• The industry standard
• Useful for photographers
• Improved HDR rendering
• HDR Pro
• Content Aware Fill
• Other cool features
• Still pricy

Photo: Adobe

The latest edition of Adobe’s industry standard Photoshop Creative Suite image editing software has been revealed and should hit UK shores sometime in May – we break down the most exciting changes for photographers.

The industry standard

Adobe’s Photoshop dominates the image editing software market, just as Microsoft’s Excel dominates spreadsheet software, or AutoCAD leads among 2D and 3D drafting software. Though intended more for graphic designers, Photoshop can also be a very valuable tool in the arsenal of any photographer and it pays to have at least basic Photoshopping skills.

Photo: Adobe

Useful for photographers

Not just used for embedding tacky effects or graphics, Photoshop can help you improve your photographs in a variety of subtle, and useful ways. Whether creating infrared photos, layering two shots together for the perfect picture, or retouching portrait photos, Photoshop opens up lots of possibilities for photographers. So the prospect of Adobe’s Photoshop Creative Suite 5 64-bit graphics software getting released is exciting. We’ll cover some of the biggest planned changes in Photoshop Creative Suite 5, from both a photographer and standard user standpoint.

Improved HDR rendering

For photographers the biggest news is that the high-dynamic range capabilities in this CS5 version have been greatly improved. For many photographers Photoshop was not even been the software of choice when it comes to HDR images. Many opt instead for Photomatics Pro, or some other software better suited to handling HDR rendering. However, with the new Creative Suite 5, the HDR gap is definitely closing.

HDR Pro

With the new HDR Pro editor you can effectively merge together different images with different exposures, yet still keep the full tonal range. Moreover, within HDR Pro you can also eliminate any ‘ghosting‘ effect that comes about from layering photos together with different exposures. A slight amount of blurriness and fuzziness can often appear around the edges of objects when combining images: the new CS5 fixes this. More additional features, like HDR toning, also make Adobe’s Photoshop CS5 a much better platform for any HDR images than previous editions.

Content Aware Fill

The Content Aware Fill feature is probably the most amazing change, especially for inexperienced amateur users. As any Photoshop user knows, removing an object from a photo and filling the empty gap can often be a long process involving the Clone Stamp tool or another method. With Content Aware Fill or Healing, however, filling that empty gap so that it blends in perfectly with the surroundings takes only a few seconds. It’s especially useful for removing things like water reflections, which would have been difficult to remove in Adobe Photoshop CS4. Though Content Aware often leaves a slight bit of distortion, it still works amazingly well. If you’re a photographer and you want to remove something from your photo, then it doesn’t get any easier than this.

Other cool features

There are some other changes that are just plain cool, regardless of whether or not you’re a photographer. These include things like the “Puppet Warp” feature that lets you bend and twist objects from their joints as if they were puppets. Aspiring painters, meanwhile, will love the Mixer Brush tool. It actually blends together the colours from your paint brush as you go over them, creating a virtual canvas on your screen. Moreover, you can select the Bristle Tips feature for an even more realistic looking paint brush stroke and, when used with the mixer brush tool, truly achieve the feeling of actually painting. Not just for artists either, as you can see from the video below, the Mixer Brush tool has many useful applications for portrait photographers as well.

Still pricy

Of course, Photoshop still remains discouraging to many photographers on account of one factor: price. When all that money needs to be saved up for a high-end Canon EOS 5D Mark II, or Nikon D700, never mind the accompanying lenses, £650 for a piece of photo-editing software becomes hard to justify. Those who already have Photoshop CS4, however, will only need to spend around £190, depending on their upgrade eligibility. Expect the software to ship in the UK starting May for Windows and Mac. If you’re a photographer, and you have the money, then the new PS CS5 can be an amazing tool to have.