http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm echo eleven Blog en-us Fri, 18 May 2012 18:43:54 -0400 Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:18:00 -0400 BlogCFC http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss cstarkweather@echoeleven.com cstarkweather@echoeleven.com http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/24/Cathy Starkweather Greater access to key resources via flexible custom panels Photoshop CS5 offers easy ways to integrate and extend your workspace with customized panels. With the aid of the Configurator 2.0 panel utility (available separately as a download from labs.adobe.com) you can produce your own panels, bringing together your most used tools and menu selections and incorporating your favorite web feeds or video tutorials. Stay connected to the greater Photoshop community and all facets of your digital life directly from within Photoshop CS5 by using panels you create or those produced and distributed by other users. You can access anything that lives on the webfavorite blogs, video content, even your emailwith these integrated panels. You can even expand content beyond a panels standard viewing area when you need a magnified view. Easier interface management with Live Workspaces and Workspace Switcher Creating dedicated, task-specific workspaces that mimic your individual workflow increases productivity and efficiency by hiding the features you dont use and exposing the ones you do. New Live Workspaces auto-save any changes you make to a task-specific workspace, so that if you switch to a different workspace and then back again during an editing session, your panels remain exactly where you left them. The number of entries displayed in the collapsible Workspace Switcher can be altered, and the position of each workspace can be rearranged. This provides quicker navigation between frequently used setups. Photoshop CS5 Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:18:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/24/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/24/Cathy Starkweather Faster performance with cross-platform native 64-bit support Tight deadlines and large file sizes make performance a high priority for many Photoshop users. Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended deliver cross-platform 64-bit support, allowing you to perform day-to-day imaging tasks up to 10 times faster. Video and photo professionals, especially, benefit from the extra performance, as gains are even greater if you regularly work with very large files, where processing can be up to ten times faster when you take advantage of higher addressable RAM amounts limited only by what your hardware accommodates. To help you tweak the performance of your setup, Photoshop CS5 lets you adjust history, tile, and cache controls in combination. Photoshop CS5 Fri, 24 Sep 2010 15:09:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/24/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/23/Cathy Starkweather Streamlined creative reviews through integration with Adobe CS Review Collaborate with colleagues and seek client comment quickly and easily with Adobe CS Review, a new CS Live online service* designed to simplify and accelerate the design review process. With CS Review, you can avoid the hassles of large email attachments, logon problems with FTP servers, and time-consuming next-day air deliveries usually associated with client reviews by instead initiating a secure, shared review. Comments are displayed in near-real time and in context, providing convenient feedback on your images and designs. You can access the CS Review service from within Photoshop CS5. Faster performance with cross-platform native 64-bit support Tight deadlines and large file sizes make performance a high priority for many Photoshop users. Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended deliver cross-platform 64-bit support, allowing you to perform day-to-day imaging tasks up to 10 times faster. Video and photo professionals, especially, benefit from the extra performance, as gains are even greater if you regularly work with very large files, where processing can be up to ten times faster when you take advantage of higher addressable RAM amounts limited only by what your hardware accommodates.. Photoshop CS5 Thu, 23 Sep 2010 16:26:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/23/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/23/Cathy Starkweather User-inspired productivity enhancements Photoshop CS5 helps boost productivity and creativity throughout the editing workflow with dozens of enhancements inspired by Photoshop users. Some of these include: " A neutral-density preset for the Gradient tool " The ability to save 16-bit Photoshop documents in 8-bit JPEG format in a single step " An option for reversing the clone source using the flip buttons in the Clone Source panel " A Dont Show This Message Again option when saving files with maximum compatibility " Default value for Shadows/Highlights changed from 50% to 35% " The ability to move a selection while the active layer is hidden " An on/off option for trackpad gesture support on Mac and in Microsoft® Windows® 7 " A new layer command for deleting all empty layers via scripts " A Straighten button on the Ruler tool options bar " A Close All Open Images Without Saving option " A Save As option for always defaulting to the folder to which you last saved an image " The ability to drag and drop a file onto an open Photoshop document to create a new layer " Multiple improvements in Lens Correction filter options, including:  Grid Display is off by default  Show Grid, Grid Size, and Grid Color settings are now sticky  Default grid size is increased from 16 to 64 pixels  Decimal point adjustments are allowed as values for the Chromatic Aberration sliders  A third Chromatic Aberration slider enables the correction of green/magenta fringing  The Background Color Edge setting is replaced with the Black Color entry  A White Color option is available in the Edge menu  Reset options are changed so that only the calibration settings are reset, not the Grid options " A new Cache Tile Size control in the Performance section of the Preferences dialog box " Zoom in and out with the new scrubby zoom tool " Presets for setting Cache Tile Size and Cache Levels simultaneously " The ability to use keystrokes to set values in the Adjustments panel text fields " Performance increases of up to 50% when importing OBJ files " Sample colors faster using the new on screen color ring built into the eyedropper tool " Customizable default values for Layer styles " New creative resources, including actions, tools, presets, brushes, swatches, shapes, gradients, styles, and tool presets " Window and Door shapes added to list of meshes that can be created from a layer " An option for changing the opacity of multiple selected layers " The ability to create a mask from the transparent areas of a layer " Pick colors faster using the new on-screen color HUD " Print settings saved with the image file, allowing one-button printing with user-selected values " Selecting a printer automatically lists the profiles installed for that printer at the top of the profile list " Printer-specific profiles are selected automatically when choosing a printer " Customized print settings can be recorded as part of a Photoshop Action " An overlay grid can be displayed when using the Crop tool " Layer groups can be nested more than five levels deep " New Paste Outside and Paste Inside commands, along with the previously existing Paste In Place option, are included in a new Edit > Paste Special menu Photoshop CS5 Thu, 23 Sep 2010 12:08:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/23/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/22/Cathy Starkweather Better 3D performance and workflow (Photoshop CS5 Extended only) Take advantage of better performance and immediate rendering feedback thanks to the improved Adobe Ray Tracer (ART) engine in Photoshop CS5 Extended. ART 2.0 brings substantial improvements in performance when you interact with and edit 3D models. ART 2.0 progressively renders 3D scenes with an option to re-render after a pause, or even perform selective renderings, all while providing more immediate feedback and dramatically reducing the time it takes to preview key areas in high quality. You also get faster previews and more responsive interaction thanks to changes made in the OpenGL engine, which now fast-tracks the delivery of complex 3D geometry to the video card. Overall workflow performance has been optimized with improved import, interaction speeds, and better merging of 3D objects into a single scene. To aid with fine-tuning and adjustment of these performance features, there is a new 3D section in Preferences. Photoshop CS5 Wed, 22 Sep 2010 15:51:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/22/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/22/Cathy Starkweather Enhanced 3D realism and rich materials (Photoshop CS5 Extended only) Bring your 3D creations to life with the materials that ship with Photoshop CS5 Extended. You can select materials from the library of included presets, download additional materials by choosing 3D > Browse 3D Content, create your own, or even edit existing materials to customize them for your needs (in the materials section of the 3D panel). Test a variety of looks for your 3D models and extruded designs by adding different materials or textures to their surfaces. Materials that feature reflection or refraction properties can be rendered with the new Adobe Ray Tracer engine. The Repoussé dialog box, and the Materials section of the 3D panel, both contain options for applying a single material to all surfacesas well as choosing different treatments for individual sections and surfaces of your models. Changing the look of your 3D models can be achieved in just a few clicks, thanks to a vast library of materials to select from and an improved method of applying them. Use the 3D Material Drop tool and the Material Load tool to easily load a material and drop it into different meshes, allowing you to sample and apply materials interactively. New overlay controls provide instant feedback about where specific materials and meshes are located in your model, and the updated 3D axis widget now works with lights and cameras as well as 3D objects. With the Shadow Catcher feature, you can now easily generate a shadow on the ground plane of a scene, and then adjust how the shadow interacts with image content of other layers by altering its opacity and its softness. To further enhance realism, you can use an HDR image to light your scene, or re-create traditional depth-of-field effects in your rendered scene by adjusting the zone of sharpness with the new Distance and Blur controls. Photoshop CS5 Wed, 22 Sep 2010 09:46:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/22/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/21/Cathy Starkweather Easy 3D extrusions with Adobe Repoussé (Photoshop CS5 Extended only) Repoussé is an ancient metalworking technique for embossing artwork on the surface of metals such as gold, silver, copper, tin, and bronze. Photoshop Extended offers a powerful new feature, inspired by this traditional technique, for creating eye-catching 3D artwork. Use Adobe Repoussé to easily convert 2D artwork into 3D objects and then create depth by altering the extrusion properties of the 3D model. Easily extrude text to create logos and 3D artwork for use in websites, video frames, or layouts. Starting with a text layer, a path, a selection, or a layer mask, you can convert the content to 3D with the Create New 3D Object section of the 3D panel. After the conversion is complete, you can alter the look of your 3D model by manipulating its key extrusion properties depth, scale, bend, shear, inflate, or twistin the Repoussé dialog box. In addition to manipulating these properties, you can inflate the front or back of the extrusion and/or apply a custom bevel. Sections of objects (internal subpaths) can also be inflated by creating a selection first and then adjusting the Internal Constraints settings in the Repoussé dialog box. The 3D Axis widget allows on canvas rotation of the of the model. Photoshop CS5 Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:42:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/21/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/21/Cathy Starkweather Automated lens correction The Lens Correction features in Photoshop CS5 create better quality captures by removing or correcting the three most common lens-based errors: geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. This means you can use a wider range of lenses with the confidence of producing images of the highest quality. With the aid of the Adobe Lens Profile Creator (available separately as a free download from labs.adobe.com) you can produce custom profiles characterizing the optical aberrations of your camera lenses. When installed and selected in the Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5, the profile automatically removes or corrects the three types of distortion. The Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5 is redesigned to include manual adjustment controls under the Custom tab, and settings for locating and applying custom Lens Correction Profiles (LCP files) under a new Auto Correction tab. Installed profiles that match your camera and lens combination are used to apply precise distortion corrections to your photos. Suitable profiles can be located easily based on the EXIF data automatically recorded with the image, and if a suitable profile is not present in the Lens Correction filter, then with a single click within the dialog box, you can search online for the correct profile to meet your needs. Individual error types can be selected in the filters settings, as can options for handling any transparent areas that surround the corrected image. Adobe Lens Profile Creator To coincide with these new lens-correction options in Photoshop CS5, Adobe offers the Adobe Lens Profile Creator, a utility you can use to characterize the optical aberrations of your camera lenses and produce custom Lens Correction Profiles or LCP files. This utility is available as a free download from labs.adobe.com. To create a new profile, simply take one or more sets of photographs of the Adobe Camera Calibration Chart, using the camera and lens you wish to characterize. Load the source files into Adobe Lens Profile Creator, which then creates a lens profile automatically. After you add some basic information about the camera, the lens, and the calibration chart, the profile is saved, ready for use with the Lens Correction filter. Any profiles you create, or download from the web, are available for use in Photoshop CS5. Photoshop CS5 Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:22:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/21/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/20/Cathy Starkweather Puppet Warp Puppet Warp gives you more freedom when pushing and pulling elements within an image. The feature lets you recompose an image to make it more appealing, or to fit a specific layout, by allowing the precise repositioning of any element within a Photoshop document, or selection, by simply clicking and dragging. After you reposition an object, Photoshop adjusts the rest of the image to account for the shifted pixels. After choosing Edit > Puppet Warp, click on your image to drop pins establishing anchor points where you want image parts not to move, and handles that you can use for warping. Then drag any of the pins to reposition the picture elements. Use Puppet Warp to swing a raised arm to a persons side, warp and stretch text to create new effects, or reposition intrusive objects in a photo to create a more pleasing composition. Photoshop CS5 Mon, 20 Sep 2010 09:18:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/20/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/17/Cathy Starkweather Extraordinary painting effects With a new Mixer Brush, a Bristle Tips feature, and a new mechanism for blending colors, Photoshop CS5 redefines the way you paint. You can take advantage of more natural and realistic painting effects, making it easy to take your imagery and designs in new artistic directions. The Mixer Brush lets you define multiple colors on a single tip, and then mix and blend them with the underlying hues on your canvas, achieving creative results that rival traditional painting media. When starting with a photo original, you can use a dry, empty brush to blend the existing colors while at the same time adding a painterly effect to the image. Mixer Brush settings provide extensive control over the wetness of the canvas colors, the load rate that determines amount of paint loaded on the brush, the mixing rate between brush and canvas colors, and whether the brush is refilled, cleaned, or both after each painting stroke. In conjunction with these new mixing features, Photoshop CS5 incorporates unprecedented control over stroke characteristics of its painting tools with Bristle Tips. Bristle Qualities define key bristle properties such as shape, length, stiffness, thickness, angle, and spacing, which affect how the color is laid on the image as you paint. The Bristle Brush Preview feature provides a visual representation of these changes, and you can save your tip configurations for future use, allowing you to build a customized collection of Bristle Tips to experiment with when using Photoshop brush tools. Photoshop CS5 Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:11:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/17/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/17/Cathy Starkweather State-of-the-art raw-image processing The Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which ships with Photoshop CS5, now supports more than 275 camera models as it continues to provide you with the industry-leading conversion of raw files. In addition, the utility provides advanced, nondestructive image editing and enhancement for raw files, as well as for other standard formats, including JPEG and TIFF. Now you can remove noise, achieve better quality sharpening, and creatively apply new styles of vignettes and film-like grain. You can now shoot at higher ISO settings with confidence, because the updated controls in the Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in remove the noise common in such high-ISO images (as well as in photos captured with long exposures and pictures from consumer cameras) while still preserving excellent color and detail. New controls for adding grain and additional post-crop vignetting settings join many creative options already available in this utility, such as the Adjustment Brush and the Graduated Filter. For the first time, you can add grain-like texture to photos as part of your nondestructive editing workflow. Adjust amount, size, and roughness of grain to easily give composites a more natural, seamless appearance by matching levels of grain across all source imagesor simply use the feature to make a digital photo look more organic or film-like. The Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in includes new features for better sharpening, adding grain, removing noise, and producing creative vignette effects. Updated post-crop vignetting options offer more creative control over the corner darkening and lightening process, and your favorite vignette effects can be saved as presets for quick application across multiple files. Upgraded sharpening options produce clearer photos with fewer artifacts while providing better control over key details, especially when working with high-resolution pictures produced by multi-megapixel cameras. Photoshop CS5 Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:54:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/17/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/10/Cathy Starkweather HDR Pro for creativity and precision with the next generation of high dynamic range imaging. With just a few clicks, you can go beyond the capture capabilities of your camera by combining multiple exposures into a single high dynamic range (HDR) photo that preserves the full tonal range of a scene with high contrast. Photoshop CS5 introduces HDR Pro for more control over the HDR merging process and greater adjustment power over the mapping of tones and the styling of HDR output, resulting in images that range from photorealistic to highly surreal. HDR Pro offers extended controls, an enhanced dialog box, and improved image processing. New algorithms enable more accurate alignment of source files and automatically deghost any problem areas that occur when trying to merge source photos where subjects have moved during capture. You can even select a source file to be used as the sole reference for any ghosted areas or allow the feature to do this automatically for you. New tone-mapping tools and adjustment controls give you the power to implement your own HDR vision, producing photos that range in style from fully textured images of high-contrast scenes to wildly hyper-realistic creations. Save your favorite styles as presets and apply them to multiple groups of source files to provide a common look and feel to your HDR photos. And for times when you dont have multiple source files, create the look of an HDR-processed image from a single photo with the new HDR Toning feature that allows you to mimic the tone-mapping results traditionally achieved in high dynamic range photos. Together with the existing Photomerge feature (which allows for image stitching), the exposure-merging capabilities of HDR Pro can add up to high-bit-depth, 360-degree panoramas ideal for composite photography, video, and beyond. The Auto Stack Panorama/HDR files option in Adobe Bridge CS5 and the new panelized Mini Bridge groups source files together into stacks for quicker creation of HDR images in Photoshop CS5. You can even start the creation of an HDR file by choosing Tools > Merge To HDR from the Mini Bridge panel inside Photoshop. Photoshop CS5 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:41:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/9/10/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/8/31/Cathy Starkweather Content - Aware Fill One of the most exciting new features in Photoshop CS5 is the remarkable ability to remove an image element and magically replace it with details that match the lighting, tone, and noise of the surrounding area so that it looks like the content never existed. Now, you can make substantial changes to photo composition quickly and easily, as even large complex subjects can be seamlessly erased You can use Content-Aware Fill with the Spot Healing Brush or as an option of the Fill feature to replace content in an active selection. Selecting the Content-Aware setting with the Spot Healing brush changes the way the tool fills in the areas you paint. This retouching approach is designed to account more fully for the structure and detail of the image elements that surround the painted area, providing a near-invisible result when removing unwanted objects. Alternatively, you can select the object to be removed, and then replace the area with synthesized details from the area surrounding the selection, simply by using the Content-Aware option in the Fill dialog box. Photoshop CS5 Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:35:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/8/31/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/8/31/Cathy Starkweather I'm so pleased to announce we have been deemed as Adobe's #1 Authorized Training Center in the US!* A huge thank you to our clients who have taken classes with us and provided outstanding feedback to Adobe via Metrics That Matter's online evaluation system which lead to our #1 Ranking! We appreciate our clients and look forward to a long-standing relationship. *Based on Adobe MTM's Ranking Report 8.31.10. Adobe Training Center Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:31:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/8/31/Cathy Starkweather http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/8/26/Cathy Starkweather Over the next several days, I will be blogging about the new features in Photoshop CS5. Intelligent selection technology Photoshop CS5 takes the time and frustration out of making precise image selections and masks, providing you a faster way to extract subjects from their backgrounds and create realistic composites. New intelligent selection technology offers better edge detection and faster, more accurate masking results of complex subjects, like hair. Automatic color decontamination helps you eliminate background color around the edges of a selection, resulting in more seamless compositions when placing extracted subjects on new backgrounds. Experienced Photoshop users know that the best selections are created by constantly adapting the selection technique for differences in the subjects edgesone method for hair and another for the edge of a building. With Photoshop CS5, you can produce highly accurate masks and selections faster and more simply than before with a set of new adaptive selection-edge modification controls. Smart Radius automatically matches the best selection approach with the subjects changing edge characteristics, and the extra view modes assist you in previewing the quality of your selections. The Refine Radius and Erase Refinements tools customize your masks and selections as you make them. These tools, in combination with the color decontamination settings, help eliminate any residual background color from around the edges of your selections. The ability to create accurate selections is made easier with the Edge Detection controls in the updated Refine Edge dialog box. Edge Detection uses adaptive selection technology to create selections of different edge types - such as along a simple solid line like this mans jacket, or a more complex selection, such as his hair. The Edge Detection and Decontaminate Colors features help you make highly precise selections of complex subjects quickly and easily, enabling faster, more accurate compositing of multiple images. Left: Original. Middle: After refining the selection edge in Photoshop CS5. Right: Extracted subject combined with new background. Photoshop CS5 Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:43:00 -0400 http://www.echoeleven.com/blog/index.cfm/2010/8/26/Cathy Starkweather