Photoshop CS5 now offers the ability to successfully make cut-out masks of complex subjects against busy backgrounds. This isn’t something new as there are a number of third-party plug-ins that have been able to do this type of masking, but this is the first time Photoshop has provided an effective, built-in solution. OK, there was the Extract command (which no longer ships with Photoshop), but this method, using the new improved Refine Edge command works much better. Click here to view the movie.

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The main reason why the Refine Edge works as well as it does is down to the new ‘Truer Edge™’ algorithm that is employed in the Edge Detection section. As you can see in the movie, by using a basic quick selection to isolate the subject and using the Radius slider and Smart Radius in the Refine Mask dialog, these steps alone can get you pretty close to achieving a successful cut-out mask. The remaining tools allow you to fine-tune these initial results.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers (Focal Press).
ISBN: 0780240522005
This extract was taken from Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers (where you can access other sample movies about Photoshop CS5). This latest update in the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers series contains 768 pages in full color, plus a DVD containing video tutorials. The book layout has been further improved to make navigation easier and contains updated advice on everything you need to know about using Photoshop, from digital capture to print output, as well as all that is new in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

The title will be stocked in most major bookstores throughout the world and also available to purchase from:
www.focalpress.com as well as through the on-line bookstores: www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk.

The Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers book is expected to start shipping after mid-May 2010.

SAN JOSE, Calif., — April 30, 2010 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the availability of the Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 product family, the highly-anticipated release of the industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow. With more than 250 new product features, the Creative Suite 5 product line brings exciting full-version upgrades of flagship creative tools and workflow enhancements to designers and developers — enabling the creation, delivery and optimization of content across media for greater impact and results.

The Adobe CS5 product family is powering the creation of content and applications for the upcoming releases of Flash® Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR® 2, which are optimized for high performance on mobile screens and designed to take advantage of native device capabilities for a richer, more immersive user experience.

Featuring integration with online content and digital marketing measurement and optimization capabilities for the first time, Creative Suite 5 products include access to signature Omniture® technologies, to capture, store and analyze information generated by websites and other sources. Adobe Creative Suite 5 products also integrate with Adobe CS Live*, a set of five innovative online services that accelerate key aspects of the creative workflow and enable designers to focus on creating their best work (CS Live services are complimentary for a limited time).

The Creative Suite 5 line-up includes five new versions: Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Creative Suite 5 Web Premium, Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, Creative Suite 5 Design Standard, as well as 15 point products and associated technologies. Creative Suite now includes a brand-new component, Adobe Flash® Catalyst™, a professional interaction design tool that allows designers to rapidly create expressive Web application interfaces and design interaction without writing cod

“We’ve seen from early customer reaction that Creative Suite 5 continues to inspire the design and developer world by combining time-saving workflow and productivity features with astonishing new capabilities, such as Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop CS5, that really push the creative envelope,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe. “Whatever the media, CS5 is ensuring that publishers and creatives can deliver stand-out work and build great businesses around their unique digital assets and content.”

Also available as part of the Creative Suite 5 product family, sold separately or in one of the five Creative Suite editions, are new versions of the Adobe Creative Suite tools, including Photoshop® CS5, Illustrator® CS5, InDesign® CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash CS5 Professional, Dreamweaver® CS5, Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS5, After Effects® CS5 and more. The Creative Suite 5 products offer more than 250 new features that embrace interactivity, enhance performance and maximize the impact of creative content and digital marketing campaigns. InDesign CS5 powers the transition to digital publishing with new interactive documents and enhanced electronic reader device support. Image creation and editing get a boost with Truer Edge technology in Photoshop CS5, which offers better edge detecting technology and masking results in less time. Photoshop CS5 also includes the ability to remove an image element and immediately replace the missing pixels with Content-Aware Fill. New stroke options allow Adobe Illustrator CS5 users to create strokes of variable widths and precisely adjust the width at any point along the stroke. New Text Layout Framework in Flash Professional CS5 provides professional-level typography capabilities with functions like kerning, ligatures, tracking, leading, threaded text block and multiple columns. In addition, Dreamweaver CS5 now supports popular content management systems Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress, allowing designers to get accurate views of dynamic Web content from within the product.

Performance improvements abound in the Creative Suite 5 product line with engineering breakthroughs, including native 64-bit support on both Mac and Windows® in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, that allows users to work more fluidly on high-resolution projects. The much anticipated NVIDIA® GPU-accelerated Adobe Mercury Playback Engine allows Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 users to open projects faster, refine effects-rich HD sequences in real time and play back complex projects without rendering. The revolutionary timesaving Roto Brush tool in After Effects helps users isolate moving foreground elements in a fraction of the normal time.

Accelerate Creative Workflows with Adobe CS Live Adobe Creative Suite 5 products integrate with Adobe CS Live*, a set of five online services that accelerate key aspects of the creative workflow and enable designers to focus on creating their best work. CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time and currently include: Adobe BrowserLab, Adobe CS Review, Acrobat.com, Adobe Story and SiteCatalyst® NetAverages™ from Omniture. Adobe CS Review enables online design reviews from directly in Creative Suite 5 applications, while Adobe BrowserLab is an indispensable tool for testing website content across different browsers and operating systems. NetAverages provides Web usage data that helps reduce the guesswork early in the creative process when designing for Web and mobile. Adobe Story is a collaborative scriptwriting tool that improves production and post-production workflows in CS5 Production Premium. Access to Acrobat.com services, such as Adobe ConnectNow Web conferencing, is also included to enhance discussion and information exchange with colleagues and clients around the glob

Create and Deliver to More Mobile Platforms Using Flash Professional CS5, designers and developers can create, test and deliver Web content across a wide range of mobile platforms and devices such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks and other consumer electronics. Users can look forward to deploying content in the browser with Flash Player 10.1 and as a standalone application with AIR 2.

Pricing and Availability Adobe Creative Suite 5 products and its associated point products will be available through Adobe Authorized Resellers, Adobe Direct Sales and the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com/store . Estimated street price for the suites is US$1899 for CS5 Design Premium, US$1799 for CS5 Web Premium, US$1699 for CS5 Production Premium, US$1299 for CS5 Design Standard and US$2599 for Master Collection CS5. Upgrade pricing, volume licensing and education discounts are available. Adobe CS5 products integrate with Adobe CS Live online services which are complimentary for a limited time. For more detailed information about features, OS support, upgrade policies, pricing and international versions please visit: www.adobe.com/go/creativesuite . About Adobe Systems Incorporated Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com .

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© 2010 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Adobe Premiere, AfterEffects, Creative Suite, Dreamweaver, Flash, Flash Catalyst, Illustrator, InDesign, Omniture, Photoshop and SiteCatalyst NetAverages are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Prices listed are the Adobe direct store prices in the U.S; reseller prices may vary. Prices do not include tax or shipping and handling.

Photoshop CS5 was announced this week and we have seen a wealth of new features for photographers, more so than any other version of Photoshop I can think of. By now you may already have had a chance to see some of the star new features in action such as Content-Aware filling, Puppet Warp and the new Merge to HDR Pro. Tucked away in Photoshop CS5 are a bunch of other smaller features, which nevertheless can be put to good use. In this article I wanted to focus on the new Divide blend mode. It took me a while to work out what it could be useful for, until Chris Cox who helped point me in the right direction by explaining that it could be useful for carrying out what is usually referred to as a ‘flat field calibration’. In other words, you could use the Divide blend mode to remove lens vignetting and stubborn sensor spots.

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Some specialist digital capture systems, such as those used in astronomy and microscopy already offer their own software solutions to achieve this kind of sensor clean-up processing. However, with the new Divide blend mode you can carry out flat field calibrations for any type of digital camera system. Be warned that this is a tricky technique to get right. This method may in some circumstances help you cut down on the time spent retouching, providing you are able to capture a valid flat field calibration image close to the time when the other photos were shot.

1 The first step was to capture an image of an evenly lit white surface, exposed so that the center was 100% white. The key thing was to make sure the illumination was even and defocus the camera so as not to pick up any subject texture. It was also important to capture this image at the same aperture as I was going to shoot with since this would affect the definition of the sensor dust picked up by the camera. Since the high-end display I work with has uniform brightness, I got good results by photographing the computer display with a white desktop. I shot at a low ISO setting to keep the noise to a minimum. I also bracketed the exposures so that I had the opportunity to choose the most suitable image – one that was bright enough to apply a Divide blend mode calibration and required minimal further image adjustments to the brightness.

2 Shown here is the original image before adding the calibration layer in Divide blend mode.

3 I placed the flat field calibration layer above the background layer of an image shot with the same camera at the same lens aperture and set the blend mode to ‘Divide’ at 100%.

4 Here you can see the modified version where the divide blend mode calibration layer canceled out the lens vignetting and all the sensor spots. The net result was a modified image in which the added layer canceled out the sensor marks that were present in the original and removed any lens vignetting.

5 However, it was important to fine-tune the brightness of this layer using a clipping Curves layer so that the calibration layer in Divide mode precisely canceled out the sensor marks on the layer below. Once I had got the adjustment right for this image. the same setting could be used on other subsequent photos.

6 One of the reasons I chose to include this technique was to show what the new Divide blend mode could be useful for. In all honesty, I think the easiest approach would be to use the Camera Raw Lens Corrections adjustments to take care of the vignetting and use the remove spots tool in Camera Raw to remove the dust marks and synchronize the spotting adjustments across all the other affected photos. This could certainly work well for an image like the one shown here. On the other hand, if you have a problem with a particularly dusty sensor or the dust marks fall on top of areas where it would be tricky to retouch, the flat field calibration technique might just save the day. As you can see in the close-up views shown here, I was able to do a good job of removing most of the spots. However, I was only able to partially remove the big dust mark in the top left corner. It would have been unrealistic to have expected a better result than this for such a large sensor mark.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers (Focal Press).
ISBN: 0780240522005
This extract was taken from Adobe Photoshop CS5 for Photographers. This latest update in the Adobe Photoshop for Photographers series will contain 768 pages in full color, plus a DVD containing video tutorials. The book layout has been further improved to make navigation easier and contains updated advice on everything you need to know about using Photoshop, from digital capture to print output, as well as all that is new in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

The title will be stocked in most major bookstores throughout the world and also available to purchase from:
www.focalpress.com as well as through the on-line bookstores: www.amazon.com and www.amazon.co.uk.

Milestone Release Celebrates 20 Years of Unrivaled Image Editing and Innovation

SAN JOSE, Calif., — April 12, 2010 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Photoshop® CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended software, must-have releases of the professional industry standard for digital imaging. With millions of users celebrating the product’s 20th anniversary this year, Photoshop CS5 builds upon a rich history of innovation and leadership with groundbreaking features and performance gains that boost creativity and workflow efficiency. Packing in more technological advancements from Adobe Labs than any other release and incorporating enhancements to everyday tasks requested by the Photoshop community, the software has greater intelligence and awareness of the content within images, allowing for complex and magical manipulation in just a few clicks. Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended delivers everything in Photoshop CS5, as well as advanced tools for 3-D which address the unique needs of the video, Web, medical, manufacturing and engineering industries.

Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended will be available as stand-alone applications or key components of the Adobe Creative Suite® 5 family (see separate releases).

“The past two decades have demonstrated an amazing interplay between customers who want to push the limits of their personal creativity and a passionate team of Adobe engineers who make those visions a reality,” said Kevin Connor, vice president of product management for professional digital imaging at Adobe. “We experienced this firsthand when we posted a ‘sneak peek’ video of the team’s work on the Content Aware Fill feature a few weeks ago. It quickly became the number one viral video online, with close to 2 million views and its ‘magic’ was one of the top trending Twitter topics of discussion. This version of Photoshop has some of the most innovative and extraordinary technologies to ever come from our labs and clearly customers are already clamoring for it.”

Redefining the Image-Editing Experience
Now a native 64-bit application on both Mac and Windows®, Photoshop CS5 delivers superior tools and creative control so users can perform advanced image manipulations and compositing with ease. Revolutionary image intelligence behind Content-Aware Fill magically removes any image detail or object, examines the surroundings and seamlessly fills in the space left behind. Lighting, tone and noise of the surrounding area match perfectly, looking as if the removed content never existed. New Refine Edge makes nearly-impossible image selections possible. This innovative technology precisely detects and masks the trickiest types of edges, such as hair and foliage, while eliminating background color contamination.

For photographers, Photoshop CS5 now offers next-generation high dynamic range (HDR) capabilities. When combining multiple exposures into a single HDR image, Photoshop CS5 preserves the full tonal range of a scene with unprecedented speed and accuracy. The new HDR Pro offers exceptional ghost artifact removal and greater tone mapping and adjustment control. With HDR toning, users can emulate the striking look of an HDR image with any single-exposure image.

Photoshop CS5 provides revolutionary tools that maximize users’ creative impact. Breakthrough painting capabilities include a Mixer Brush that blends an infinite combination of colors onto a single paintbrush tip, and Bristle Tips that offer lifelike brush strokes. Puppet Warp gives users the power to precisely reposition or warp any image element, such as straightening a bent arm in a photo or manipulating the landscape to generate a new perspective.

“Since its inception, Adobe Photoshop has been a key tool for pre-and post-production work in the motion picture industry,” said Jon Landau, Academy Award winning producer of Avatar and Titanic. “With Photoshop CS5 Extended, Adobe gives filmmakers new painting, HDR and 3-D tools that will help them push the limits of creativity. Faster performance with cross-platform 64-bit support and tight integration with other Adobe Creative Suite 5 software makes Photoshop CS5 an even more powerful tool in a filmmaker’s arsenal. Photoshop empowers filmmakers and creative professionals in virtually every other industry to turn their imagined ideas into onscreen reality.”

Community Involvement Drives Enhancements
In addition, more than 30 features and enhancements requested directly by the Photoshop community have been added to this release, including automatic image straightening, rule-of-thirds crop tool, color picker and the ability to save 16-bit images as JPEGs. The goal of this engineering effort was to address seemingly minor enhancements that directly impact everyday workflow, but aren’t always at the top of the development list for a new release. A new customizable Adobe Mini Bridge panel is also available directly in the software for faster file browsing and management.

Taking 3D and Motion to the Next Level
Photoshop CS5 Extended includes everything in Photoshop CS5 plus tools for editing 3D and motion-based content. With new Adobe Repoussé technology, users can easily create 3D logos and artwork from any text layer, shape or mask, as well as twist, rotate and extrude designs for different looks. To mirror the realism and appearance of 3D objects, a new materials library offers a breadth of rich options, including chrome, glass and cork. Users can also enhance the appearance of 3D objects by quickly creating shadows with the new shadow catcher. For motion content, tools including paint, text and clone can be used directly over multiple frames of a video sequence with ease using single-key shortcuts.

Adobe Photoshop Family
Building upon the 20-year history of Photoshop innovation and leadership, Adobe offers a line of Photoshop solutions for every level of user. Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended software are at the heart of the Photoshop family, providing unrivaled power and editing freedom. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® addresses the workflow needs of serious, amateur and professional photographers, helping them find, manage, enhance and showcase images in powerful ways. Adobe Photoshop Elements software provides accessible tools and sharing options for photo enthusiasts. Snap-shooters can quickly and easily share and edit photos with simple gestures using the free Photoshop.com Mobile application on their iPhone or Android™ devices. Photoshop.com completes the Photoshop line providing an online photo sharing, editing and hosting resource for all.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS5 Extended are scheduled to ship within 30 days with availability through Adobe Authorized Resellers, the Adobe Store and Adobe Direct Sales. Estimated street price for Adobe Photoshop CS5 is US$699 and US$999 for Photoshop CS5 Extended. Upgrade pricing and volume licensing are available. For more detailed information about features, OS support, upgrade policies and pricing, please visit www.adobe.com/go/photoshop.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s new in this release:

• Improved performance throughout the application for faster importing and loading of images
• Native tethered shooting support for select Nikon and Canon DSLR cameras
• Luminance noise reduction has been added to the previous color noise reduction improvements available in the first public beta for outstanding overall high ISO quality
• Support for importing and managing video files from DSLR cameras for better overall photographic workflow control
• Improvements to the import experience in the first beta to reflect public feedback
• Improved watermarking functionality from the first beta to reflect public feedback

Here are a few early resources on Lightroom 3 beta 2.

Julieanne Kost walks through the changes in Lightroom 3 beta 2
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/what-s-new-in-lightroom-3-beta/whats-new-in-lightroom-3-beta-2/

A comprehensive blog post by Ian Lyons
http://www.computer-darkroom.com/lr3_beta_2_preview/lr3-beta2-1.htm

Victoria Bampton adds her detailed notes on the beta update
http://www.lightroomqueen.com/blog/2010/03/23/whats-new-in-lightroom-30-beta2/

Jeffrey Friedl provides a new Snapshot on Export plug-in that only works with Lightroom 3 beta 2
http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/snapshot-on-export

Sean McCormack posts his thoughts on the Lightroom-blog:
http://lightroom-blog.com/2010/03/lightroom-3-beta-2.html

Adobe Photoshop Hits Twenty
Community Celebrates Software that Changed the Way We View the World

SAN JOSE, Calif., – Feb. 18, 2010 – Adobe® Photoshop®, the software product that redefined creativity in the digital age, turns 20 on Feb. 19, 2010.

Around the world, Photoshop fans are celebrating the impact their favorite software has had across photography, art, design, publishing and commerce.

In the United States, the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) will be hosting a special Photoshop 20th Anniversary celebration for over a thousand attendees in San Francisco at the Palace of the Fine Arts Theater today.

The event will feature Adobe’s senior vice president of Creative Solutions, John Loiacono, as well as vice president of Photoshop Product Management, Kevin Connor, Photoshop co-creator Thomas Knoll and famed Adobe creative director and Photoshop evangelist, Russell Brown. To be a part of this celebration and view the live Webcast, visit: www.photoshopuser.com/photoshop20th.

The festivities continue overseas in Japan, Southeast Asia and throughout Europe.

In honor of the 20th anniversary, Adobe Germany will host a special 20-hour online marathon, featuring over 15 local Photoshop “gurus” demonstrating their favorite tips and tricks live for Photoshop fans. In India and France, digital imaging contests will be held to showcase the work of Photoshop users.

A special Adobe TV broadcast will also air on the anniversary date at http://tv.adobe.com/go/photoshop-20th-anniversary, reuniting the original “Photoshop team” for the first time in 18 years, to discuss their early work on the software and demonstrate Photoshop 1.0 on a rebuilt Macintosh computer.

The Photoshop community is also sharing their favorite stories online, with the product and its over 400,000 fan-strong Facebook page, the hub for a worldwide look at the product’s impact. A new “Celebrate” tab directs users to a 20th anniversary logo, which many have already personalized with Photoshop and used as a replacement for their profile image. Connect with the Photoshop team at www.facebook.com/Photoshop or http://twitter.com/photoshop, and add the tag #PS20 to tweets about the anniversary.

“For 20 years Photoshop has played many different roles – it has given creative people the power to deliver amazing images that impact every part of our visual culture and challenged the eye with its ability to transform photographs,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer at Adobe. “It’s no exaggeration to say that, thanks to millions of creative customers, Photoshop has changed the way the world looks at itself.”

The impact of Photoshop is everywhere – billboard signs, magazine covers, major motion pictures, even the logo on the coffee cup you drink out of every morning. All have likely been touched by the software. Over 90 percent of creative professionals have Photoshop on their desktops and today Photoshop is used by professional photographers, graphic designers and advertisers, as well as architects, engineers and even doctors. Whether it’s bringing visual effects to life in the blockbuster film Avatar, helping save lives in partnership with forensics departments and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, or challenging the human eye to determine if an image is real or fake, Photoshop continues to find new uses and advocates.

How It All Began
In 1987, Thomas Knoll developed a pixel imaging program called Display. It was a simple program to showcase grayscale images on a black-and-white monitor. However, after collaborating with his brother John Knoll, the two began adding features that made it possible to process digital image files. The program eventually caught the attention of industry influencers, and in 1988, Adobe made the decision to license the software, naming it Photoshop, and shipping the first version in 1990.

“Twenty years ago, Adobe predicted that it would sell 500 copies of Photoshop per month,” said Thomas Knoll, co-creator of Photoshop at Adobe. “I guess you could say, we beat those projections! It’s amazing to think that millions of people use this software today. We knew we had a groundbreaking technology on our hands, but we never anticipated how much it would impact the images we see all around us. The ability to seamlessly place someone within an image was just the beginning of Photoshop’s magic.”

Over its 20-year history, Photoshop has evolved significantly from a simple original display program to a wildly popular application that has over 10 million users worldwide. With each release, Adobe has introduced technological innovations that defy the impossible. Layers, introduced in Photoshop 3.0, gave designers the ability to create complex compositions easier than ever before. The Healing Brush, another groundbreaking feature introduced in Photoshop 7.0, allowed users to magically retouch images by seamlessly removing blemishes and wrinkles, while preserving lighting and texture. Photoshop tools like crop, eraser, blur and dodge and burn have become part of the creative vernacular worldwide.

The Photoshop team thrives off its rich beta tester program, with active and vocal users who have submitted requests and helped shape the development of features throughout the years. Adobe has maintained a strong connection with its customer base through blogs, user research, customer support, forums and feedback from Adobe “evangelists” who travel the world to engage with Photoshop users.

Helpful Links
National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) Photoshop 20th Anniversary Celebration: www.photoshopuser.com/photoshop20th

Adobe TV Photoshop 20th Anniversary Broadcast: http://tv.adobe.com/go/photoshop-20th-anniversary

Photoshop Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/Photoshop

Photoshop Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/Photoshop

Photoshop Twitter: http://twitter.com/photoshop

Photoshop Family Page: www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family

Adobe Photoshop Family
Building upon Photoshop’s history of innovation and leadership, Adobe offers a line of Photoshop desktop and Web-hosted solutions for every level of user. Each product in the Photoshop family gives users across the spectrum of digital expertise the power to manage, edit, create and showcase images.

Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended software are at the heart of the Photoshop family, providing unrivaled power and editing freedom. Photoshop Lightroom(r) addresses the workflow needs of serious amateur and professional photographers, helping them find, manage, enhance and showcase images in powerful ways. Photoshop Elements software provides accessible tools and sharing options for photo enthusiasts. Snap-shooters can quickly and easily share and edit photos with simple gestures on their iPhone or Android devices. Photoshop.com completes the Photoshop line providing an online photo sharing, editing and hosting resource for all.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

Adobe today announced the immediate availability of Lightroom 2.6, Photoshop Camera Raw 5.6 and DNG Converter 5.6 on Adobe.com. Originally posted as release candidates for community testing on Adobe Labs, these final versions include raw file support for 20 new popular camera models, including the Canon EOS 7D and Nikon D3s. Additional DNG support has been added for the Leica M9 and Ricoh GXR camera models. A full list of the newly supported cameras is below.

The updates also provide a fix for an issue affecting PowerPC customers using the final Lightroom 2.5 and Camera Raw 5.5 updates on the Mac. The issue, introduced in the demosaic change to address sensors with unequal green response, has the potential to create artifacts in the highlight area while using the Highlight Recovery tool in raw files from Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and various medium format digital camera backs.

Adobe would like to thank everyone who downloaded and provided feedback on the Lightroom 2.6 and Camera Raw 5.6 Release Candidates. Lightroom 2 software is today’s digital photography workflow solution, allowing photographers to quickly import, process, manage and showcase images, and the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in provides fast and easy access within Photoshop to the raw image formats produced by many leading digital cameras. Adobe’s Digital Negative (DNG) format is a publicly available archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras.

Pricing and Availability
Lightroom 2.6 is available as a free download for existing Lightroom 2 customers, and Photoshop Camera Raw 5.6 is available as a free download for existing customers of Photoshop CS4, Photoshop Elements 8 (Win/Mac) and Premiere Elements 8. DNG Converter 5.6 is also available as a free download for all customers. Click here for more information and to download the updates: www.adobe.com/downloads/updates.

Newly Supported Camera Models

Canon EOS 1D Mark IV
Canon EOS 7D
Canon PowerShot G11
Canon PowerShot S90
Leaf Aptus II 5
Mamiya DM22, DM28, DM33, DM56, M18, M22, M31
Nikon D3s
Olympus E-P2
Pentax K-x
Panasonic FZ38
Sigma DP1s
Sony A500
Sony A550
Sony A850

Adobe has announced that Photoshop Camera Raw 5.6, Lightroom 2.6 and DNG Converter 5.6 Release Candidates are available for immediate download on Adobe Labs. The term ‘release candidate’ means this update is well tested but would benefit from additional community testing to provide the highest quality experience for customers working on a variety of hardware and software configurations.

The updates add raw file support for 19 new popular camera models, including the Canon EOS 7D and Nikon D3s, with additional DNG support added for the Leica M9 camera model. A full list of the newly supported cameras is below. The Release Candidates also provide a fix for an issue affecting PowerPC customers using the final Lightroom 2.5 and Camera Raw 5.5 updates on the Mac. The issue, introduced in the demosaic change to address sensors with unequal green response, has the potential to create artifacts in the highlight area while using the Highlight Recovery tool in raw files from Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and various medium format digital camera backs.

Photoshop Lightroom 2 software is today’s digital photography workflow solution, allowing photographers to quickly import, process, manage and showcase images. The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in provides fast and easy access within Photoshop to the raw image formats produced by many leading digital cameras, and Adobe’s Digital Negative (DNG) format is a publicly available archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras.

Pricing and Availability

The Lightroom 2.6 Release Candidate is available as a free download for existing Lightroom 2 customers, and the Photoshop Camera Raw 5.6 Release Candidate is available as a free download for existing customers of Photoshop CS4. The DNG Converter 5.6 Release Candidate is also available as a free download for all customers. Click here for more information and to test out the updates: http://labs.adobe.com/. Feedback can be provided on the Adobe User to User forum (http://forums.adobe.com).

Newly Supported Camera Models

Canon EOS 7D
Canon PowerShot G11
Canon PowerShot S90
Leaf Aptus II 5
Mamiya DM22, DM28, DM33, DM56, M18, M22, M31
Nikon D3s
Olympus E-P2
Pentax K-x
Panasonic FZ38
Sigma DP1s
Sony A500
Sony A550
Sony A850

Adobe has released an early public beta of Lightroom 3 on Labs.Adobe.com. It should be noted this is an early beta and in no way feature complete. Below is the Adobe Press Release.

New Lightroom beta delivers faster performance, refined image processing and streamlined publishing

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Oct. 22, 2009 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta software for Macintosh and Windows, a public preview of new and improved functionality to be delivered in the next major release. Lightroom is the essential digital photography workflow solution, helping serious amateur and professional photographers quickly import, manage, enhance and showcase all their images from one application. Available as a free download on Adobe Labs, Lightroom 3 beta delivers a preview of new tools that will be in Lightroom 3, including more intuitive importing, unparalleled noise reduction and sharpening tools, enhanced slideshow capabilities and direct publishing to online photo sharing sites like Flickr. Adobe encourages photographers to test this early selection of new features and provide the product team with their feedback.

“We are extremely fortunate that a strong community of photographers have rallied around Lightroom, helping to evolve the application and making it a meaningful part of their photographic workflows,” said Kevin Connor, vice president of product management for Professional Digital Imaging at Adobe. “While we’re still hard at work on Lightroom 3, we recognize the value our customers bring to the development process and want their input so we can deliver the best final product possible.”

New in Lightroom 3 Beta

Lightroom 3 beta has been completely redesigned with under-the-hood efficiencies to better handle growing image libraries and improve responsiveness with a higher-quality processing engine. In the Library module, a rebuilt import system makes bringing photos into the software more intuitive. Users can easily specify the source and destination of their images, and save common processing, metadata or destination settings as easy-to-reuse presets.

The Library module also includes new capabilities to publish collections on popular photo-sharing sites. Flickr users now have direct access to their accounts from within Lightroom and can drag and drop images directly into their Photostreams. Flickr Pro account users can automatically synch their images and even view comments made on Flickr directly within the Library. This functionality can be extended to additional sites by adding them as new plug-ins once they become available.

In the Develop module, an overhauled processing engine allows users to create the highest quality images. Improved Capture Sharpening and Color Noise Reduction tools provide superior results while still preserving an image’s edge detail and contrast. A new Grain tool adds a film-style grain to images, and two new Vignette modes help photographers get a more natural look.

Lightroom 3 beta also offers advanced output options, including the ability to export slideshows as videos with audio and title screens that can be posted to video-sharing sites or optimized for mobile media. New watermarking capabilities enable photographers to embed text or graphic information directly on an image and then adjust the size, position and opacity. In addition, photographers can customize print layouts and save settings for future use, giving them refined control over their images.

Adobe Photoshop Family

Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended software are at the heart of the Photoshop family, joined by solutions for users at every level who want to bring out the best in their digital images. Photoshop Lightroom addresses the workflow needs of serious amateur and professional photographers, helping them manage, find, enhance and showcase images in impactful ways. Adobe Photoshop Elements software provides exciting tools and sharing options for photo enthusiasts. Lastly, snap shooters can access Photoshop.com for free to simply fix and enhance photos, and quickly share those images on Photoshop.com or on social-networking sites.

Pricing and Availability

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta is available as a free download to anyone on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Visit http://labs.adobe.com/downloads to learn more and download the beta. Feedback can be submitted on the Lightroom forums: http://forums.adobe.com/community/lightroom.

Well, sorta. It’s actually limited to some basic editing features such as cropping, rotating, changing color and a few processing effects such as soft focus, vignette and others. But it is sorta like having Photoshop on your iPhone. Here’s Adobe’s press release:

Adobe Unveils Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone
New Adobe application brings must-have photo tools and eye-catching effects to iPhone users

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Oct. 9, 2009 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today introduced Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone application, delivering Adobe industry-leading digital-imaging technology to users on the go. Photoshop.com Mobile provides consumers a convenient way to edit photos, apply effects and share images instantly with friends – all with the flick of a finger. Seamless integration with users’ free Photoshop.com accounts enables photo sharing and data back-up, saving them valuable space on their iPhones. The application is available free of charge at Apple’s App Store.

“As the digital imaging leader, Adobe is excited to bring Photoshop.com Mobile to iPhone users,” said Doug Mack, vice president and general manager of Consumer and Hosted Solutions at Adobe. “Now, with access to powerful editing and sharing tools, iPhone users are armed with the resources to document all of life’s unexpected moments, make them look their best and then re-live those memories with friends and family.”

Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone provides a fun, seamless experience to view photos with full-screen previews and edit images with gesture-based editing. Consumers can transform their photos with essential edits like crop, rotate and flip. Users can correct and play with color by adjusting the saturation and tint, enhancing the exposure and vibrancy and converting images to black and white.

Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone also offers eye-catching special effects. The Sketch tool helps photos look like drawings, and Soft Focus can give photos a subtle blur for artistic effect. With just one click, users can also apply dramatic changes to the look and feel of their photos with effects such as Warm Vintage, Vignette and Pop. Edits or changes can be undone or redone so users can experiment without the worry of losing the original photo.

After making personalized edits, users can upload photos from their iPhone to their Photoshop.com account to view and retrieve their images at a later time from any Internet-connected computer. In addition, Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone provides the ultimate digital photo wallet, giving users access to their entire Photoshop.com library directly from their iPhone. Photoshop.com offers 2GB of free online photo storage, which equates to over 1,500 photos.

More information on Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone can be found at: mobile.photoshop.com/iphone.

Adobe Photoshop Family

Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended are at the heart of the Photoshop family, joined by solutions for users at every level who want to bring out the best in their digital images. Photoshop Lightroom addresses the workflow needs of professional and serious amateur photographers. Photoshop Elements provides exciting tools and sharing options for photo enthusiasts. Lastly, snap shooters can access Photoshop.com for free online photo editing to simply fix and enhance photos and quickly share those images on social-networking sites or through Photoshop.com online galleries.

Pricing and Availability

The Adobe Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone application is available as a free download from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch, or at this link. The application is available in the U.S. and Canada only.

Check out Mark’s going away party from April, 2008. For more information about Mark check out the Shadowland/Lightroom Development Story. Mark will be working from home and the Seattle office of Adobe while the family decides whether or not to return to the San Jose area. It’s also not clear as of yet exactly what projects Mark will be working on. He will be briefed about on going projects and news is expected in the coming weeks. It’s not thought that he plans to rejoin the Lightroom engineering team at this time. The DI department handles all of Adobe’s pro level imaging apps such as the Creative Suite apps of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Soundbooth as well as others. Lightroom and Camera Raw/DNG are also under the DI roof.

Welcome back Mark, we missed ya!

Adobe today released the final Photoshop Lightroom 2.4 and Camera Raw 5.4 updates, available for immediate download at www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/. Both updates bring additional raw file support to 31 camera and camera back models including the Canon EOS 500D, Nikon D5000 and 18 Hasselblad models. A full list of the newly supported camera and camera back models is below.

In addition, Adobe released an update to its Digital Negative specification (DNG), the public archival format for digital camera raw data. DNG addresses the lack of an open standard for raw files created by individual camera models, helping to ensure that photographers will be able to access their files in the future.

DNG 1.3 now includes opcodes, a defined list of operations and their parameters for performing complex activities in the raw file conversion process. These activities include corrections and enhancements that are beneficial when performed prior to the demosaic process but are difficult due to a camera’s limited processing power. They also include corrections and enhancements that can only be performed after the demosaic process such as lens correction. By utilizing opcodes, photographers can maintain the advantages of raw mosaic data, giving them increased opportunity to improve their photographs with the maximum amount of image data preserved. The DNG SDK has also been updated to reflect the changes to the specification.

Pricing and Availability

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.4 update is available as a free download for existing Lightroom 2 customers and Camera Raw 5.4 is available as a free download for existing customers of Photoshop CS4, Photoshop Elements 7, Premiere Elements 7 and Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac. For more information and to download the updates visit: www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/. Details on the updated DNG Specification and SDK are available on www.adobe.com/dng.

Additional Supported Camera and Camera Back Models

Canon EOS 500D (Digital Rebel T1i /Kiss X3 Digital)

Canon PowerShot SX1 IS

Epson R-D1x

Hasselblad (3FR files only) CF-22, CF-22MS, CF-39, CF-39MS, CFH-22, CFH-39, CFV, 503CWD, H2D-22, H2D-39, H3D-22, H3D-31, H3D-39, H3DII-22, H3DII-31, H3DII-39, H3DII-39MS, H3DII-50

Kodak EasyShare Z980

Nikon D5000

Olympus E-450

Olympus E-620

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH1

Pentax K-7

Sigma DP2

Sony A230

Sony A330

Sony A380

This movie extract is from  Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop.

One of the top requests for Camera Raw and Lightroom has been to include perspective corrections, so that users can apply perspective corrections to raw images. It so happens there is already a method in Camera Raw and Photoshop that will allow you to correct the perspective of a raw photograph while keeping the image in its original raw file state. This isn’t exactly a hidden feature in Camera Raw, but this movie does demonstrate a workaround for correcting perspective of raw files while keeping them fully editable in Camera Raw. Here’s how it can be done.

Please note this video is in Quicktime format. A player can be downloaded from apple.com.

This movie extract is a smaller version of the one found on the DVD disc that comes with  Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop, jointly authored by Martin Evening and Jeff Schewe. The book is published by Focal Press and contains 400 pages of tutorials and tips on how to achieve the best results out of Camera Raw and Photoshop. You can also find out more about the book by visiting the Photoshop for Photographers website where you can preview more of the content that will be appearing in this book.

Dead Pixels are annoying little dark bits you’ll see on your screen when a bunch of teeny tiny subpixels are permanently off. It might be a broken transistor or just a pixel that’s stuck on black. Or if you’re messing around with Google Earth, it might be an 82-centimeter by 82-centimeter square of burnt grass.

Read the full story…

Click here to view movie

This movie extract is from  Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop.

You know how the camera always seems to add 10 lbs.? You can shave those extra pounds away using Photoshop. This demo shows two methods of making people look thinner. And, if you do it with subtlety, you’ll never know that is was Photoshop that took those extra pounds off–and your clients will think you are a genius!

Please note this video is in Quicktime format. A player can be downloaded from apple.com.

This movie extract can be found on the DVD disc that comes with  Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop, jointly authored by Martin Evening and Jeff Schewe. The book is published by Focal Press and contains 400 pages of tutorials and tips on how to achieve the best results out of Camera Raw and Photoshop. You can also find out more about the book by visiting the Photoshop for Photographers website where you can preview more of the content that will be appearing in this book.

This movie extract is from  Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop.

Here is an interesting challenge that I was presented with recently. I shot the model shown above for an advertising job and was asked by the client to make sure that the skin tone and nails looked flawless. After they had seen the initial retouch work they also asked if I could clean up the hair outline. At first it looked like this would be impossible to achieve. After all, how on earth can one use the clone stamp or healing brush to tidy up the fine hair strands against a background which consisted of a busy wallpaper pattern? As it turned out, the solution to this problem was staring me in the face!

Please note this video is in Quicktime format. A player can be downloaded from apple.com.

This movie extract is a smaller version of the one found on the DVD disc that comes with  Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop (now on sale), jointly authored by Martin Evening and Jeff Schewe. The book is published by Focal Press and contains 400 pages of tutorials and tips on how to achieve the best results out of Camera Raw and Photoshop. You can also find out more about the book by visiting the Photoshop for Photographers website where you can preview more of the content that will be appearing in this book.

Andrew Rodney and JP Caponigro and I are doing another mini-Print Academy for Epson. After PSW I’m off to hook up with Seth Resnick and Michael Reichmann in Miami Beach for some tutorial taping….more about that later!

Yep, there are already a lot of ways to convert a color image to grayscale in Photoshop or Camera Raw. But all of them except this technique mean your image is converted as a global correction. Using color channels as grayscale layers means you can use layer masks to alter the grayscale conversion and allows you to optimize for the best possible result. The technique allows shows how to re-convert your grayscale image back to a color image for the purposes of color toning.

Please note this video is in Quicktime format. A player can be downloaded from apple.com.

This movie extract can be found on the DVD disc that comes with  Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop, jointly authored by Martin Evening and Jeff Schewe. The book is published by Focal Press and contains 400 pages of tutorials and tips on how to achieve the best results out of Camera Raw and Photoshop. You can also find out more about the book by visiting the Photoshop for Photographers website where you can preview more of the content that will be appearing in this book.

Click to view movie

Have you ever found yourself in the position where you are trying to photograph a building, but can’t get a clear view of the subject because of lamp posts or other objects that are in the foreground? In this short movie clip I show how with a little forward planing it is possible to remove offending objects from the foreground without needing to use either the clone stamp or healing brush. Essentially, you can use the new improved auto-alignment command in Photoshop to sucessfuly merge two exposures shot from different angles.

Please note this video is in Quicktime format. A player can be downloaded from apple.com.

This movie extract can be found on the DVD disc that comes with  Adobe Photoshop CS4 for Photographers: The Ultimate Workshop (now on sale, as of 6th March 2009), jointly authored by Martin Evening and Jeff Schewe. The book is published by Focal Press and contains 400 pages of tutorials and tips on how to achieve the best results out of Camera Raw and Photoshop. You can also find out more about the book by visiting the Photoshop for Photographers website where you can preview more of the content that will be appearing in this book.

The Lightroom 2.3 and Camera Raw 5.3 updates, originally posted as release candidates for community testing on Jan. 23, provide raw file support for the newly-released Nikon D3X and Olympus E-30 cameras. The Lightroom 2.3 update also provides support for eight additional languages including Dutch, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Swedish, Korean, Chinese (simplified) and Chinese (traditional). Additionally, it addresses several issues including a solution to a memory leak that affected some customers of the Lightroom 2.2 release. 

Pricing and Availability

The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.3 update is available as a free download for existing Lightroom 2 customers and the Photoshop Camera Raw 5.3 plug-in is available as a free download for existing customers of Photoshop CS4, Photoshop Elements 7, Premiere Elements 7 and Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac. Both updates can be downloaded at www.adobe.com/downloads/updates/.