This feature alone is worth its weight in gold, for those who have spent obsessive hours trying to create a seamless mask for a subject in a photo or design. In addition to the refine edges technique, a new brilliant solution for cropping a subject out and filling its place with whatever should of been behind the subject. This option is called "content aware", which will make a close guess to fill in the cropped subject's background. Its not perfect, but its still amazing to see Photoshop use such a powerful tool. Below is a snippet of what the new Photoshop can do, and rest assured I will be posting new features of this must have update.

Here is a comprehensive look at all the new features you will find in Photoshop C4 and Photoshop Extended CS4, from Photoshop expert Philip Andrews, author of Photoshop CS4 Essential Skills. ‘New and revised’ for CS4 When first opening Photoshop CS4, existing users could be forgiven for thinking that the most significant changes to the program are cosmetic ones. After all, you are immediately confronted with a different user interface and if you are a Macintosh aficionado, you also get a completely new way of interacting with the program. But these aren’t the only changes for CS4.

Workflow is king! Non-stop editing In fact, look a little closer, and you will find that in many ways this revision turns much of the old way of working on its head. In previous versions of Photoshop the process of editing an image often required that the user navigate a path through a series of adjustment dialogues, saving their changes along the way.

Each step started with selecting an adjustment type, for instance, the Levels feature. Next, changes were made to the picture using the settings in the dialogue before clicking the OK button and applying the alterations. Once Levels had done its thing, the user would select another adjustment type and continue the process. The whole workflow was very much a series of steps with each change being committed to the photo before the next one could be commenced.

CS4 changes this whole approach. Now, with the addition of the Adjustments and Masks panels image editing becomes a non-stop affair. You can switch between all the adjustment types (Levels, Curves, Hue/Saturation etc.) grouped in the Adjustments panel without the need to first commit your changes. Each adjustment is dynamically and non-destructively applied to the photo, providing a ‘tweak and tweak again’ workflow where image makers can combine a range of changes gradually adjusting each with reference to their combined effect. Cool! This approach is much more reminiscent to the way that Adobe Camera Raw and Lightroom works and represents the future of professional image manipulation.

Adjustments Panel

The new Adjustment Panel is a key component in the workflow change in Photoshop. Featuring not just existing core adjustment features such as Levels, Hue/Saturation, Exposure, Black and White, Channel Mixer, Selective Color, Color Balance, Photo Filter, but a completely revised version of the Curves feature and a brand new Vibrance adjustment tool.

For existing Photoshop users getting the hang of how to operate the Adjustment panel may take a little while, but once mastered this new approach will provide both efficiency and quality gains way beyond the effort needed to get over the initial hump in the CS4 learning curve.

As well as grouping key adjustment features together, the panel also provides ‘on image adjustments’ for Hue/Saturation and Curves features. This provides the user with the ability to click onto image areas in the photo and apply changes by dragging the mouse pointer either up or down or side to side. Also included is a wide variety of customizable presets providing more than 20 different starting points for typical image enhancement tasks.

Masks Panel

The new Masks panel is now the centre for mask based activity irrespective of whether the masks are pixel or vector based. Here you will find dedicated sliders for altering the density and feather of a mask which in turn will change the strength of the masked effect and the softness of the mask’s edge. The powerful Refine Edge feature that was added to Photoshop in the last version, can also be accessed from the panel, as can the Invert feature that switches masked and unmasked areas.

To help with color based mask creation a updated version of the Color Range feature is also located here. The feature has been redesigned to improve its accuracy and power. As well as including the Fuzziness slider present in previous versions, the feature now contains a Range control and a Localized Color Clusters setting, both of which are designed to allow you to hone in on the specific colors and their placement in the photo that you want to include in the selection. With the importance of masks as a key part of every non-destructive workflow it is great that Adobe has provided an easy way to target and alter this mechanism for modifying adjustments.

A new face for Photoshop

CS4 sports a new interface for Photoshop and Bridge. Called the Application Frame, the new Photoshop user interface combines:

• The ability to float, dock and group image windows together with a new Arrange Documents feature to help distribute the windows around the screen,
• A new Application Bar which integrates the features and functions of the title and control bars found in previous versions of Photoshop,
• A Screen Mode utility that can be used to individually control the display of documents on multiple monitors,
• New Adjustments and Masks panels, and
• A task based workflow approach to saving, displaying and using workspaces.

And Bridge as well

The changes for Bridge are a little less radical, but still the aim is to employ a workflow approach image management and processing inside the program. This is easily seen in the new workspace options buttons that sit across the top of the screen. When selected, these options quickly organise the many Bridge panes and panels to suit different tasks.

As in previous releases you don’t have to rely on ‘out of the box’ workspace presets, you can easily create your own arrangement that suits your own screen or screens (multi-monitor support is included). Bridge now contains a dedicated Output workspace which provides the ability to create Flash based websites and PDF based documents (presentations and multi-page) without having to leave the program and go to Photoshop. This continues the trend found in previous versions of Photoshop and Bridge where more tasks are capable of being performed in one or the other program.

When you add Adobe Camera Raw into the mix, there is no denying that image processing is no longer a Photoshop centric event. Instead pro photographers will increasingly find themselves moving images between programs depending on the nature of the tasks that they wish to undertake. As far as image management goes, there are also new ways to display images when sorting with the Review Mode (also called the Carousel View) and the new Search field adds operating system like functionality inside the browser space.

GPU powered display

Adding to the new look and feel is the way that Photoshop CS4 makes use of the awesome power of the modern graphics card to help display pixels on screen. Users with a recently released graphics card containing at least 256Mb of onboard memory and a supported GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) will be able to take advantage of the changes which include:

• Fluid Canvas Rotation – the option to rotate the canvas non-destructively to any angle using the new Rotate View tool from the Application Bar or under the Hand tool in the toolbar.
• Smooth Accurate Pan and Zoom functions – Unlike previous versions where certain magnification values produced less than optimal previews on screen, CS4 always presents your image crisply and accurately. Yes, this is irrespective of zoom and rotation settings and available right up to pixel level (3200%).
• Animated Zoom and Toss functions – Because of the extra power gained from leveraging the processing abilities of the GPU you can now ‘toss’ the enlarged image around the screen with the Hand tool in an animated panning motion. Zoom changes are animated with the photo sliding and then snapping into place.

Recomposing your picture after capture

With the new Content Aware Scaling feature (Content Aware Scaling) you can now push and pull different image parts around the canvas and have Photoshop fill in the gaps. Yes it seems strange but it is now possible to move, stretch and resize different sections of your photo at different rates.

This is drastically different from the Free Transform command, which when used in conjunction with the Shift key always resizes all picture content at the same rate. Content Aware Scaling (CAS), which is also known as Seam Carving, changes all this.

The image is scaled by keeping detailed areas the same and up or downsizing the parts of the photo that are feature less. CAS works with images, layers and selections in RGB, CMYK, Lab and Greyscale modes and at all bit depths, but not with Smart Objects, 3D or Video layers.

There are two controls in the tool’s options bar that help ensure that only the areas that you want to be squashed or stretched are scaled by the feature. They are:

• Skin Protection (person icon): This setting attempts to keep any skin tone areas in the image from change during CAS actions.
• Protect drop down menu: Provides a list of current alpha channels associated with the photo. Selecting one of these entries will force the protection of the masked image parts stored in the alpha channel during CAS scaling.

As you would expect, the version for Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) that accompanies Photoshop CS4 brings the Raw utilities feature sets and functionality in line with that available in Lightroom 2.0.

This means that the two key very popular localized adjustment tools found in Lightroom, the Adjustment Brush and Graduated Filter, now also appear in ACR. The Adjustment Brush allows the user to paint on a range of adjustment changes (Exposure, Brightness, Saturation, Clarity, Sharpness and Color) to specific areas of the photo.

The Graduated Filter applies a selected effect (darkening, lightening, changing color etc) via a gradient that starts with the effect fully applied and transitions to no effect. Also new for this release is the ability to apply Vignetting changes to images after they have been cropped in ACR. This solves the problem of applying aesthetic darkening of a photos edge to only have the effect cropped, or worse, partially removed when the photo is cropped. There are also Roundness and Feather sliders to adjust the shape and softness of the edge of the vignetting effect.

Integration with Lightroom 2.0

As you would expect, with the changes in ACR 5, the abilities of this utility and Lightroom 2 are almost exactly the same. Thankfully the changes made in one program is also reflected in the other. This means that you can freely pass your Raw photos between Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop with the changes being respected in each program. Lightroom 2.0 also includes more ways to pass photos to Photoshop. You now have the option to open a Lightroom managed file in Photoshop as an embedded Smart Object. You can also pass a series of photos to the Merge to HDR or Photomerge features.

Revamping old favorites

It seems strange to even be mentioning ‘old skool’ features such as the Dodge, Burn and Sponge tools in a summary of what is new in CS4. After all, for the last few releases we have been busy advocating alternative non-destructive ways of adjusting your images rather than encouraging readers to employ these tools, but it seems that there are still users who prefer their ‘simplicity’. So to modernise their adjustments all three tools get a revamp that promises better control and more predictable results than their predecessors.

Burn and Dodge get a new Protect Tones option designed to reduce the muddiness that plagued so much of their work previously. The Sponge tool is dragged into the 21st Century with the addition of a Vibrance switch which converts from making basic saturation changes to concentrating adjustments on pastel or desaturated colors. That said, we still put these tools along with the Brightness/Contrast feature in the ‘yes, better than before, but still not enough control for me box’. There are many more advantages in using other non-destructive approaches that provide similar results but protect your pixels.

Even Smarter Smart Objects

With Smart Objects being the basis of many non-destructive workflows it is good to see that some changes have been made in this area as well. In CS4 you can now apply Perspective transformations to a Smart Object.

This is a change from CS3 where scaling was the only option available. Added to this is the ability to work with linked layer masks and sample the content of the layers within the Smart Object with the new Eyedropper tool.

Though the improvements may seem small, at least there is continued development in this important area and the changes will definitely increase the variety of techniques that can use Smart Objects at their base.

Live Preview Cursor Tips

One of the great options available with the Vanishing Point feature was the way that the Clone Stamp displayed a preview of the sampled image at the cursor tip.

This provided the user with much needed visual information when trying to line up sampled image parts with background information during stamping actions. In CS4 we now have Live Preview Cursor Tips available with both the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush, this means we have the same alignment aids outside of the Vanishing Point feature.

Supersizing Photoshop’s Print Options

Printing is one of those photographic activities that we all assume, to our detriment, should be very simple. In reality the act of printing should be approached with all the care and control that we are used to bringing to other processing steps such as enhancing or editing.

The changes in the Print dialogue of Photoshop CS4 helps users create better quality prints in three distinct ways:

• The print dialogue has been streamlined so that more of the information you need is to hand when first opening,
• Files that are stored in a 16bit color depth can be printed directly from Photoshop, and
• Out of Gamut colors can be previewed inside the print dialogue.

The feature instantly connects those users who have signed up for a free account with up to three other web connected users. From that point on your screen and/or web cam, microphone, white board and chat comments are shared with the others.

I can see that this technology will be very useful for pro photographers talking clients through editing changes to key images, or tutors to help students learn new ways of adjusting their photos.

Photoshop CS4 Extended

Just like CS3, the latest version of Photoshop comes in two different versions – Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended. Photoshop ships with all the new features listed above and the bulk of the programs core image editing and enhancement technologies. It is suited for the majority of photographers and contains more options than they will ever use.

The Extended version builds on this base feature set with extra tools that are essential when Photoshop is used in conjunction with allied imaging areas such as video production, medical and scientific imagery and 3D modeling. CS4 extends the feature sets in these areas, especially when working with 3D models.

3D Editing and Compositing

The new and enhanced 3D tools found in Photoshop CS4 Extended are designed to allow the image maker to work with 3D images just as easily as they have traditionally been able to work with 2D pictures. New workflows remove the need for complex dialog boxes full of settings. In their place are tools that allow you to interact directly with 3D models and easily composite these models within 2D scenes. Users are now able to edit properties such as lights, materials and cameras, and in the process create high quality rendered images thanks to a new ray-tracing engine.

Enhanced Motion Graphics

CS4 increases the ease with which videographers are able to drag motion based images into Photoshop and provides them with more of the type of tools they need to work on these frames. Photoshop can now work more easily with non-square pixels, any audio associated with video footage, and it is also possible to animate 3d objects, camera position, render settings and even cross-sections.

Volume Rendering

Volume Rendering is new for Photoshop providing the ability to convert text, shape or pictures into a volume. Video professionals can use this new functionality to quickly create three dimensional text, where as photographers in the medical area can combine several different scientific scans into a 3D model that can be viewed from a range of angles.

Data analysis and Counting

Though not the most thrilling area, the ability to count the number of times a specific item appears in a frame is a task often undertaken by users analyzing scientific images. Count and Analysis tools were introduced in CS3, in CS4 their abilities have been expanded to include multiple color coded counts. The results can be stored in a reference file and then collated in the Measure Log panel for comparison.

(Taken from the book, Photoshop CS4 Essential Skills by Mark Galer and Philip Andrews.)

Scraped from PhotoshopSupport.com]]> http://thegraphyte.com/2009/11/16/whats-new-in-cs4/feed/ 0 http://thegraphyte.com/2008/10/17/illlustrator-crash-course/ http://thegraphyte.com/2008/10/17/illlustrator-crash-course/#comments Sat, 18 Oct 2008 00:13:27 +0000 The Graphyte http://imagination2.com/?p=745

This FREE 30 days Illustrator crash course is created for beginners interested in learning Illustrator. Each lesson will take around 20 mins to complete and you will be able to learn the basic fundamental techniques before the 30 days trial ends.

In this crash course, I will not be drilling down in details how each feature works. However, I will be covering all the essential tools that are commonly used so that you can get started and have a feel of how illustrator works. At the 30 days you will be able to and draw your illustrations, design your own logos and create special effects!

Remember to subscribe to my RSS feeds for new upcoming tutorials and tips. For more illustrator training resources, read my list of recommended illustrator books & videos.

1st Week Day 1: What is Illustrator

Day 2: Getting Started in Illustrator

Day 3: Drawing Basic Shapes

Day 4: Drawing with Pencil Tool

Day 5: Drawing with Pen Tool

Day 6: Weekend Break

Day 7: Weekend Break

2nd Week

Day 8: Using Brushes

Day 9: Creating Compound Paths

Day 10: Working with Color and Strokes

Day 11: Editing Objects, Layers & Groups

Day 12: Transparency & Graphic Styles

Day 13: Weekend Break

Day 14: Weekend Break

3rd Week

Day 15: Transforming & Moving Objects

Day 16: Basic Text Day 17: Blending Shapes & Colors

Day 18: Photorealism with Gradient Mesh

Day 19: Using the Symbol Tools

Day 20: Weekend Break

Day 21: Weekend Break

Last Week

Day 22: Creating Special Effects

Day 23: Applying 3D Extrude & Bevel

Day 24: Distort using Warp Effects

Day 25: Applying Live Paint

Day 26: Masking using Clipping Path/ Opacity Mask

Day 27: Weekend Break

Day 28: Weekend Break

Day 29: Saving & Printing

Day 30: Final Project - Designing a Logo

Scraped from http://www.vectordiary.com, Original article is here

This is a great way to get your chops up with Illustrator, which is essential for all designers looking to print or publish.

]]> http://thegraphyte.com/2008/10/17/illlustrator-crash-course/feed/ 0 http://thegraphyte.com/2008/09/23/color-me-bad/ http://thegraphyte.com/2008/09/23/color-me-bad/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:32:44 +0000 The Graphyte http://imagination2.com/?p=587

This is a scrape from http://www.viget.com, it's a great informative approach and discussion to saving your photoshop files to web. This is something that I have battled with on my own, and though not the perfect formula it accounts for the problem that many designers may have and yet to find a solution for. The original post can be found here.

Warning, the following information is hotly contested.

While working on the Odeo relaunch, we kept running into a frustrating problem: When we saved out the slices, the awesome Odeo pink flattened to a dreary "light coral". I'd seen the problem before, but never so pronounced: The color, through no fault of its own, was obviously changing, and we were at a loss for a way to prevent this.

Fig. 1 : Dastardly!

The usual suspects get knocked out pretty quickly in this issue: It isn't a Mac/PC thing, it isn't a monitor thing, it isn't because the color profile is somehow set "wrong". Fellow designers: Somewhere between PSD and JPG, Photoshop is draining our colors of their life, like some horrible, RGB-stealing vampire.

There's a lot of confusion on the web over why this is, and a lot of solutions being offered. Everything I found fails the acid test, though:

Testing for Perfect Color Translation

If I "Save For Web" an image from Photoshop, open that image up in a browser side-by-side with the original, I should see identical colors. I can then take a screenshot, open the screenshot in Photoshop, and test the color accuracy with our friend the color eyedropper, to show that nothing has shifted even slightly from the original image.

Fig. 2 : Checking for color shifts.

I've attached a JPG with some more indepth instructions at the end of the post. The testing process is a little painful, but the end result is worth it:

The ability to see, perfectly, how the colors in Photoshop are going to appear in your browser.

A Warning

What we're doing here won't make your colors look the same on all monitors or machines. Macs will display lighter (by default, at least), and monitors themselves will experience crazy color shifts based on age and settings. Reassure yourself: This is not your fault. The key is to calibrate your monitor as close to the center as possible, use Proof Colors (we'll get to that) to make sure details aren't getting blown out on other platforms, and be prepared to gently explain to clients why your green looks like aqua on their friend's 1992 Trinitron.

Okay, here we go: Three Steps to Color Perfection.

Step 1: Color Profiles

Color profiles define how Photoshop interprets the raw color data in your files. That's right: That means they change how you see the colors. This kind of precision is great for photography and print design, but it's got to go if we're making a website. With no images open, go to Edit / Color Settings.

Fig. 3 : Changing to Monitor Color.

We're going to essentially turn off all this profile nonsense by changing the top drop-down to Monitor Color. Let's uncheck "Ask When Opening" while we're at it....from now on, when you open an image that has a color profile, Photoshop will give you a brief heads-up that we're tossing it out.

Step 2: Proof Setup

Now, let's go up to View / Proof Setup / Monitor RGB. This is to make sure Photoshop won't be showing you skewed colors on your nice new profile-less images. A note, though: If you're on a Mac/PC and want to see how an image is going to look on the other's default gamma setting, you can come back here and test using "Windows RGB" or "Macintosh RGB." Just remember to switch it back, or you could accidentally be designing in (shudder) PC mode.

Fig. 4 : Make sure you're not viewing the wrong proof colors.

Step 3:

After all this hard work, Photoshop still wants to sneak color profiles into your images. Most web browsers ignore them, but new Safari and Firefox builds DON'T, and IE can be set to work with them too. This can result in the weirdest cross-browser headache yet, so we need to make sure the colors we save out are sans profile.

Fig. 5 : Convert to sRGB is an evil setting.

Thankfully, it's an easy fix: Open up any image on your machine and File / Save For Web. Next to the Preset option, there's a sneaky little arrow...click it and uncheck "Convert to sRGB." (Note: From what I can tell, this is only the default setting in CS3)

Congratulations

Your color woes are over! Or maybe not. If you followed these steps and your color accuracy test failed, leave a comment and we can try to figure this thing out using the awesome power of teamwork.

It's been nearly a decade that I have been studying digital art and trying to perfect my craft, though never perfect, and since then I have been a huge fan of 2advanced.com They are definitely pioneers of web development and digital media. I came across the site 8 years ago not sure through what medium perhaps another designer, cant say its been soo long.

One thing is for sure there design presence is something to be taken with a deep breath. Now in its fourth metamorphosis online the site and company has grown into a design powerhouse. Chances are you have visited a site they have created. There sleek and simple design is a formula many have try to follow and use as inspiration, I myself am guilty of both. Here is a sample of that formula, this sample business card model can be found on there website. They have also made available all previous versions of their site which gives you a indepth look at there evolution.

If you have ever seen "American Psycho" the movie when Patrick Bateman shows his business card to his colleagues and it becomes a paper orgy as everyone tries to out do each others cards, well this will truly be topping that movie, here are an amazing 70 sets of business cards that are inspirational to say the least. Business cards these days get very little time in the lime light as they are quickly handed off and then likely to end up in a pile of other business cards, what I like to consider the bone yard. So while poor trees are self sacrificed in order to print your light weight representation, they rarely get a seconds glance. In this age they have even invented card scanners in order to compile all those cards that accumulate, pending on what line of business your in, could be quite a bit. So here are the 70, credit goes to Fubiz for compiling this list.

I have managed to come across these designers through a little bit of link hopping & soul searching. As artists we seek each other out either for competitive reasons or to simply be inspired. Her you will find great photo realism, photo manipulation, montaging, collaging, surrealism well you get the picture. I pay tribute to these great artists slash photographers and keep these links close by to watch there evolution.

Still on the Run by Emeric Trahand.

The Official site of Allesandro Bavari .

Amazing photography of Quentin Shih.

The creative portfolio of David Waters.

Profile and portfolio of Lauri Ahonen.

Website of Sullivan & Lane.

Online showcase of Heiko Klug .

Photography portfolio of David Hill.

Portfolio of Anthony Harmon.

The days of pop-up windows have long changed, and gladly for the better. From pop-ups to pop-unders, separate java windows and different callout names. Well that has all been simplified, although its not the newest thing on the block it still might need some explanation to new developers and simple html coders. Writers of javascript have pushed the embedded little appications to new levels not just this one.

If any of you readers have facebook or myspace account you will know much of that is done in java. For java experts and coders alike this is not ground breaking, but for those of you that are artists but don't dive in further then your knees into code, this is certainly a helpful way of showcasing your portfolio or just about any other medium you wish to display on your site. Its the simplest way of having a media viewer within your site. If your site is wordpress based then you can simply download the plugin here Shadow JS. What it does is, launch an animated window that will display an image, video, a scrolling window, and even... you guess it another HTML window.

Perhaps you have a gallery of images that you wish to slide show, well this plug-in will allow you to save your self the needless headaches of creating pop-ups to accommodate each image or making links to the next image within your gallery, this plug in does it all for you. Simply adding the extra code to each HREF will instantly have each image that launches in the window communicate and become part of an album. Same can be said about videos, be it SWF or Quicktime and Windows. Again this isn't reinventing the wheel here but its a great addition to management of your website. Great examples can be seen here http://mjijackson.com/shadowbox/

What is Lorem Ipsum?

After a New Yorker profile implied that “king of the photo touchup” Pascal Dangin had airbrushed photos taken by Annie Leibovitz for Dove’s high-profile “Campaign for Real Beauty,” the company issued a statement last Friday explaining that Dangin had only removed dust and performed minor color corrections. Is it possible to determine whether the Dove photos were retouched?

Maybe, but it would be very difficult. Amateur retouching can leave seams where two different images are spliced together. But in the case of an expert retoucher like Dangin, visible signs would have been diligently scrubbed away. Additionally, since images can be distorted when they are compressed into other file formats (PDF) or printed in a magazine, any apparent smudges or irregularities in one of the Dove photos might well be artifacts of the photo’s reproduction, rather than signs of tampering.

Source: Slate Written by Jacob Leibenluft

Scraped from http://photoshopnews.com