Adobe has staggered the release of CS6 Photoshop much to the annoyance of CS5.5 users. While much of the old Creative Suite was upgraded, Photoshop saw just an incremental upgrade not worthy of even the 5.5 moniker that the rest of the suite wore upon release. To the disappointed many, this meant that the next release must be big.
And Big It Is
Reading this review you might notice how tardy it is. Blame it on the fact that we’re independent and don’t get paid… and blame it on the fact that a 30 day trial doesn’t give you adequate time to really sink your teeth into the full feature set that Adobe offers with 6.0. Wherever you choose to put blame, understand that when I tell you I was completely overwhelmed, this is no small understatement.
I installed the media copy of Creative Suite 6 Master Collection, and jumped head first into something that felt familiar but functioned much differently (and way better) than anything I’d used before. I felt like I’d been in a coma and awakened into a future I could sort of relate to but didn’t really fully recognize given my limited past knowledge. There was so much new stuff to take in!
In The Clouds
The tech buzz word these days is “Cloud”. Every respectable Fortune 500 company is cloud computing these days. Here’s what that looks like for Adobe customers. You still install the Creative Suite software on your computer, but you now have a subscription to the creative suite. You’re promised all the new features and updates and instead of forking over the big bucks straight away, you shell out a monthly fee.
I can see this being good for someone wanting to learn the software without wanting to commit, and I see it being especially beneficial for students. Student prices are cheaper, but in the past the caveat was that you couldn’t upgrade a student license. This makes Creative Suite more accessible and will hopefully help to stave off the problem of piracy which is all too common these days.
Another benefit to the cloud is that you can sync, store and share your files through the cloud. You’re given additional publishing options which can make working in a group setting better, and of course when there is an update you get that straight away with no extra cost (aside from your budgeted and anticipated monthly subscription fee).
A New Interface
Let’s talk about Photoshop more specifically now. The user interface of Photoshop has changed profoundly. There have been several graphical changes to make the whole Creative Suite more consistent across the platform. There were 1,800 new icons and 250 new cursors made for Photoshop, and the backdrop which you work on has become darker. You can customize your preferences to make it the lighter grey if you prefer, and you can migrate your presets from other versions at install (or later if you want to see the changes first). So, these aesthetic changes are present for those of you who want them, and you can revert if you oppose change.
Get Your Engines Running
Probably the jewel in Adobe’s crown is their new Mercury Graphics engine. The speed of rendering times is fast enough to get a moving violation. Operations that previously chugged along like that first serving of ketchup from a glass bottle now render in real time. Liquify an image in real time, and resize even an enormous file with virtually no lag time.
Features a Plenty
There are tons of incremental updates too. There’s a new “Bicubic Automatic” setting so if you’re resizing an image you no longer need to know how to set it to get the desired result.
The cropping tool got a massive upgrade too. Now you can crop and still see the deleted area until you apply the crop. You can change views and crop with several nifty guides and they’ve added a “perspective crop” option if you’re working with a funny perpective or angle.
In previous versions we were wow’ed and amazed with the new “content aware tool.” This tool has been added to the patch tool and the move tool. The arsenal of image replacement is fuller than ever, with multiple methods to achieve results and each slightly varied so you’re guaranteed to find something that will work for what you need.
Filters and Effects
There are new blurs added: field, iris and tilt shift. Some of the less commonly used filters have been added to a submenu “Filter Gallery” to give the interface a cleaner look. This makes learning Photoshop less intimidating by highlighting key features and relegating less common features, but again, if you want to old UI then you can set it that way under the preferences.
There’s an Adaptive Wide Angle filter to give you fuller control when you’re doing lens correction. For other corrections, the auto adjustment features now produce a better quality final image as well.
Camera RAW
The last feature I’ll mention is how Photoshop handles RAW images. For DSLR shooters, a RAW image has some sliders to adjust the image properties. These sliders were all over the map in previous versions, making adjustments more difficult to keep up with because there was no clear visual starting point from where you began making changes. Now the sliders are all set to the middle, so you can see very easily what adjustments you made if you need to tweak your image before import. You can skip the RAW view altogether by just holding down “Shift” when you open the image.
Final Impressions
Between my preview and my press copy, I still don’t feel like I got a great taste of what Creative Suite 6 is capable of. I certainly didn’t live up to the big promise of a timely showcase that I originally promised my press contact. This update was massive! I found no hangups, no problems, no glitches at all in my 30 day trial. It worked perfectly with my plugins from Alien Skin and Magic Bullet. I have to recommend this software as both the industry standard and as a creative powerhouse of tools which far exceed my own potential. In short, don’t balk at Adobe Photoshop, it’s absolutely amazing.
