Photoshop’s update is going to make a lot of photographers and retouchers happy with the boost in performance plus three improved tools–Selecting and Masking, Content-Aware Crop and Face-Aware Liquify.
Performance
Adobe has been focusing on increasing the speed of Photoshop. Faster startup time, removing unnecessary dialog boxes, warnings and clicks, as well as how fast a tool returns results. They have promised this in past versions, but in this version it has lead to a noticeable boost in performance.
Selection and Masking Space gets its’ own workspace
Adobe organized the Selection and Masking tools to have their own dedicated workspace. This keeps the selection tools together into one efficient work space. Creating selections and masks is a lot easier and more exact than before.
Visualization controls: A Transparency slider and “Onion Skin” view mode more accurately predict results with new visualization and controls that make it easier to see the edges and other qualities of the selections you are creating in real time while you are making them.
Refine Edge Brush: The new Refine Edge Brush helps to more accurately separate foreground and background for complex selections.
A simple brush to more precisely control exactly which areas of an image are selected or masked. This tool can be used for manual control.
Content-Aware Crop
You can now crop and preserve the look of your image when you crop using the magic of Content-Aware Fill. Photoshop will intelligently fill in the gaps when you rotate or expand a canvas beyond the original image size using the Crop tool.
Face-Aware Liquify
Retouchers are really going to love the new enhancement to the Liquify tool. Now within the Liquify tool, you can use the new Face-Aware technology to automatically identify and adjust facial features like jaw, nose, lips and eyes to retouch them or add artistic effects. Making a subject smile is now a simple click and drag.
Photoshop CC 2015.5 is a full version upgrade. The best part, it’s free if you have the Creative Cloud subscription plan!
Vanelli
Currently he is teaching workshops, writing for Photofocus and creating tutorials for various plug-in companies and for the Vanelli and Friends series.
You can find out more about Vanelli at www.VanelliandFriends.com
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I really must get into PS. We have CC for my daughter for Flash and Illustrator but I’m still using Gimp for my photography. I guess it’s a reluctance to unlearn on my part …
its not free with the subscription, you pay for it with the subscription
Butch, you’re right. How’s “It’s included in your subscription” Thanks for catching that.
I observed that after update “Automate” to other program such as Nik, ON1, etc. vanished. Any suggestions?
yes..i just finished that article. it should post soon
I’ve just downloaded the latest and have noticed a definite slow down in my operating speed. For example, it takes forever to save a psd file and twice as long to convert one to a smart object. I’ve noticed this over the past few upgrades. I’m just a hobbyist and do not know much about what goes on under the bonnet, so to speak. I don’t want to have to keep tweaking this, that and everything to get a decent performance. I have an i7 processor and 16gb RAM and W10 which isn’t too bad. What have others experienced?
Ian,
it sounds like you have a fast computer. Go to Edit -> preferences->performance and make sure you have Use Graphic Processor checked then under Scratch disk make sure you have a hard drive checked. If you’re low on disk space that could be problem too…. Let me know if this helped.
Thanks for your advice. I have set Use Graphic Processor. However, when I choose to add a scratch disk it does not show in the scratch disk box. In this box it shows C: and D: My hard drive is partitioned in 2 to give these 2 drives. I save all my work to D: I have attached an Iomega 1TB external drive which is designated G: When I press control and alt at PS start up it shows all three drives and I added G as the third. When I look again in the preferences box for scratch disks is still only shows C: and D: Please can you advise. Thank you, Ian.