If you want to dig into the details of CS5 features, you might find the product help files useful. You can check out a list of the new features in Photoshop CS5, as well as information about shared CS5 features, like Adobe Bridge and Camera Raw. Note that the content is also downloadable in PDF form. [Via]

The introduction of the Adjustments panel in Photoshop CS4 marked a big step in making the Photoshop interface less modal, more browsable, and geared toward non-destructiveness. Unfortunately, in moving from dialog-based forms of the adjustments to a non-modal panel, we traded away a couple of niceties:

• In the dialog versions of Levels, Hue/Saturation, Color Balance, etc., the first available text field is either automatically selected (i.e. it has keyboard focus), or you can hit Tab to select it. From there you can hit Tab additional times to cycle through text fields.
• In the dialog version of Curves, the eyedropper tool is automatically selected, so you can immediately click on the image to see/set points on the curve.

Thus the feature was a bit polarizing. To make things a bit smoother in CS5, we’ve made some enhancements:

• “Auto-Select Parameter” (available via the Adjustments panel flyout menu) puts keyboard focus on the first field in an adjustment layer, much as you’d get with the dialog form of the adjustment. In other words, you don’t have to click onto a text field in the panel before you can start typing in numbers.
• “Auto-Select Targeted Adjustment Tool” (available via the flyout menu when a Curves, B&W, or Hue/Sat layer is active) automatically switches to the on-canvas adjuster (aka “TAT”) when you select a layer with which it can be used. With this option active, creating or selecting a Curves layer produces an experience more akin to using the modal dialog box, where you can immediately click and drag on the document surface to set/adjust curve points.
• You can assign a shortcut to the Targeted Adjustment Tool via Edit->Keyboard Shortcuts.

None of these options are active by default, because each has a downside:

• We didn’t want PS to put keyboard focus onto adjustment parameters automatically, as doing so is very subtle and people would start saying, “Photoshop is buggy, because randomly I can’t select tools via the keyboard.” (They wouldn’t understand that having focus on the panel would mean that the letter they typed were being entered as adjustment values. Hopefully that makes sense.) We wanted this to be a conscious, opt-in behavior.
• Same goes for auto-selecting the TAT: we didn’t want PS to be seen to be “randomly” changing the active tool based on changes to the active layer. (There’s no existing precedent for doing so.)
• Keyboard shortcuts are in short supply, so the TAT doesn’t get one by default.

Ah, and one other thing: To put keyboard focus onto the first field in Adjustments, you can hit Shift-Return on the keyboard. This is independent of the preferences mentioned above, and it offers a way to change focus without clicking. (Call this one the Deke McClelland memorial feature, as it was his suggestion. [Update: Deke isn’t dead–or if he is, he hasn’t told me! I was just looking for a funny turn of phrase and didn’t dream that anyone would read much into it.])

Photoshop CS5 obviously packs a wealth of big-ticket features, especially for photographers. It might be harder to see what all has been improved for designers. Here are ten enhancements I think everyone–but especially those working with lots of layers and/or designing Web/screen output–will like.

• Multi-layer opacity/fill adjustment: Select multiple layers & adjust their opacity and/or fill simultaneously.
• Mini Bridge: “MB” is a pocket-sized version of Bridge that runs as a panel inside Photoshop (and InDesign), making it easy to navigate & browse files without leaving PS. This feature really deserves its own coverage here & will get it soon.
• Drag and drop of files: You can now drag one or more files onto a Photoshop document to place them as layers. This is especially useful when dragging in files from Mini Bridge, letting MB function as a sort of library panel. I recently had to lay out dozens of UI widget screenshots, each stored as a separate file, and I found this feature a godsend.
• “Sticky” layer styles: See previous entry.
• Paste in Place command: See previous entry.
• Copy Color’s Hex Code command. See previous entry.
• Deeper layer nesting (up to 10 deep): Sort of self-explanatory. It works just as you’d expect, though I’d shy away from using the feature if you’re expecting to send layered files to older versions of PS or older PSD-reading apps as they won’t be able to read the deeply nested data.
• Animated GIF import: See previous entry.
• Optionally omit “Copy” on duplicated layers: See previous entry.
• Repoussé (3D extrusion & inflation): This Photoshop Extended feature also really deserves its own coverage here, so look for that soon.

Bonus item: If you need to conduct design reviews with clients and/or colleagues, I think you’ll find the free CS Review service built into Photoshop and other CS5 apps compelling. More on that one, too, soon.

Let’s say you copy some data in Photoshop & want to paste it in the same spot but on another layer. How do you do it?

If you’ve kept the same selection active, no problem: PS will deposit your pixels into that spot. But what if you cut instead of copy, thereby deselcting the original pixels? Or what if you want to paste your pixels at the same coordinates in a different document? Sure, these things can be done (New Layer Via Cut, or Shift-dragging pixels between docs), but the solutions aren’t obvious.

Photoshop CS5, along with Illustrator CS5, introduces the “Paste in Place” command (Shift-Cmd-V/Shift-Ctrl-V). If you’ve ever used Paste in Place in InDesign or Flash, you know what it does, preserving object coordinates when pasting (e.g. copy something in the upper-left corner, then paste it in just the same spot, even in other documents). The command appears under Edit->Paste Special in Photoshop. For bonus points Illustrator also adds “Paste On All Artboards” for pasting data in the same coordinates on each artboard (one of the numerous artboard-related enhancements made in CS5).

There’s always more room for improvement, and I may as well mention that we hoped to make the command work between applications. That way you could, for example, set up a 1024×768 design in Illustrator, copy data to the same coordinates in a PSD of equivalent dimensions, and then copy data to the same coordinates in a Flash Pro project. We ran out of time to make those changes, but if you’d find them useful in the future, please let us know.

Russell does what he does best, making a range of features more interesting & accessible:

• Masking:
  • New Masking Basics: Get up-to-speed with the great new masking tools in Adobe Photoshop CS5.
  • New Advanced Masking: Learn some of my favorite tips and techniques for masking out a background from a really difficult image.
  • Advanced Motion Blur Masking: This tutorial will get you through the toughest motion blur with flying colors. Also learn some advanced blending techniques.
• Content-Aware Goodness:
  • Creating Content-Aware Patterns: Discover some creative ways to accurately control, and create, patterns with the new Content-Aware Fill feature in Adobe Photoshop CS5.
  • Wire Removal with Spot Healing: Remove unwanted wires from your images with these time-saving tips and techniques.
  • Content-Aware Rotation: Magically fill in missing parts to the background of a rotated image with Content-Aware Fill.
• Puppet Warp:
  • Puppet Warp Basics: Learn the basics of warping images with precision and accuracy using the new Puppet Warp feature.
  • Advanced Puppet Warp: The Puppet Warp features isnt just for manipulating and warping little puppet figures. It can also be used to warp standard images as well as graphic typography.

Update: In response to your feedback, Russell raised the volume in the vids and reposted them. Thanks for the heads-up (and thanks, Russell).

In case you recently bought CS4 and wonder whether you qualify for a free upgrade to CS5, you might want to consult the Post-Announce Upgrade Frequently Asked Questions document on Adobe.com, or simply call Customer Service (1-800-833-6687 in the US).

Adobe evangelist Terry White has created an excellent 5-minute demo that shows off how easily the rewritten Refine Edge command in Photoshop CS5 can select tricky subject like blowing hair:

Full-screen viewing makes it much easier to see the interface during the demo.
I know it’s easy to knock Photoshop (or any mature tool) by saying, “You guys always just go add new stuff & never fix/improve what’s already there.” In the case of Refine Edge & many other spots within CS5, however, you’ll see that instead of adding something new, we’ve gone back and significantly overhauled what already existed. I think you’ll like the results.

Last summer, designer Sam Potts made a good suggestion:

The Copy Color as HTML in the color panel is awesome. Everyone uses it all the time. However, times have changed and my guess is that most of the people who use this are writing their colors in CSS. So you always have to delete the color=”” part after you paste it into a style sheet.

It would be awesome to simply have a “Copy Color Hex Code” option and get #CCFF00 instead of the full color=”#CCFF00″ tag.

So it was written, and so it shall be:

Thanks for all the feedback on the subject.

Photoshop CS5 is far and away the biggest step forward in the app’s brushing & natural media features in the last eight years (since PS7 introduced a new brush engine). In this episode of The Complete Picture, Julieanne Kost shows off new painting features including the new Natural Media Bristle Tip Brushes.

I just saw the following unsolicited comment from filmmaker Linda Nelson & thought it deserved its own post:

If you are editing a film shot with the RED camera, you’d be crazy to use anything other than CS5. Straight from the camera to the timeline – no rendering required to preview – incredibly fast load and export. We are beta testing with our feature film, DELIVERED. Shot on RED. Here’s the trailer. Great job Adobe!

As BSN notes, “[C]ontent creators can now work with not just 4K files in real time, but with 4K files in much greater liberty than they ever were while confined in CPU-bound applications such as Final Cut Pro, Premiere CS4 or in Sony Vegas.” Macworld says, “The Mercury Playback Engine is 64-bit native and optimized for Mac OS X, multicore processors, and nVidia CUDA GPUs (graphics processing units) to provide fluid, real-time editing.”
So, Lightroom led the way among 64-bit Mac apps (beating Aperture to 64-bit by nearly two years), and Adobe has now converted three major Mac apps–After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Photoshop–from Carbon to Cocoa 64. Meanwhile Final Cut Pro 64 and the rest of the FCP suite remain missing in action. Maybe–just maybe–we can now put that “lazy” talk to rest.

Dig it:

I couldn’t be happier in saying that Photoshop CS5 has been announced, along with the entire Creative Suite 5 family of products!

Check out what’s new in Photoshop (images & quick videos) as well as the 3D functionality added to Photoshop Extended. I’m especially happy to say that Photoshop is now a fully native 64-bit application for both Mac and Windows (as are After Effects and Premiere Pro), letting you tap into all your computer’s memory.

Man, where to begin… I already have two dozen blog posts in draft form (!), running the gamut from big new stuff to the many, many little tweaks we’ve made that I think you’ll really enjoy. I’ve started a CS5 category here that you can use to view all related info quickly; much more to come shortly.

In no particular order, here are good resources you might want to check out:

• The NAPP Learning Center will likely be chock full of good content by the time you read this, as should the Photoshop Cafe CS5 Superguide.
• Computer Arts covers 40 new features across the Suite.
• My fellow PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes talks photography features (lens correction, Refine Edge, totally revamped HDR, Camera Raw 6.0, Mini Bridge, Content-Aware Fill, and more) with DP Review.
• Showing how CS5 makes painting accessible to photographers, Thomas Hawk writes, “I’ve been using Photoshop for many years now but this version has blown me away like none that I’ve ever seen.”
• The team at Lynda.com has posted 12 preview courses that span the range of CS5 apps.
• The TipSquirrel guys have a bunch of Photoshop overviews planned for the next couple of weeks.

I’ll keep adding good ones as they appear (suggestions most welcome via comments or email).

It’s one thing to hear company reps promote a product, but I’m always more impressed when someone with a solid, independent reputation speaks up. In this case it was Katrin Eismann, highly respected retoucher & educator, showing off how she uses Content-Aware Fill, new lens correction capabilities, and more.

YouTube nerd tip: Here’s how you can tell an embedded video to jump right to a specific point. It’s a little less convenient than using a URL, but it’s still straightforward. Thanks to Rafael Fischmann of MacMagazine Brazil for the tip.

Oh, it’s on (shortly). Lots and lots of good stuff to show. I’ve already got a couple of dozen blog posts in the works. Stay tuned.
Note that CS5 isn’t shipping on April 12; rather, it’s being announced on that date. I know, the whole “announcing an announcement” thing is kind of funky/meta, so I thought it was worth trying to clarify.
Also, before someone says, “You just shipped CS4 a year ago,” I’ll point out that CS4 shipped on October 15, 2008. Creative Suite releases have been on an 18-month cycle for several years, with CS3 shipping on April 15, 2007. Just thought I’d save somebody some typing.

Bryan O’Neil Hughes shows off some rather eye-popping (if we may say so) technology for synthesizing texture inside a future version of Photoshop:

The demo starts with some small pieces, so if you’re short on time, jump to about the 2:50 mark (halfway point) for the more impressive stuff. I’ve been getting great results filling in missing areas around a panorama, as Bryan shows at the 4-minute mark. Full-screen viewing makes it easier to see the details.