I’m now allowed to say that I’m a beta tester for the new Adobe Photoshop CS5 and to release images that I’ve edited using it. What I’m not allowed to reveal is the tools that I’ve used. I would hate to find a “This site closed by authority of Adobe Systems Inc.” banner across my homepage. 🙂
Beta testers had a special private meeting with Adobe at Photoshop World, where they showed demos of the new CS5 features. Believe me when I say we were thoroughly wowed.
Here are some before and after examples. The first two are my attempts to really push it. I didn’t want to take the time to try to make these perfect, because I know a lot of my readers are bloggers who just want a quick edit for photos they’ll use on their blogs.
Bryan O’Neil Hughes from Adobe explained that algorithm CS5 uses for this feature is random, so you can play with it and get different/better results. (You’re free to pretend along with me that you completely understand what I just said. Just trust me that it’s true.)
I spent no more than 1-2 minutes of editing time per photo. No heavy lifting was involved.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
Photoshop CS5 actually rebuilt the wall and fence behind where my kids were standing. If you don’t think that’s amazing, you’re much harder to impress than I am.
Here are examples that are more in line with my regular usage. In both images, I would want to remove the background distractions.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
What do you think? Pretty awesome, huh?
NAPP will also launch a CS5 Learning Center on April 12.
Be sure to sign up using the link below to be part of the Photoshop CS5 Global Launch Event!
WOW! That’s pretty awesome. Considering I’m horrible with that clone stamp, this looks like it would be something I could use. Hmmmm. How expensive will CS5 be?
.-= COCO´s last blog ..Wordless Wednesday (old place, 1 lb onion rings, American) =-.
I’m not sure, but you should save a lot with upgrade pricing since you’re already a PS user.
I’ve been waiting for these content-aware features ever since they were first previewed. However, now that I’ve seen more examples, I have to say I’m less optimistic about their commercial viability.
In the fence example, while possibly OK for a snapshot, I’d never sell a print of it at the quality shown. Mind you, I’m knocking the tool, not the editor, but it is plainly obvious in the “after” photo that something has been removed. Even if I had never seen the “before,” I’d know something is up.
On the wall photo, the bricks look like they are being sucked into a worm-hole or something. The mortar lines are skewed and the perspective is totally off.
The first outdoor photo is pretty good save for the vanishing tree trunks, but most probably wouldn’t notice.
The second outdoor shot has pretty poorly aligned shadows in the background along with a pretty obvious hard vertical line right about where the mid-point of the child’s body would be.
So, in the outdoor photos, I would say the tool gave you a good start, but in the fence and wall photos, I’d say start over and use quick masks as described in Robert O’Tooe’s APTATS materials. You’d end up with better results nearly as fast and without upgrading to CS5.
For the record, I’ll be upgrading as soon as CS5 becomes available, but too many folks will be tempted to use content aware fill in a sort of fire and forget mode and end up with bad results.
Jim Poor:
I should have made it clearer that I was showing very minimal edits, time-wise. Sort of a “first pass” through the feature. Most took 1 minute or less. If I were wanting to really do something with the photo I would work it a little more (love the randomness feature) and maybe clone some, too.
I was showing more the “quick editing for a blog post” usefulness, and hopefully I showed that you can get very far in the editing in a small amount of time.
Thanks for visiting!
Dawn
The pictures are beautiful!!
.-= Mrs. White´s last blog ..A Little Home Visit =-.
Wow, VERY impressive! I know I would use that… I can’t stand background distractions and my cloning skills… well, I’m working on it.
I am bummed that I just bought CS4 a few months ago. I wonder how the upgrade pricing vs./and the academic discount I received will play out.
.-= Marsha´s last blog ..Sweet Shot: backyard birdie =-.