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The new HDR Toning in CS5 allows you to emulate HDR, using a single image.
Adobe creative suite 5 design premium review series#
One of the problems with HDR is that it requires that you have a series of nearly identical photos, taken at various exposures. Find a style that you’ll want to use again? You can save the settings as a custom preset. You can choose which of your original images is to be used as the defining reference to resolve visual conflicts, such as a cloud that might have changed shape between frames. The auto deghosting works well at removing artifacts caused by slight differences among the merged photos, such as a tree branch that might have rustled. The various controls–such as a Curve tool and sliders for adjusting Vibrance, Saturation, Exposure, Detail, and more–provide more precise, highly creative control over the dynamics, so you can create very personalized results, from the subtle to the dramatic. While CS4 had HDR capabilities, CS5’s HDR-Pro offers enhanced options and new algorithms. Responding to the growing interest in high dynamic range (HDR) images, and to the fact that some of the better photo printers are now able to output their heightened tonality, Photoshop CS5 offers features called HDR-Pro and HDR Toning. It works best when the background doesn’t get caught into the “strings.” As such, before proceeding you’ll need to select the object you want to reshape and paste it into its own layer. Then you can push and pull the shape as you wish. It allows you to place control points on your image, as though you were tying puppet strings to it. The new Puppet Warp is an entirely different kind of creative tool. Incidentally, Refine Edge works with Smart Objects, which means you can return to Camera RAW to re-edit the conversion parameters, while retaining all the work you did on the mask. When saving the mask, Refine Edge offers several useful options, such as Layer Mask, New Layer, New Layer with Layer Mask, New Document, or New Document with Layer Mask. Refine Edge will generally save time with such masks, but it is annoying that the dialog doesn’t have Undo/Redo options–just Reset, which takes you back to your starting point, when all you might want to do is roll back a couple of brush strokes. In addition, the Color Decontaminant option helps remove excess background that you might have inadvertently included in your mask–though as with all such tools, your original picture must have some differentiation in color and contrast between the background and the subject. This isn’t to say that creating such masks are now child’s play, but with the Refine Radius and Erase Refinements brushes, along with Smart Radius analyzing the edges, the task of working on such difficult subjects isn’t as grueling.
The Refine Edge selection dialog box has been redesigned to allow more accurate selections, especially of difficult textured edges, such as wooly clothes or flyaway hair. That’s why any improvements for easier, more precise selections are always welcome. Photoshop’s masking and selection tools are the workhorses of the program, because a high percentage of any creative session starts with drawing a good mask. What’s more, if you make changes to any Workspace (such as Photography) and then switch to another (such as Painting), when you return to Photography, those changes will be retained. Instead, it is always immediately available at the top of the screen to the right of the Ribbon Bar. For instance, the revamped Workspace switcher is no longer buried in the Window drop-down menu. Photoshop CS5’s interface remains comfortably familiar, though slightly changed–and more efficient to use.
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Interface: Everything Is Where It Should Be… Plus More What sets Photoshop CS5 apart isn’t any one killer app but dozens of refinements that will make users’ lives easier, more efficient, and, potentially, more creative. Photoshop is a mature program that is already an indispensable component of everyday business for photographers and graphics professionals.
Adobe creative suite 5 design premium review upgrade#
Adobe Photoshop CS5, the latest version that’s sold both individually and as part of Adobe Creative Suite 5, falls between those two extremes ($699 for Standard stand-alone, $1299 for Creative Suite 5 Design Standard upgrade pricing available).We reviewed a beta. Whenever a new version of an important program comes out, the need for it, depending on the changes, can run the spectrum–from it’s-revolutionary, got-to-have-it-now to ho-hum, I-can-wait-for-the-next-revision.