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“Photoshop”. Just like “Google,” “Xerox,” or “Facebook,” this image editing software by Adobe has transformed into a household name
– one that has even turned into a verb itself. “Seriously?! It’s like you’re Photoshopped!” says Emma Stone to an extremely masculine and well-built Ryan Gosling. Such a statement displays how Photoshop has become so traditionally utilized in eradicating flaws in everyday photos, resulting in a product that is truly perfect.
And like most of technology, Photoshop has progressively upgraded since its simple 2003 format. Now, almost a decade later, Adobe releases its sixth version, the Adobe Photoshop CS6. Below are the new features of this iconic software:
A return to its roots
The common mistake in any form of upgrading is the unfathomable necessity to make things bigger. Adobe continually expanded the features of Photoshop, but most of these felt redundant, overly-complex, and useless. Bigger, after all, does not always mean better. In CS6, however, Photoshop focuses all its attention on its tiny percentage of useful features, and therefore improving upon it greatly.
Cropping revitalized
Who would have thought that cropping could be better than it actually was? The simple act seems to have been stuck in the “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broken” phase – until now. Thanks to CS6’s new graphic engine called Mercury, cropping becomes much less destructive than it usually is, usually resorting to linear compromises, and therefore lesser quality. Now, cropping adjusts greatly to the user’s preference, and even guides the mouse to the desired figure.
A new method of blurring.
Once again owing itself to Mercury, lens blurring now has three types of effects, the most impressive of which is the Iris Blur. This type of blur allows the user to pick specific points, then the blur to be adjusted dynamically. All a user has to do is tell Photoshop what to focus on, and the program blurs accordingly..
Layer organization
The difficulty of creating complex images has always been made harder by the massive amount of layers squeezed into the tiny bar at the side. Imagine having to search for a single layer in the midst of a hundred! Now, fortunately, one can filter his/her layers by kind, name, effect, mode, attribute, and the like. This makes editing much more convenient than it was before.
Automated image correction
Adobe once gathered hundreds of people to manually correct thousands of images; red eyes, blurs, brightness levels, and the like. They then gathered all these people’s actions into one brilliant database now used by the CS6. Now, one can upload a photo in Photoshop and have it corrected without having to do anything at all.
Face recognition
Like cameras of late, CS6 now has a feature that detects skin areas or facial areas in human models. The only job left to do for the user is to modify the areas already selected.
Saving the picture, and your life
Like Microsoft Word, CS6 now does the simple task of saving automatically – both the photo and your life. Despite the constant reminders that one must save constantly, computer crashing or blackouts still happen to everyone constantly, in the process, losing one’s work. Its saving every five minutes means that when rebooting, the most recent version of the photo is retrieved, and a great big sigh of relief is released.
Stepping up the performance
The Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine deserves mention again, truly stepping up CS6’s already incredible game. Nearly every process one undergoes no longer requires any waiting. Any effect, no matter how large, is instantly applied on the image, no matter how large. Once again, efficiency is the key.
The smart patch-and-move tool
Patching has generally been crude, moving objects with a few stray pixels that make it look badly Photoshopped. In CS6, the app guesses what the user is trying to select, in the process, preempting the user and making his/her work much quicker. And of course, the computer selects fragments of the image so much cleaner.
3D infection
The third dimension is one that has been increasingly widespread nowadays. Now, it has spread even to the CS6, with its revamped 3D engine, making it extremely easy to extend normal text into more eye-popping manners. This includes even floors, walls, and other flat surfaces, and allowing a user to extrude, twist, inflate, and basically mold this flat surface into a any three-dimensional figure.
Indeed, Adobe Photoshop is a software that has crawled into the spotlight, and shows no signs of shying away with its brand new, significantly improved version. What one must take note of is that this technology actually aims to be useful, and it all lies in us whether or not to utilize this astounding piece of Information technology – a software men only a few years back would marvel upon, definitively marking Photoshop its place in this world. The rest, as they say, is history.
