes the plug-ineven more versatile to use.

It features a ‘Make Layered Image Only’ option, whichmeans you can use Photomerge to align multiple exposuresof the same image. For example, if you want to align andmerge two or more almost identical exposures, Photomergewill automatically take care of the alignment and produce alayered document for you.

The image spacing in Contact Sheet II is moreefficiently designed. It can be set manually to tighten upthe gaps in your contact sheets quite considerably. Thespacing is improved even when the Auto spacing option isselected. Picture Package features a new layout editing

Figure 1.18 The Horizontal Feedback templateis one of several new templates that are usedwith the Web Photo Gallery. The page shownhere includes a feedback form that will enablevisitors to the gallery site email picture selectionsand any comments back to you.

On-line ServicesThe Automate menu hosts on-lineservices, which will enable you to accessexternal services such as a remote printingservice, like ‘Shutterfly’, directly withoutleaving Photoshop.

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dialog with an easy-to-use interface. Designing your owncustom Picture Package layouts has never been simpler.The Web Photo Gallery has a completely new set of webgallery templates. Figure 1.18 shows an example of a websitecreated using the Horizontal Feedback template. Examples ofthe other new templates can be seen in Chapter Fifteen.

A small selection of JavaScripts can be accessed via theFile ➭ Scripts menu. More scripts can be added to theAdobe Photoshop CS\Presets\Scripts\ folder. Ready madeScripts can be found on the Adobe Studio Exchangewebsite at: <http://share.studio.adobe.com>.

BrushesThe healing brush will now work on a separate, emptylayer. This means that you can do all your healing work ona new layer and be able to easily remove or selectivelyerase any healing brush or patch tool repairs that arecarried out. When the patch tool is used in Source mode, apreview of the patch blend is displayed in the Sourceselection area.

The color replacement brush is a new brush tool,grouped with the patch tool and healing brush. It is aneffective tool for certain basic retouching tasks such asreducing red eye from flash photographs.

Creating new documentsThe New Document dialog contains new preset optionsthat are designed with video designers in mind. You canselect a preset size that matches the screen resolution of allpopular video formats and some of these also open withpreset guides. The View menu includes a Pixel AspectRatio Correction option. This can be used to render ascaled preview on the screen that more closely representsthe proportions of a video pixel display, that uses nonsquare pixels.

How do you do that?Photoshop CS has many useful tips built-in to the program. The Help menu is agood starting point, from where you canload the Welcome Splash screen, orlaunch the Photoshop Help web documentor you can use the new ‘How To’ menusand sub-menus to get instant help andadvice on a range of Photoshop issues.The How Tos you see here are integratedwithin Photoshop Help, but the How Toformat is available for anyone to write theirown series of top tips for use inPhotoshop CS.

Figure 1.19 The color replacement brush isideal as a fast and effective tool for fixing red eyein snap shots such as this.


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Type featuresThe type engine has undergone another overhaul.Improvements have been made to improve compatibility.One consequence of this is that when a text layereddocument created in Photoshop 6.0 or 7.0 is opened inPhotoshop CS you will always see a warning requiring youto update the text layers. In common with other Adobeapplications like InDesign, GoLive and Illustrator,Photoshop CS uses a shared linguistic library for thespelling library database. So if you update a word in thespell checker in a recent version of one of the abovementioned Adobe programs, the spelling update will beshared with all other Adobe programs sharing the samecapability.

Type can be added to a pen path or vector shape so thatany type entered will follow along the path outline. Simplymove the type cursor close to the edge of the path to beginadding the type. You can then edit the shape of the path tochange the shape of the type.

Overall impressionsPhotoshop CS is bound to receive a mixed reception, whichis always the case with every new release of Photoshop.There has certainly been an ongoing expectation that eachnew version of the program should include a ‘killerfeature’. At first Photoshop CS may appear to lack excitingnew features such as the healing brush which wasintroduced in version 7.0. But nonetheless this is anotherimportant step forward in the evolution of Photoshop. As aworking photographer, the refinements made to the FileBrowser, with its full integration of the Camera Raw plug-in and the new Web Photo gallery feedback templates haveall significantly aided my production work flow. TheShadow/Highlight image adjustment is another powerfultool, which I can’t live without now.

Figure 1.19 Type can be added to an activepen path by clicking anywhere near to the pathwith any of the type tools. Type can also be madeto fill the interior of a shape vector path.

Illustration: Rod Wynne-Powell

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Adobe Photoshop CS for PhotographersThis review of Adobe Photoshop CS is an extract fromMartin Evening’s forthcoming book: Adobe Photoshop CSfor Photographers, which will go on sale from early 2004.This latest update in the Adobe Photoshop forPhotographers series will contain 576 pages in full color.The book has been completely redesigned and containsinformation and updated advice on everything you need toknow about using Photoshop, from digital capture to printoutput, as well as all that is new in Adobe Photoshop CS!

To order the bookAdobe Photoshop CS for Photographers is published byFocal Press, an imprint of Harcourt Education.

The title will be stocked in most major bookstoresthroughout the UK and US and via many resellersworldwide. It will also be available for purchase from:www.focalpress.com and also through the on-linebookstores: www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk.

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Whatâ€™s new in Adobe Photoshop CS P