Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Adobe Releases Creative Cloud Photography Updates
21 June 2016
Adobe has released updates to its Creative Cloud Photography Program today with new initiatives for Adobe Stock, enhancements to Adobe Portfolio and a new release of Photoshop CC. In a separate announcement the company discussed its pro video updates to Creative Cloud.
The company briefed us on the updates earlier this month and we've been working with Photoshop CC 2015.5 or v17, as it's known.
At the briefing Tom Hogarty, directory of product management for digital imaging, observed that as the photography market is continuing to evolve Adobe is keeping up with it with timely releases of new apps and sharing technology.
In the past year, for example, the company has introduced an in-app camera to Lightroom mobile, which it made freely available, added a search tech preview to Lightroom Web for natural languages searches and introduced Adobe Portfolio to showcase your work.
Last 12 Months. What Adobe has delivered in a year.
Here's a brief overview of what today's releases bring to the table:
ADOBE STOCK
Adobe Stock has over 55 million assets already but the company wants to mine the Photoshop community through various initiatives to grow those assets. Photographers who work with Adobe will get to try their hand at stock sales in July.
The company is going to make that proposition more attractive by automatically tagging images so you don't have to do it and by offering best-in-class royalties.
You will be able to showcase and sell your work directly from desktop and mobile applications like Lightroom CC, Bridge CC, Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix. Adobe's new Stock Contributor Portal will feature intelligent auto-tagging capabilities saving hours of keywording.
ADOBE PORTFOLIO
The enhancements to the new Adobe Portfolio are minor tweaks. They include a new masthead you can personalize and link to your social media outlets and a customizable contact page now so people can find out how to reach you.
PHOTOSHOP CC 17
Photoshop Group Product Manager Stephen Nielson gave a demo of the new features in Photoshop CC 2015.5 version 17.
The first improvement you should notice is faster startup time. Performance improvements include not only startup time but file open time, font menu display and content-aware fill.
We installed the pre-release version on two machines. Our working system still took over two minutes to launch the new version but our traveling machine (which had only Photoshop CS5 on it) with no plug-ins launched in 30 seconds.
We were dismayed to see that both installs exhibited the Generator error, although we haven't been able to track the cause down yet. We wrote about one solution and Adobe suggested another but neither of those approaches helped.
Also among the new features is the content-aware crop, which the company revealed in a sneak peak last month. Neilson said the tool actually performs better than doing it yourself manually using content-aware fill.
Content-aware fill technology, whose algorithm has been refined a handful of times already, is now three times faster and color blending, blur reduction and artifact reduction have all been improved. You can drag out the side of an image to fill it out (for a banner, say).
Content Aware. Rotated image crops too much.
Content Aware. Larger canvas filled automatically.
Under the Select menu there's a new Select and Mask option that has dressed up an improved Refine Edge tool with a new user interface to make drawing a mask as easy as waving a magic wand. That goes for refining one, too. You simply select a different paint brush. And to see what you're doing Onion Skin view mode lets the original image show through a bit. The new tool will use your GPU, too.
Select and Mask. Onion Skin view.
Older GPUs can now handle the Oil Paint filter. Unfortunately not Nvidia GeForce 300m GPUs or Intel HD 3000 GPUs.
Liquify is now face aware, picking up some technology from Lightroom. Liquify recognizes different parts of the face (eyes, nose, lips) which can be manipulated with sliders. We actually used this on the portrait of Clément Chéroux to correct wide angle lens distortion in the image.
Face-Aware Liquify. Liquify can recognize faces and let you make credible adjustments.
For a while now, Adobe image editing applications have stored plug-ins in two places. On with the application's folder and the other in an application support folder:
In Windows that second location is:
- C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CC (32-, 64-bit machines)
- C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Plug-Ins\CC (32-bit machines)
On the Mac that second location is:
- /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CC
In Photoshop 17, you can install your plug-ins to that secondary location so they won't have to be reinstalled for the next CC update.
Other Improvements. Click for a readable version.
And once again the company has improved Export As... with better quality at the same file size and the option to embed a color profile.
In another nod to older technology, an option to use the legacy healing brush rather than the real-time healing brush is now available.
Adobe's Jeff Tranberry has published a helpful FAQ on Photoshop CC 2015.5 with information about plug-ins, installation, bug fixes, Just-Do-It features and more.
We'll publish our review of Photoshop CC shortly. We're still hoping to chase down a handful of issues with the team.
PRICE, AVAILABILITY
Updates to CC desktop apps are now available for download by Creative Cloud members as part of their membership at no additional cost. Membership plans are available for individuals, students, teams, educational institutions, government agencies and enterprises.
Adobe Creative Cloud Innovations Take Creativity from Blank Page to Brilliant
New Capabilities in Flagship Products, Performance Enhancements and Updates to Adobe Stock Allow Effortless Creation
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Taking aim at inefficiencies that slow down the creation process, Adobe has launched major updates to its flagship Creative Cloud tools and services. The release includes dramatic new features in Adobe's flagship applications, performance enhancements across Creative Cloud and exciting updates to Adobe Stock -- including deeper integration within CC and the addition of an all-new Premium Collection of high quality stock content. Spanning across virtually all of the Creative Cloud portfolio, updates in this new release target many of the pain points that designers, photographers and filmmakers face every day.
"We have two key goals with this release: saving our customers time and helping them jumpstart their creative engines," said Bryan Lamkin, executive vice president and general manager, Digital Media at Adobe. "Every creative project starts with a blank page and ends with a vision coming to life. Today's release of Creative Cloud will help make that journey as fast and productive as possible. From deeper integration of Adobe Stock into the CC experience, to amazing new features like Content-Aware Crop in Adobe Photoshop, this release will expedite the creative process for millions of our customers."
Today's updates mark another step forward in establishing Creative Cloud as the one-stop shop for creative people -- providing the best in desktop tools, mobile applications, training and a vibrant marketplace featuring services like Adobe Stock, as well as access to the Behance community that's now over 7 million strong.
Built Right into Creative Cloud: Adobe Stock Service Offers Best, Broadest Selection
Research from Pfeiffer Consulting confirms that integrating Adobe Stock with CC desktop applications delivers up to 10 times greater efficiency than other stock services. The expanded Adobe Stock service includes over 55 million royalty-free, high-quality photos, videos, illustrations and graphics as well as the following new capabilities:
- One-Click Workflow. Deeper Adobe Stock integration with CC applications enables a new One-Click Workflow that lets users select an image or video on the Adobe Stock Web site and place it on their creative canvas with a single click. Also an expanded In-app Purchase feature delivers an industry-first, one-click license capability, directly from Photoshop.
- Premium Collection. Adobe's first premium content offering sourced for Adobe Stock includes nearly 100,000 curated images that meet the standards of top advertising agencies, leading brands and digital and print publications.
- Monetization Made Easier. Coming soon, Adobe will expand on its vision to build out the world's largest creative marketplace by offering opportunities for creative professionals to contribute and monetize their work. They can contribute directly from desktop and mobile applications including Adobe Lightroom CC, Adobe Bridge CC, Photoshop Fix and Photoshop Mix, providing an easy on-ramp to showcasing and selling their work via Adobe Stock. Also coming soon is Adobe's new Stock Contributor Portal, which will feature intelligent auto-tagging capabilities saving hours of keywording.
New CC Desktop App Capabilities and Performance Enhancements
Highly anticipated CC features, offering critical time savings and new creative opportunities for Creative Cloud subscribers include:
- Content-Aware Crop in Photoshop, which automatically fills in the gaps when you rotate or expand a canvas beyond the original image size.
- Face-Aware Liquify in Photoshop, an easy way to create artistic effects with facial features using the Liquify Tool while keeping the face in proportion.
- Match Font in Photoshop, an innovative font recognition technology that has the ability to recognize and identify licensed fonts and automatically suggest fonts available on your computer system or available to license through Adobe Typekit.
- Character Animator Preview in After Effects CC, which matches an animated character to a real life actor's speech and movements, was first showcased on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in the host's recurring "Cartoon Donald Trump" interviews and most recently by The Simpsons animation team in the episode that aired May 15.
- New Virtual Reality features in Adobe Premiere Pro CC, including "field of view" mode for previewing content.
- Adobe XD Preview, Adobe's new experience design tool, is now available in German, French and Japanese.
- Fast Export of assets and artboards in Adobe Illustrator CC, allowing users to export assets to multiple formats and resolutions with a single click.
- Photoshop productivity enhancements, including a 4x performance improvement when working with fonts and Content- Aware Fill features.
CreativeSync and Assets: Greater Discoverability, Productivity and Integrated Mobile to Desktop Workflows
The company's signature CreativeSync technology ensures a user's files, fonts, design assets and settings instantly appear in their mobile to desktop workflow, wherever they need them. Recently made available collaboration capabilities include read-only Creative Cloud Libraries that provide controlled permission levels while collaborating with teams. The Creative Cloud library serves as a virtual digital style guide for teams to ensure campaigns are consistent and always on brand. Creatives can also delegate permission levels to help manage libraries and files. Also new is an updated Creative Cloud Libraries panel with Search Filters that allow customers to easily search and select video, photo, vector and illustration assets.
New Capabilities Add Value for Global Brands and Agencies
Creative Cloud for enterprise enables customers to create, collaborate and deliver content at high velocity -- -- all behind the security of a corporate firewall. Updates to Creative Cloud for enterprise deliver significant new capabilities, including: simplified workflows for creative teams collaborating and exchanging assets, as well as read-only libraries and folders, archiving support for folders and files and versioning capabilities. With today's CC release, Adobe Stock for enterprise now includes the Premium Collection as well as advanced search, flexible payment plans and the ability to track stock images and videos through one unified enterprise dashboard.
Pricing and Availability
Updates to CC desktop apps are now available for download by Creative Cloud members as part of their membership at no additional cost. Membership plans are available for individuals, students, teams, educational institutions, government agencies and enterprises. For pricing details, visit: https://creative.adobe.com/plans.