Adobe's much-anticipated Photoshop CS6
is at last here. Having now upgraded to CS6 at the office, we can point
out that thus far it looks to be a fantastic upgrade, with a lot of
extra features to get interested in. Several red herrings have been
included for good measure, for instance the Content Aware Move
application, and at first glance you'll spot the shiny new charcoal user
interface among the many new Photoshop edition features.
Even
though there were plenty of tweaks to regular tools, you'll also spot
the addition of a few new ones as well, including the Tilt-Shift Blur
functionality.
Right here, we take a brief look at six Photoshop CS6 additional features and tell you how they work.
Adobe's
Camera Raw engine is now at ACR 7, and the combination of the
Brightness and Exposure scales into one Exposure slider makes
life much easier. The brand new Highlights and Shadows sliders mean you
can eke out more image detail without that HDR-like look. The Adjustment
Brush may now precisely tweak White Balance, also.
The initial
thing you'll see if you open a photo could be the overhaul the Photoshop
screen has gone through. It's at this moment a charcoal grey. Other
changes to the layout, panels as well as tools are logical. Mini Bridge,
unveiled in CS5, appears to work effectively this time round, and
should be considered a big aid to workflow.
Navigate to the
Filter dropdown and you'll see that the tools have had a welcome
clean-up. Field, Iris and Tilt-Shift Blur filters happen to be released,
and they all have 'on image' controls so that you can tweak the planes
of focus for toytown effects. The intuitive controls mean you don't even
have to take your eyes off the image.
The revamped crop tool
offers the same crop function as in Lightroom 4, with the image rotating
as well as the crop marks staying static. The non-destructive editing
system takes a tad of getting used to, but once perfected its helpful
Rule of Thirds and Golden Spiral grids will probably be handy if you
don't get composition right first time.
Adobe has introduced the
Mercury Graphics engine for CS6, so certain tools and functions make
greater use of your computer's graphics card. Together with the
previously slow-moving Liquify tool, for example, there's no lag. The
Background Save characteristic can also be astonishingly beneficial,
enabling you to start other projects as a file is kept.
Content
Aware Move, nestled with the Patch and Healing tools inside the Tools
panel, is supposed to allow you to move an object from a single part of a
photo to a different one. However, it seemed to work effectively within
the Adobe demos although not with all the images we tried out. Or else,
carry on shooting with the elements within the right place to start
with.
You can find more information on The Tech Labs.
