Adobe Photoshop CS5 – a closer look

By David Heath
Tuesday, 13 April 2010 00:34

Software

Announced today, Adobe's Photoshop CS5 brings some new and interesting features to the desktops of the world's image manipulators.

Following a confidential briefing some weeks ago, iTWire received a full pre-release version of CS5 a few days later.  In order to fully explore the features, it was installed it on a production photo manipulation system and has been used as the primary software ever since. 

The operator of this particular system specialises in photo restoration, retouching and clipping services.  Her expertise is specific to Photoshop and thus the other CS5 components will not be covered in this review.

Prior to today's announcement, Adobe released a number of video presentations showing many of the major new features.  Some of these features are as amazing as they seem; others not quite so.

The first feature to discuss is edge detection based on smart radius.  This is a very useful feature that allows a very simple selection of a complex object.

The provided video shows a white horse moving in a field with grass beneath and a wooden paling fence behind.  With some very simple selection steps, the horse (including a very wispy tail) is fully selected.

Next, and more amazingly, the content-aware fill can be launched to re-create the scene behind the horse when it is removed; the fence is recreated as are trees, sky and grass.

More on the next page.