Photoshop

Photoshop CC 2014.2 update: unwelcomed welcome screen

If you are a Photoshop CC user you may have updated to the latest 2014.2 version released yesterday that has some minor updates added to it.

No major changes noticed so far but here is however an annoyance with the new version – a “welcome” dialogue that appears after a delayed start and stops you from using the program as usual before clicking the thing away.

It is possible to turn this off but Adobe has decided to hide this option and not put it on the opening screen (where it belongs). To turn off the welcome dialogue select the “New Features” tab and click the relevant box – you may need to scroll down to the bottom of the dialogue depending on the content of the page you see.

Creative Cloud Lightroom Advisory

 

Adobe updated a number of their programs on the Creative Cloud yesterday.

The new Photoshop CC 2014 installs alongside Photoshop CC and offers to transfer settings from Photoshop CC. Only some setting are transferred across (actions for instance)  and others such as interface colour etc are not so be ready to tweak a little. If the worse comes to the worse you still have the older Photoshop CC to go back to so not too bad (and means you can play with the new features without compromising your stable working version).

Adobe have taken the opportunity in Lightroom 5.5 to now allow the updating of lightroom from the Creative Cloud Control Panel. Previously Lightroom could only be updated by using the Lightroom program to check for updates and them manually downloading the new version.

Unfortunately there appears to be problems with the new form of updating via the CC panel and Lightroom may fail to start when updated in this way.

Until Adobe fix this problem I suggest you download and install the new version of Lightroom directly via these links:

Windows: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5792
Mac: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=5791

Adobe write some great imaging software but they are really rubbish at building cloud infrastructure. My assertion that Adobe Creative Cloud is not a robust method of delivering critical imaging software still stands.

Stephen

No need to upgrade to Photoshop CC in 2013

Having used Photoshop CC for a week now I can confirm that there is no real usability advantage in Stock Photography uses over Photoshop CS6. I therefore advise clients not to upgrade to Photoshop CC from Photoshop CS6.

Not only will this save you money it will save you a lot of money.

I do hope Adobe will come to their senses and reverse the 100%+ increase in pricing for clients who regularly upgrade their software would have to pay in renting CC as well as the fact that stopping renting will leave you without access to your files edited in none destructive ways (layered proprietary files).

In the meantime Copyrightimage supports the #adobe2014 campaign, described as “half a plan” in a very pragmatic way it uses the short term reaction by investors against the poor decisions made by the upper management at Adobe as a leveraged way to force change.

Let’s keep things in perspective, we just need fair price increases and perpetual licenses so we can keep things real for our own clients.

http://adobe2014.tumblr.com/

Stephen Johnson

Photoshop CC initial review

Spent the day retouching some Clive Nichols Plant and Flower images  for NEXT and some nice people pictures from Tim Pannell for MINT images.

I was using the newly downloaded Photoshop CC. How was it? well, no major changes to Photoshop CS6, performance felt better in parts but seemed to slow down in others, didn’t need to use the new tools as not relevant to the images I retouched (shake filter etc). For some reason best known to Adobe (and nobody else) the Output module has been removed from Bridge CC, so downgraded functionality, bit of a surprise that one.

Update: Adobe have said: “The Bridge team is working on providing a separate, downloadable solution to reinstate the output functionality after Bridge CC is available.”

Are you missing anything by not renting Photoshop CC? – no.

Adobe are going to have to work a lot harder to make Photoshop CC worthwhile over the next 12 months because as things stand at the moment it is a waste of time and money upgrading from the perpetual licence of Photoshop CS6.

Disappointed.

Update: Client Advisory on the use of the Shake filter.

I have been experimenting with some very slightly shaken images from a recent edit to see if the new shake reduction filter in Photoshop CC could make the images suitable for submission to Getty Images.

As you may know Getty Images have the tightest standards in the industry for the Premium Rights Protected brands, unfortunately the artefacts from the shake filter are visible at 1:1 checking view and would not in my opinion pass Getty QC.

Not the end of the world, all the submissions I make are on behalf of Professional Photographers and its very rare to find a shaken image. For printing/none critical/web images etc the new shake filter does a good job.

With Adobe considering Photoshop a Professional tool its a wonder they didn’t incorporate the shake filter into Lightroom instead.

Update 2:


A few days in and I thought I would try the shake filter again. This time not so bad. Still artefacts that are visible, the trick was to apply the filter on a layered copy and reduce the transparency then mask the worst of the artefacts. The resulting image was better and may have moved the image into a state where Getty may pass the image.

When I used the filter on day 1 there was a poor result, I had bought into Adobe marketing and assumed it would just work and it didn’t. So let me restate. The shake filter in Photoshop will not necessarily  make a shaken image suitable for Stone+ or any other of the premium collections in Getty. However, if the shake is minimal and you attenuate the effects of the shake filter then you may move the image to a more acceptable state.

Does this make it sensible to advise renting Photoshop CC? – no, not enough.

Stephen

Processing batches of images in Photoshop that stop because of a quick mask?

Occasionally when working on an image I forget to delete a quick mask before saving the file. Not too much of a problem most of the time but a real pain if that image is included with hundreds of more images that need to be processed through an action.

For instance when preparing files for Getty I need to intelligently adjust the output levels using a custom curve . If the action is run on an image with a quick mask it will stop the action.

I like to walk away from the computer when processing lots of files so it not good to return and find that a batch of 200 images is only 4 pictures in because of an empty quick mask.

Because the quick mask tool is a toggle (Q key) it cannot be included in an action as it will turn on quick mask for images that don’t have one as well as turn it off for ones that have. It is however possible to sort this!:

1. Open an image and press the Q key to give it a quick mask.
2. In your action click on the top action item and press the record button
3. Open the channels tab
4. Click on the Quick Mask channel
5. Alt or right click on the Quick Mask channel and select delete
6. Stop the recording and move the new action step to the top of the action.

From now on the action will delete any quick mask layer if there is any, if there isn’t one then it will just fail gracefully and continue.

Client Notice – Caution with new interface colours in Photoshop CS6

Click to enlarge

Which image on the left do you prefer?
Is it the bright one at the top which appears to have more contrast to either the middle or lower one?

As you may have guessed, all the images are exactly the same its just the surrounding interface colour that has changed. Its a known fact that the surroundings of an image can affect the perception of the image itself

Photoshop CS6 ships with the new darker interface colours as standard and as a result of this there will be lots of people disappointed with dark/flat prints from images worked on in CS6.

When preparing images from repro I regularly view each image against  light grey (default) but also against black then white.

Viewing an image against black is a quick way to visually check that shadow areas are not too light or too dark, viewing against white shows how the image will look when surrounded by white paper, this last step is critical in getting a perception as to how the image will look when printed.

I suggest you set Photoshop to default to the older light grey interface colour, I know its boring in comparison but your image adjustments will be easier to view.

To set the interface colour go to Preferences: Interface and select the lightest grey to the right.

If you want to judge shadows then press the F key to switch screen mode and right click on the grey area surrounding the image and select “Black”, to see the image against white press F again and this time select custom colour and choose white (top left hand corner of the colour picker), from now pressing the F key will cycle you through light grey / black / white. (Press the F key till you get back to light grey when your finished).

This tip is an example of the kind of practical Photoshop training I give to people who want to work to professional standards, its the kind of tip that is not in the manual but is important if you want to get things right. If you think you would benefit from some one to one training then give me a call.

Stephen

Photoshop CS6 retail code

I have just installed Photoshop CS6 from the retail release here at Copyrightimage.
Just a couple of points to help out any clients making the upgrade:

1. If you do have the beta of CS6 already installed then completely uninstall it first before installing the retail code. If you have Photoshop CS5 or earlier installed then dont uninstall it just yet.

2. There is one change since beta that annoys me – when using the zoom tool there are image measurements displayed at the edge of the zoom boundary box. This is very distracting to me, if you also find it annoying then you can turn it off by opening preferences and selecting “none” in the drop down menu of the   “Show Transformation Values” in the Options part of the Interface section.

I found the beta faster and nicer to use than Photoshop CS5 so Im hoping the retail code hasn’t changed this too much. If you are still using CS4 or earlier it may be time to think about swapping to a 64bit operating system and using CS6 in 64bit mode.

Any queries – get in touch,

Stephen

Client Advisory: Adobe release CS5.5

Adobe have decided to change the way they release products. Historically they operated a system of 18 months between major releases of the Creative Suite products but have now decided to change this to 24 months with a minor 0.5 release every 12 months.

Its all part of a plan to extract more money of course and Adobe have also decided to offer the option of a software rental scheme at the same time that enables you to pay for products on a monthly basis (no pay – no work).
There is no change to Photoshop software compared to 5.0 so no real reason to upgrade at present though the default Photoshop included in Suites is now the extended rather than the standard version which will be useful when CS6 is released in 12 months time (Update : Applies to the subscription version of the premium only – dash!)
Adobe had better get their pricing right on this, they have a reputation for being expensive, if they push too hard then it will be worthwhile for another developer to challenge Adobes monopoly. I’m not keen on monopolies and Adobe have a real monopoly on image editing software.