Adobe announced today that it plans to discontinue its Photoshop Touch software for iPhone and iPad as it changes its approach to bringing features from its professional desktop application to mobile platforms. Rather than continuing to develop an all-in-one app that tries to recreate the Photoshop desktop experience on smartphones and tablets, Adobe is fully embracing its recent strategy of releasing multiple apps that each perform specific functions well. Adobe also revealed a preview of one of those new apps coming to replace Photoshop Touch under the name Project Rigel… Expand Expanding Close
Following months of rumors, Adobe is today announcing Photoshop Lightroom 6 and Lightroom CC, the latest versions of its popular photo editing and organization software. Sharing the same code, design, and much of the same functionality, the two Lightroom releases are separated into purchasable (Lightroom 6) or subscription (Lightroom CC) versions, only the latter of which can sync with Adobe’s mobile applications. Apple notably recommended Lightroom as a replacement for its recently-discontinued Aperture professional photo application, and worked with Adobe to build an Aperture library importing tool to aid users during the transition.
Lightroom manages large photo libraries, while offering photographers powerful tools for RAW and JPEG image adjustment. Now solely a 64-bit application, Lightroom 6/CC promises huge speed improvements when applying prior effects to images, as well as newly added tools and brushes. As shown in the embedded video, facial recognition has been added, enabling functionality similar to Apple’s Faces feature from Aperture and iPhoto. A new HDR (high dynamic range) tool uses two images to create a composite photo with more vivid colors and detail, while brushes such as radial and graduated filters have been added. The app has also gained new slideshow options, automatic panorama stitching, video slide shows, and many other features.
Apple’s iPhones became Flickr’s most popular camera phones in 2008 and most popular cameras overall soon thereafter, but even now, iPhones constitute only 9.6% of the photo-sharing site’s userbase. Despite the iPhone’s undeniable popularity, over 90% of photographers are using other cameras: Canon has a 13.4% share, Nikon 9.3%, Samsung 5.6%, and Sony 4.2%, with tons of other brands following close behind. While the cameras in phones continue to improve every year, they’re not the best tools for photography — they’re just the ones most people carry with them all the time.
If you shoot photos with a DSLR or point-and-shoot camera, you probably aren’t sending images directly to the Internet from the camera itself. You probably come back home, transfer your photos to your computer, then edit and share them with Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom or one of Apple’s three photo management apps — iPhoto, Aperture, or the beta version of Photos.
For around $30, your iPhone or iPad can change the way you shoot, edit, and share photos. Using the right accessories and apps, you can easily publish DSLR-quality photos a minute after snapping them. I’ve been doing this for years, and it works incredibly well; today, it’s actually better than at any time in the past, thanks to recent iPhone and iPad hardware improvements. This new How-To guide will walk you through everything you’ll need to know to use your iPhone or iPad as a photo editing and sharing station, looking at photo transferring accessories, editing software, and sharing options…
Adobe is today celebrating the 25th anniversary of Photoshop, which first launched as a Mac-only app on 19th February 1990.
What went on to become the industry standard image editing app started life in 1987, when Thomas Knoll, a computer vision doctorate student at the University of Michigan, began developing it on his Mac Plus. Known then as Display, the app was designed to do nothing more than display grayscale images on the Macintosh’s black-and-white monitor. As Adobe showcases in the video below, the app has come rather a long way since then … Expand Expanding Close
Adobe is out with an update to its Photoshop Express photo editing app for iPhone and iPad today. The latest release of Photoshop Express for iOS, version 3.5, adds integration with the WhatsApp Messenger app for sharing edited photos directly to the chat service. The update also includes the usual bug fixes including some for issues for iOS 8 users specifically.
Adobe is also giving Photoshop Express users access to some premium features within the app for free. Photoshop Express users with a free Adobe ID (you can sign up here) can use paid features like Premium and Custom Looks as well as noise reduction without paying. Adobe says this promotion will only be available for a short time.
Adobe released version 1.4 of Photoshop Mix for iPhone and iPad today adding a new “auto crop” feature that Adobe says “analyzes images and suggests non-destructive boundaries based on the primary objects in an image.”
The latest version of the photo editing app also includes the addition of Instagram as a sharing option while sharing to Facebook has been improved. The Creative Cloud-connected app can now open files directly from Lightroom, Photoshop Sketch, Illustrator Line, and Illustrator Draw as well while support for six more languages was added in the update.
Auto crop feature from Photoshop Mix
Check out the full change log for Photoshop Mix, which first launched in June, below with all the new details.
Alongside a string of updates to both the mobile and desktop Creative Cloud software suites, Adobe today launched a trio of new services at its annual MAX conference. First up, and most critical to the updates on the software side of the story, is the new Creative Profile content synchronization service. Blending nicely with the existing Creative Cloud sync service, Creative Profile takes ubiquity of files to new heights by allowing synchronization of more aspects of documents:
This Creative Cloud release includes a new Creative Profile that connects creatives to their work, to the assets they use to create, and the communities that matter to them – no matter where they are. Files, photos, colors, brushes, shapes, fonts, textstyles, graphics, and any other assets are always at their fingertips. This new Creative Profile moves with creatives from app-to-app, and device-to-device, so assets automatically appear when they need them, in the right context.
Most critically, it is optimized for the new desktop and mobile apps so new content created with Adobe’s latest products can be easily synchronized. The Creative Profile service launches today, and it is a free addition for customers with existing Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions…
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 …
Adobe has published an update for its mobile photo editing app, Photoshop Express, bringing the version up to 3.3. The update includes a redesigned interface to match iOS 7’s look along with a handful of new features.
Feature-wise, the update adds a ‘green eye’ correction filter, an auto-save feature, improved tool tips, a better photo picker, and new sharing options for Instagram and SMS.
• A brand new editing experience with a new look for iOS7
• Share via Instagram or SMS
• Pet-eye (a.k.a. green-eye) correction
• Save your work without saving now that the app resumes where you left off
• Navigation improvements throughout the app, including Tool Tips and updates to the Photo Picker
• Bug fixes and performance improvements.
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…
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 … Expand Expanding Close
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… Expand Expanding Close
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…
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.
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.” Expand Expanding Close
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?
Adobe’s unveiling of its latest updates to Creative Cloud earlier this week came with the announcement it will only support Creative Cloud members for future updates, effectively dropping support for customers of its boxed CS6 suite and below apart from security updates and some bug fixes. Adobe has since taken to its Photoshop blog to respond to some of the questions regarding its new CC branded suite of apps and specifically the $20/per month Photoshop users will be forced to pay if they don’t want a full Creative Cloud membership.
Adobe also confirmed it is considering a photographer’s bundle or “photography cloud solution” that would presumably include various photo related apps at a special price through Creative Cloud:
We’ve heard there’s a lot of interest in a photographer’s bundle or photography cloud solution and we’re actively exploring offerings we can potentially create for you. We welcome your feedback around what you would like to see that fits your workflow needs.
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…
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: Expand Expanding Close
Flying Meat, the developer behind the popular Photoshop-like image editing app called ‘Acorn’, today has released version 4.0 of the app bringing a number of new highly requested features and performance enhancements. Acorn 4 brings new non-destructive filters, multiple layer selection, new shape tools such as “Stars, Arrows, and a Bezier anchor,” and a revamped UI with the tools palette in a separate window.
Layer styles and filters are now merged together into a happy new UI. Chain filters together to create endless combinations of unique effects knowing you can always change your mind later on.
Other improvements include enhancements to speed, a new UI for filters dubbed the ‘Merlin HUD’, and Boolean shape operations, and Curves to “Adjust the tonal response and even the individual color channels to perfect the midtones, shadows, highlights, and contrast.”
