Photoshop

The Pixelmator team is relentless, releasing significant updates to the application every few months. Version 3.2 (codenamed ‘Sandstone’) is no exception and can be downloaded from the Mac App Store now. Codenamed Sandstone, this iteration adds a majorly-revamped Repair Tool, 16-bit channel editing for all Macs (not just the Mac Pro) alongside a whole bucket of other improvements.

The Repair Tool now uses color-correction to match repaired areas seamlessly. It also has clever smarts that mean you don’t have to precisely select an object anymore, the software will remove the whole object automatically. Pixelmator will also try its best to infer the structure of the background area, for a more natural final edit.

The Repair Tool now has three different options, Quick, Standard and Advanced. Quick is meant for small blemishes, whereas Standard and Advanced tackle the removal of larger objects from a scene. It’s not exactly clear under what circumstances you are supposed to change mode, so I chose ‘Advanced’ every time in my testing and the results were fantastic. It’s sort of like magic. You can see an example of what this is capable of after the break …

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Adobe will soon make the iPad an even more viable solution for mobile content creation: the company will soon unleash a version of its popular Lightroom photo editing suite that is optimized for tablets. References to Lightroom for Mobile appeared on Adobe’s official website earlier this week, but they were immediately removed when we contacted Adobe for comment on the yet-to-be-announced product.

Adobe’s tagline for the product is “Take Lightroom anywhere,” but we were unable to locate screenshots of the application on Adobe’s website. The website also does not specifically note iPad support, but a chat representative from Adobe was able to pull up details about Lightroom for Mobile from Adobe’s systems and said that it is built for iPad.

The representative further indicated that the mobile version would largely lineup with the desktop version in terms of features…

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Printing from Photoshop CC is no longer limited to two dimensions, as Adobe has added support for 3D printing to the latest release for Creative Cloud subscribers.

While Photoshop wouldn’t be the obvious tool in which to create 3D objects from scratch, objects can be imported from a 3D scanner, from a modelling tool or from a downloaded file, refined in Photoshop using the new automated mesh repair and support structure generation tools. Once the model is ready to print, it can be sent direct to any of the most popular 3D printers, including the Makerbot Replicator … 
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From 9to5Toys.com:

Adobe today announced a pretty solid Black Friday deal. Adobe initially launched the Photoshop Photography Program in September to support the needs and workflow of photographers who use CS3 or later. Now, for a limited time, Adobe it is extending this offer to ALL photographers for $9.99/month as an annual subscription – valid from Nov. 20 (9:00 a.m. PST) through Dec. 2, 2013 (11:59 p.m. PST) on Adobe.com…
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Context, the photorealistic way to preview your Illustrator designs, has finally left beta, with an official release now available. We reviewed the beta version of Context back in March, but today you can get your hands on the final version…

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This morning, Adobe announced Photoshop and Premiere Elements 12, an upgrade to their consumer photo and video editing tools for Mac and PC.  A year to the day from the release of Elements 11, this release focuses on cloud organizing, sharing, syncing and editing photos and videos with Adobe Revel Cloud. New features like Content Aware Move and Auto Smart Tone for Photoshop and additional FilmLooks and Subject Spotlight for Premiere headline the updates.

What’s New in Photoshop Elements 12:

Photoshop Elements 12 gives you new options for perfecting and sharing your favorite memories with friends and family. Organize, edit, enhance, and share more quickly and easily thanks to bold icons, a helpful Action bar, and the ability to choose from Quick, Guided, or Expert editing modes so you can edit your photos the way that works best for you.

• Take your photos with you wherever you go: Easily view, relive, and share your Elements photos on your smartphone and tablet. And finally—unlock the photos from your mobile device, and see them in your Elements albums back at home.

• Share: Quickly and easily post on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter, and more. Share your Elements photos in Private Web albums, and view them on your smartphone or tablet.
• Easily move objects: Move objects in a photo and have the background automatically filled in with Content Aware Move.

• Add your personal touch in an instant: Use one-touch Frames, Effects, and Textures to add depth to your snapshots.

• Correct pet eye: Remove green, yellow, and other “pet eye” discolorations as easily as you remove red-eye in photos of people.

• Make it uniquely yours: Get intelligent photo corrections with Auto Smart Tone, which learns your preferences in a snap.

New in Premiere Elements 12:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TRz-gNdQFg]

Updates out today for Photoshop CC (version 14.1) bring new features for Creative Cloud members including a brand new open source technology that Adobe is calling “Adobe Generator”. The new feature will allow users to automatically create image assets in real-time without the need “of copying, slicing and exporting each layer manually.” Here’s how it works:

Simply add a file extension to the name of your layer or layer group, and Photoshop will automatically create a JPG, PNG or GIF from the contents of that layer. If you make a change to that layer, the file is immediately updated. This means that you now have a folder of images that are always up-to-date with your Photoshop design. If you need larger dimension images for Retina displays, you can also quickly create those by adding a scaling factor.

In Photoshop, Adobe Generator can be turned on by navigating to  File -> Generate -> Image Assets and renaming layers with supported tags. Adobe notes some examples in its blog post. For example,  “200% logo-retina.png, logo.png” produces both a 2x and a 1x asset, while “heroImage.jpg10” produces a 1x asset with max quality.

Adobe noted that the new generator feature also provides “a real-time connection between Photoshop and Edge Reflow,” allowing users to bring in assets from Photoshop with a single click. Generator is an open source project, which will allow users who know JavaScript to modify or write their own plug-ins using the technology. The company posted the video below that shows developers who are using Generator to write a custom plug-in for a mobile game that allows them to “change the UI of a game in Photoshop while the game is being played.”
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The introduction of iOS 7 brought forth a new era of iOS design: one that discards old thinking and draws little inspiration from past designs. While Apple’s included applications in iOS 7 have all been updated for the new design aesthetic, their App Store apps haven’t. Installing any of Apple’s other applications alongside iOS 7 reveals a huge discrepancy between the old, skeuomorphic design, and the new, flatter look. Obviously, Apple will have to redesign all of their App Store applications. So, what will they look like?

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Back in May, we told you all about Adobe’s brand new Creative Cloud suite and its decision to end support for CS6 following its presentation at the MAX 2013 Creativity Conference in LA. Adobe introduced big updates and new features to just about every app in the CC suite, including updates to its design apps like Illustrator, a new Kuler iPhone app, revamped web tools such as Dreamweaver and Edge Animate, and updates to just about every other app it makes. Today, Adobe is finally making the massive Creative Cloud update available to all users and is also offering a number of promotional discounts to celebrate. Head below for details.
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You can now download Adobe Lightroom 5 from Adobe for $149.99/$79 upgrade as an individual license and via Adobe Creative Cloud. The upgrade to the professional photo organization and editing tool is significant:
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If you’re someone that regularly edits photos, or enjoys graphic design work, then you’ve likely used Pixelmator, which is arguably the best alternative to Photoshop on the Mac. Today, the popular $15 app is getting a huge update, known as 2.2 “Blueberry,” which includes over 100 new features. I’ve been testing out the new options, and they’re pretty great…

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Live from Adobe’s MAX 2013 Creativity Conference in LA, the company has just unveiled possibly the biggest update yet to its suite of web, design, and video products for Creative Cloud members. Today the company is announcing it is rebranding its Creative Cloud products to “CC” and introducing a ton of new features that will only be available to Creative Cloud members when they launch in June.

One of the biggest updates goes to Photoshop CC with a long list of highly requested new features including: All-new Smart Sharpen, Intelligent Upsampling, Camera Raw 8 and layer support, features from Photoshop Extended, and much more.

Enlarge a low-res image so it looks great in print, or start with a larger image and blow it up to poster or billboard size. New upsampling preserves detail and sharpness without introducing noise.

Other new features rolling out today include live previews up to a 100x faster when painting 3D objects and texture maps, the ability to resize and re-edit shapes at any time, camera shake reduction, and multi-shape and path selection:
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Yesterday, Adobe finally took the wraps off its Retina versions of Photoshop and Illustrator CS6, and now the company is continuing its announcements at the CreateNow event with the introduction of a major update to its Creative Cloud service. To kick things off, Adobe announced new features for Creative Cloud users with perhaps the most notable being “access to over a dozen exclusive new features for Adobe Photoshop.”

On top of the new features, Adobe is also unveiling a new “Creative Cloud for teams” service, showing off new Creative Cloud features of Adobe Muse, as well as launching Creative Cloud Connection to allow “desktop synching and collaborative sharing.” In its press release announcing the features, Adobe also shared some stats for the service that is now home to more than 1 million free and paid members—326,000, of which, are paying members.

Among the new Photoshop features available to Creative Cloud users:

· Immediate support for HiDPI (Retina) displays for Apple MacBook Pro. This feature was also made available to perpetual license customers as a free update.
· Smart Object support for Blur Gallery and Liquify.
· The ability to quickly export CSS code for text and objects, and import color swatches to easily design incredible websites.
· New workflow timesavers including Crop tool refinements.
· 3D enhancements including improved live (OpenGL) previews of shadow effects and additional control over illumination using 32-bit color picker to create glow effects.
· Conditional Actions that automatically select the appropriate Action based on user-defined rules, giving users enhanced image processing speed.

One of the bigger announcements, Creative Cloud for teams, will provide users with same Creative Cloud service plus the following team-oriented features: “easy management of virtual workgroups, 100GB of cloud storage per user (versus 20GB for the individual Creative Cloud offering), expert support services, centralized administration for the quick and easy deployment of new seats, and centralized billing and efficient license management.”

Adobe walked us through the new Creative Cloud Connection desktop sync app, updates to Adobe Muse, and Cloud Training tutorials:

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