Hidden surprises in Adobe Photoshop CS5 revealed
Every new version of Photoshop (20 years) has been exciting for me. I love opening the box to find out what amazing new tools and workflows do. I’ve never been disappointed. But a while ago I started exploring more of the things mentioned in the fine print, and some that weren’t even mentioned there. These were cool things that I could really use, which isn’t always the case with banners.
This, their 20th anniversary edition, is no different. In fact, it actually has a few more advantages because it is the anniversary evolution. Many are unannounced and hidden.
With this release, behind all the hype of eye-catching bling tools (no disrespect, here’s some pretty cool bling) are some more subtle, but no less impressive, improvements and additions under the hood. Miss those and you’ll miss out on some of the program’s most powerful additions and tweaks. Some of them are really dramatic.
Adobe has done a few things to make it easier for you to find what’s new. In the Window drop-down menu, you can turn on the highlight option that naturally highlights new or changed tools and features. In the Dock you can also activate an information palette with more information and links.
It’s almost always about speed, with this version bringing both platforms up to 64-bit performance. Yes, gloating PC users, they had it first. With the last minute changes Apple made to its core program, Adobe had to do a massive rewrite of the program to be Cocoa compliant. This rewrite was like a ripple through the program, so there are speed boost results beyond the 64-bit advantage.
Photoshop will now access over 4 gigs of RAM, which is great as even laptops can get up to 8GB of RAM. There is a caveat: not all third-party plugins work on 64-bit, and most will have to be rewritten as well. To access these plugins, you must disable the 64-bit feature for them to work. However, it shouldn’t be long before all third parties have their patches available. Some of the really complex plugins ask for patience well into the fall.
It’s fortunate that RAM has become more affordable, because for many of the new features, you’ll need a lot of it. The math required by the program and the space required to juggle its magic is mind-boggling. More than ever, “you can never have enough RAM” is the mantra.
It was great to see that the UI hasn’t been overhauled, so you won’t be wasting your time looking for things and creating new workflows. However, there have been adjustments; cleaning controls have been extended to most tools and some new icons have appeared. Some of the new features you can turn on and off. Explore the option boxes on the toolbar. For example, in the zoom option, turn on pan zoom; drag the cursor to the left to reduce, to the right to expand. I love this.
There’s a funny term programmers came up with for layer styles; now they are “sticky”. This is great, and it means you can change the defaults and those changes are “sticky”. For example, the stroke style’s annoying default bright red can now be changed by default to black or whatever works best for you, even on the fly. Look for the Set Default button at the bottom of the palette.
A great step saver is the ability to drag an image from the desktop onto your picture. Place the new image as a Smart Object on its own layer. Another layer setting is that you can change the opacity of multiple layers at the same time.
Here are some of the unannounced changes that were included in the “Just Do It” directive. I think it was because of users’ plaintive crying over small items. There are many more of these little fixes, polishes, and refinements to explore.
You can now use the ruler tool to not only calculate how much you need to straighten the image, but actually do the straightening. Rotate and crop the image, all in one step. Just click on the straighten button in the options bar. But wait, what if you just wanted to square it and then clone the blanks? You can disable the trim step or go back in your palate of history.
In the actions palette you will find a new LAB Black and White process. You’ll find this action in the palette’s dropdown menu; it’s that little triangle in the top right corner.
Adobe has brought Bridge back to Photoshop; It’s a mini bridge! As part of its quest for improved workflow, Mini Bridge can be a dockable palette. For a mini feature, it’s pretty well equipped. You’ll find the button to the right of the Bridge icon on the app bar. The bridge must be running in the background. It has full navigation options, drop down menus for folders and collections. Works with pods; it has navigation pods and preview pods. All display options are customizable and you can even start a slideshow from there. Dragging an image from Mini Bridge onto an open image will place that image as a Smart Object on its own layer. There is more and it is worth exploring.
While very powerful new tools have been added, some of the older ones have been effectively reworked. The Sharpen tool is one. A detail protection checkbox now appears in the options bar, making it smarter and more effective.
The color picker tool has also been given a boost, just in time for the addition of the new bristle brush effects. The selection cross now appears inside a color swatch ring, the CSR. The bottom inside of the ring is the last color and the top half is the new selection color. There is an outer gray ring that acts as a buffer from the other colors to keep it clean. This is perfect for getting colors when painting on the go. There are a couple of other options. There’s the HUD wheel, color picker (Heads Up Display, love this stuff). (Requires OpenGL.) It’s a color wheel with a hue block inside. You can set them in Preferences > General. The best thing is that you can display all this with hotkeys.
Yes, despite all the advancements in mice and tablets, Adobe is still ramping up hotkeys for power users. If you’re not learning hotkeys, you should treat yourself. The CSR color picker still appears on Alt/Option key click. The HUD appears with Windows – Shift+Alt+right click, with Mac – Control+Option+Command. Release those keys and then temporarily press the spacebar to keep the tone selected while you select another tone.
There are many more of these subtle yet powerful tweaks, improvements and updates to the program. Of course, this article doesn’t even touch on the important stuff, which you’ve probably heard about. To find more, try doing a Google search for Photoshop CS5 updates. Visit Dr. Russell Brown’s website and blog. He will make you laugh and inform you.
This is a 20th anniversary tuning update. It has a huge speed advantage, improvements to everything, and a host of new tools. Third-party plugins will catch up, if they haven’t already. Oh one last thing, there has been an update to the CS5 release; all those little bugs and quirky refinements are smoothed out. You can download and install them if you haven’t already.
There is always the dangerous habit of getting an update and just poking around in some important stuff and then tackling things like you always have. Explore these new things, take advantage of them and integrate them into your workflow. Have a blast with the hidden treasures in this Anniversary release.
