Photoshop CS5

Photoshop CS5 has officially been released today – April 12, 2010. It wasn’t a big secret, bits and pieces of the new features were available all over the web since the pre-announcement during the Orlando PhotoshopWorld in March.

According to many, this is one of the most significant Photoshop releases in terms of new and enhanced features in years.

Here is a list of new/enhanced features of interest to photographers compared Photoshop CS4.   All listed features are based on Photoshop CS5 (does not include Photoshop CS5 Extended features)

New in Photoshop CS5

• Additive grain in Adobe Camera Raw (Who knew we needed to add grain to our photos!  Give your photos the film look)
• Automatic lens correction (Will automatically make corrections based on some pre-defined Camera/Lens combinations that is extracted from your photo’s MetaData.)
• Straighten Image tool
• Truer Edge selection technology (You won’t have to pull your hair anymore when making selection that includes hair, fur or other fine details)
• Color decontamination for selections (Part of new selection tool, will de-fringe colors that can show up at the edges of objects once removed from their background)
• Selection and mask refinement tools
• Content-Aware Fill/Healing (Deleted foreground elements in a photo automatically filled based on background.  With the right type of photo can be a huge time saver.  Healing brush also has content-aware options which looks like a great improvement for healing around well defined edges)
• Puppet Warp (Allows movement of parts of a photo without having to worry about the background. Kind of allows a precise warp without distortions.)
• New Adobe Camera Raw processing engine.  (Get better results when converting your old Raw files.  Icon indicates when image can be re-processed with new 2010 engine)

Enhanced in Photoshop CS5

• Noise removal in Adobe Camera Raw (Looks like a major improvement in noise reduction.  Scott Kelby calls this enhancement, one of the biggest stars in CS5! )
• HDR imaging (No need for Photomatix Pro anymore!  Can I get my money back?  Also included is a single image HDR Toning feature.  No need for Topaz Adjust either!)
• B&W conversion
• Post-crop vignetting (Added options to protect Highlights or Color, and better overall control)

References:
As always, to get great information on Photoshop, head over to the NAPP website. They have 17 videos at their free CS5 Learning Center
www.photoshopuser.com/cs5

Get a list of What’s new in Photoshop CS5 for photographers at Adobe.com

Feature comparison chart between Photoshop CS3, CS4 and CS5 at Adobe.com

Videos from AdobeTV on Photoshop CS5

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