Scoop: Sources say Adobe's Photoshop Creative Suite 2 will be packed with new photo editing and compositing features, including tools for correcting common camera problems and new editing modes that work with the 3-D aspects of photographs.With Creative Suite 2, Adobe is aiming to keep Photoshop at the focal point of digital photography workflows.
According to sources, Photoshop CS2 will be packed with new photo editing and compositing features, including tools for correcting common camera problems and new editing modes that work with the 3-D aspects of photographs.
The new version also will enhance support of Camera Raw data and will add support for HDR (High Dynamic Range) images. Adobe is expected to ship Photoshop CS2 with Creative Suite 2 for Windows 2000 and XP and Mac OS X in April.
Read more here about updates to Creative Suite 2.
Adobe gave attendees at Photoshop World a glimpse of Vanishing Point, a new editing mode that lets users work in the three-point perspective of a photograph. The user begins with a Create Plane tool to outline a floor or wall that will define a perspective plane within the photograph.
Additional planes at "right angles" can then be created to define the sides of buildings or objects in perspective. Drag an object into the "distance" or around a corner, and it resizes and distorts to fit in perspective. Even the tools, such as the Paintbrush cursor and the selection marquee, will change in size and shape as they move around the perspective planes.
Another Photoshop CS2 tool related to 3-D is a new transformation called Image Warp, according to sources. In just a few steps, Image Warp can bend a flat piece of art around a virtual 3-D object, such as a sphere or cylinder. The warped art can remain editable.
Photoshop CS2 also contains new filters aimed at correcting flaws in photographs. The Optical Lens Correction filter can remove common distortions created by camera lenses, such as curving created by a wide-angle lens, pincushion distortions and vignetting (a darkening around the edges). A live preview lets you see the effect as you make adjustments.
A new Reduce Noise filter removes color noise created by digital cameras without affecting the sharpness of edges. The filter can remove noisy artifacts created by JPEG compression. The Smart Sharpen filter is an improvement over Unsharp Mask, focusing on the sharpening of highlights and shadows. A number of the existing filters have been upgraded to 16-bit quality, according to sources.
Adobe is also including several single-click image-processing tools. The Spot Healing Brush will remove a photographic flaw or an object from a complex background, such as a ball in a field of grass. When the radius of the tool is big enough to contain the object, a click will sample the area around the object and calculate a "healing" pattern.
Another new "healing" tool is the Red Eye Brush, which will remove the common red eye effect of flash photography.
Click here to read about an Adobe Photoshop plug-in called InCamera 4.0 from PictoColor.
Photoshop CS2 improves support of uncompressed Camera Raw formats in several ways. While Photoshop CS can open only a single Raw file, the new version will be able to open and process multiple Raw files. Photoshop CS2 also will be available for other tasks while Raw files are being processed.
The CS1 version locks out the user while it processes a Raw file. Photoshop CS2 supports the Raw formats of a dozen camera manufacturers, as well as Adobe's new DNG (Digital Negative Specification) format.
Photoshop CS2 also can create and edit 32-bit HDR (High Dynamic Range) images—images with a higher range between shadows and highlights than many cameras are able to capture. The Merge to HDR tool can combine multiple exposures while retaining detail in both ends of the dynamic range.
Not everything in the new version is geared toward photography alone. A significant improvement for designers is the addition of Smart Objects. Adobe first introduced Smart Objects with GoLive CS, allowing users to edit, crop and resize native Photoshop, Illustrator and PDF files from within GoLive. Smart Objects in Photoshop CS2 can be raster images as well as vector artwork from Illustrator.
Residing in Smart Object layers, the Smart Objects behave as copies that are linked to the original—changes to the original are reflected in the Smart Objects. Changes to Smart Objects appear only in the Smart Object, and not in the original image. A significant benefit to using a Smart Object is that you can scale it up without getting the pixilation usually seen when enlarging raster objects.
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