If you thought the recent Adobe Photoshop CC 14.2 update seemed a little glitchy in some areas, you were right. Adobe has released Photoshop CC 14.2.1 with fixes that mostly address issues with the new features introduced in 14.2, such as Linked Smart Objects, Scripted Pattern Fills, and 3D printing. There are also fixes for older features like Generator and the some of the selection tools, and a stability fix for the Camera Shake Reduction filter when running on the 2013 Mac Pro (the cylinder).
For the full list of changes, see the Photoshop update post on Jeff Tranberry’s blog:
To update from Photoshop, start Photoshop CC and choose Help > Updates.
or:
To update through Adobe Creative Cloud: Start Adobe Creative Cloud if it isn’t running, and it should indicate that an update is available for Adobe Photoshop CC.
Adobe Photoshop CC 14.2 is an update not to be ignored, especially if you use it on a Mac. You’ll get it either for the features or for the performance. The new features include Perspective Warp, linked Smart Objects, and 3D printing support. Performance enhancements include initial support for the GPU in the 2013 Mac Pro, and a fix that prevents OS X App Nap from slowing down Photoshop when it’s in the background.
This article covers some of the highlights from my point of view. For a link to several informative Adobe articles with videos, to learn how Adobe is resetting the clock on the trial version, and to learn how to get the update, skip down to the end of this post.
Adobe Illustrator CC and Adobe InDesign CC also received updates today.
Perspective Warp
Already demonstrated by Adobe in a “sneak peek” without being tied to a specific future version, Perspective Warp is officially part of Photoshop CC 14.2. Photoshop already has several ways to handle perspective. For many years people simulated perspective using the Crop tool to create a crude 2D warp. More recently, the Lens Correction filter lets you alter perspective of an entire image. But where the point of Lens Correction is to compensate for unwanted distortion, Perspective Warp is more of a creative tool that you can use to alter the perspective of parts of an image instead of the whole thing while keeping it believable. For example, it you want to composite two images in one document but their perspectives are different, you could use Perspective Warp to make the perspective of both images consistent. Here’s an Adobe video demonstrating Perspective Warp.
Linked Smart Objects
While Smart Objects bring a lot of power and flexibility to image editing, there’s always been the potential to use them for the types of documents you can build with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign, where imported content can be linked (to a file outside the document) instead of embedded in the document, and that content is easily replaced by pointing the link to a different file on disk. But up until now that potential has not been realized because Smart Objects could only be embedded.
The new File > Place Linked command in Photoshop 14.2 changes all that. Using that command adds the content to a Photoshop document as a linked Smart Object. It has the usual attributes of a Smart Object, but it lives outside the Photoshop file and is easy to manage. There is no Links panel as you would find in InDesign or Illustrator, but the Layers panel now displays the status of linked Smart Objects. When a linked Smart Object layer is selected, the Properties panel gives you information about that object along with options for managing it, including a Reveal command so you can find the file on the desktop, update the content if the disk file has been modified, and replace the contents with a different file.
There are those who may wish for a full Links panel, but I can understand why Adobe didn’t add one. A Photoshop document is only one page, so typically there are relatively few Smart Objects to manage. Illustrator can have multiple artboards and InDesign can have up to hundreds of pages, so a full Links panel for those two applications makes more sense because many more objects are likely to be imported into them.
If you use a lot of Smart Objects, linked Smart Objects could potentially reduce the size of a Photoshop file by a significant amount compared to embedded Smart Objects. Photoshop templates that use placeholders are going to be a lot easier to work with now. In addition, if you manage photos or other files using LIghtroom or Bridge and place them as linked Smart Objects in Photoshop, when you edit those files outside of Photoshop (e.g., in Lightroom) you will now find it much easier to update them inside a Photoshop document. That’s a big reason that Linked Smart Objects is my favorite new feature in Photoshop 14.2.
3D printing support
I don’t do much with 3D but another major feature in Photoshop 14.2 is the introduction of support for 3D printing. If you bring 3D models into Photoshop to touch them up, you can print them to devices such as the MakerBot Replicator or to the Shapeways printing service. Adobe talks about it in more detail in the following article.
Mac Pro (2013) support and OS X performance optimization
Adobe claims that Photoshop CC 14.2 supports the powerful GPUs in that mysterious black cylinder, the 2013 Mac Pro. Before you get too excited, read the fine print in Jeff Tranberry’s article (Photoshop CC 14.2 Update). Photoshop 14.2 can fully use one of the two FirePro GPUs in the Mac Pro, but not both (yet). Note that not everything in Photoshop lends itself to GPU acceleration, and some operations can be accelerated more than others. Adobe points out that even just one of the Mac Pro GPUs is more powerful than the GPU in any other Mac. (Similarly, while Adobe Premiere Pro CC now supports both 2013 Mac Pro GPUs for rendering, it doesn’t yet support both for previewing.)
Another performance optimization in Photoshop 14.2 has to do with OS X App Nap, a technology that tries to halt background processes to save battery life and hand over more resources to a foreground application. Unfortunately, as reported by Mac Performance Guide, App Nap was slowing down Photoshop when it was not in the foreground. Adobe now suppresses App Nap for Photoshop so that it runs at full speed at all times. They do not mention whether this is switchable.
Other (but not all) new features and enhancements
Adobe claims that Smart Sharpen is accelerated by supported GPUs more than it was before.
When you choose Edit > Fill, try some of the new additions to the Scripted Patterns option at the bottom of the Fill dialog box. For example, you can generate a range of trees by choosing the Tree script and playing with the settings.
When I first wrote about Adobe Generator, I mentioned that there was no way to specify padding or export the entire canvas of a layer. Adobe notes that in 14.2 “Generator can export padding in image assets by using layer masks. Sounds promising, I just haven’t tried it out yet.
You now get up to 10 color samplers, the ability to edit all color samples in the Info panel at once, and a new Clear All option to remove them all at once.
Now there’s a one-click way to unlock a background layer. Just click the lock icon on it!
More details from Adobe
Adobe just published several articles about the new features in Photoshop CC 14.2. Here are links to them. The first two are the most important if you want a complete list of what’s in the update.
To update from Photoshop, start Photoshop CC and choose Help > Updates.
or:
To update through Adobe Creative Cloud: Start Adobe Creative Cloud if it isn’t running, and it should indicate that an update is available for Adobe Photoshop CC.
Bonus! Trial version reset
In the Introducing New Features article by Adobe that’s linked above, Adobe mentions that they are resetting the trial period for Photoshop. This is pretty significant for those who haven’t tried Photoshop in a while. Normally, once you’ve used a trial version you can never use it again on the same computer after the trial period is up. With Photoshop 14.2, anyone can now use it for 30 days even if they had already tried it before. From the article (bold formatting is by Adobe):
We want everyone to have a chance to try out these new features, as well as other features like Adobe Generator, which was introduced last September with the release of Photoshop CC version 14.1, and those released in the first version of Photoshop CC (version 14). We are excited to announce that we are resetting the trial clock for everyone today. Even if you have previously tried Photoshop CC and your trial has expired, now you can try the latest version of Photoshop CC for an additional 30 days and test-drive these awesome new features.
You’ve got a folder full of images and you need to run some production chores on them, like converting formats or applying noise reduction. How can you quickly tell which images need work? In an article I wrote for CreativePro.com, I talk about how the filtering features in Adobe Bridge and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can save you lots of production time by helping you quickly target files you need to work on, and tracking your progress.
Want to create photo layouts faster? I just wrote an article, “Import More Images in Less Time,” for the Photography Issue of InDesign Magazine (December/January 2014). If you use Adobe InDesign to create photo-intensive publications like catalogs, yearbooks, or magazines, you already know that it takes too long to import images one at a time using the Place command. But what are the faster alternatives that can save you hours of time? In this article I tell you about several ways to quickly import and place multiple images in a single pass using InDesign.
The article is part of an issue of InDesign Magazine that’s available for purchase as a single issue or as part of a subscription. InDesign Magazine is a bimonthly periodical devoted entirely to Adobe InDesign and to the thriving community of InDesign professionals. With editorial direction by page-layout guru and author David Blatner and CreativePro.com editor in chief Mike Rankin, InDesign Magazine brings you the in-depth features, reviews, and tutorials you need to master Adobe InDesign. You can download a free trial issue.
Adobe has released Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.3 and Adobe Camera Raw 8.3 with the same raw processing updates for both, and with a corresponding DNG Converter 8.3 update. All are free updates for current licenses of the software. The updates also include the usual bug fixes, adds support for new cameras including the Nikon Df, Pentax K-3, Sony A7/A7r, and the Nokia Lumia 1020 smartphone; and also add new lens correction profiles including one for the iPhone 5s. For more details, go to:
If you’ve been using the Release Candidate (RC) versions that were released by Adobe Labs earlier for public testing, you should install these final versions because there have been some changes from the RC versions.
New features in Camera Raw
The Adobe Camera Raw 8.3 blog post I linked above describes new features for Camera Raw including:
Auto-straighten with the Straighten tool.
Apply auto-levels-like adjustment for the Whites and Blacks sliders (Shift-double-click).
Apply Auto Temperature and Auto Tint separately (Shift-double-click). Previously, you could only choose Auto white balance which always adjusted both sliders.
Control background color of work area and toggle the border around the image.
In the dialog boxes for synchronizing settings and creating presets, Option/Alt-clicking a checkbox is a shortcut for selecting that checkbox only, and toggling back to the previous set of selected checkboxes.
Should Lightroom users be concerned that Lightroom 5.3 doesn’t have new features? No, because some of those features appeared in Lightroom first. Adobe continues to add features to Camera Raw to bring it closer to Lightroom, as I wrote about in my article “Camera Raw 8.2 vs Lightroom 5.2: Latest releases shift the balance.” But the border toggle and sync checkbox features are unique to Camera Raw.
As you can see in the updater screen shot below, Camera Raw 8.3 is available for both Photoshop CC and Photoshop CS6 (as well as Adobe Bridge CS6 and CC). Consistent with current Adobe policy, Photoshop and Bridge CS6 get Camera Raw 8.3 bug fixes and support for new cameras, but not the new features.
End of the line for older OSs (Camera Raw and DNG Converter)
If you’re using Photoshop CS6 with an older Mac or Windows operating system, you’ll want to understand this excerpt from the Camera Raw 8.3 blog post I linked earlier:
Please note that this is the final version of Camera Raw 8 and DNG Converter 8 that will be available for Photoshop CS6 customers on Windows XP, Windows Vista or Mac OSX 10.6. Impacted customers can continue either update to compatible operating system (sic) or continue to use Camera Raw 8.3 for Photoshop CS6.
The Adobe note goes on to say that newer OS versions will keep getting updates.
How to get the updates
To update Camera Raw from Photoshop, start Photoshop and choose Help > Updates.
To update Lighroom, start Lightroom, choose Help > Updates, download the installer, and run the installer.
or:
To update both Camera Raw and Lightroom through Adobe Creative Cloud: Start Adobe Creative Cloud if it isn’t running, and it should indicate that an update is available for Adobe Photoshop CC and Lightroom.
You can also download standalone installers for Lightroom 5.3 and DNG Converter 7.3 from the Adobe Product Updates page.
conrad chavez | blog 