Lunacore Photoshop Blog

Adobe released Photoshop CS5 on April 30.

Some of its new or improved features:

* Content aware fill
* Improved painting; mixer brush, bristle tips and color blend
* Puppet warp
* 3D extrusions with Repoussé (only Photoshop Extended)
* Improved selections with Edge detection
* Improved HDR with HDR Pro
* Automatic lens correction
* Improved sharpen tool with option “protect detail”
* Camera raw 6
* Improved eyedropper tool
* Mini Bridge
* 64 bit version now also available for Mac
* Several smaller improvements

For more information visit Adobe.com.

YouTube user ProDesignTools offers also tons of videos that show the many new features and improvements in Photoshop CS5.

Adobe Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 update - multiple languages

The Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 11.0.1 update addresses a number of issues discovered after Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended (11.0) software were released.The most significant fixes in the Photoshop CS4 11.0.1 update include the following:

- A number of issues that could cause slow performance have been addressed.
- Pen barrel rotation with Wacom tablets now works correctly.
- Photoshop now correctly recognizes 3D textures edited by a plug-in.
- The quality of the results of Auto-Blend Layers (Stack Images) has been improved.
- A problem that could result in a crash when pasting formatted text has been fixed.
- A crash that could result from a corrupt font no longer occurs.

The are no blending options in the channels palette, but is it still possible to blend? Yes, you can use Image / Apply Image, but I would like to show a different way.

In this example I have a copy of the green channel at the bottom of my channels palette. To blend this copy in overlay, I need to select the channel first with Ctrl+A (Command+C on the Mac) or in the menu: Select / All.

I then copy the image with Ctrl+C and paste it with Ctrl+V (Command+C and Command+V on the Mac).
As expected nothing happens. But it does allow us the use the fade command: Edit / Fade….

The fade command allows us to set the blending mode to overlay and after clicking on OK we’re blending the channel in overlay mode.

Note: blending channels can be very useful when you use channels to extract images from their background.

Picutel Smart Resize is a Photoshop plugin (only Windows supported for now) for advanced resizing of photos. Unlike ordinary resizing, Smart Resize can change the proportions (aspect ratio) of an image without introducing artifacts such as unnaturally tall or short people. This is accomplished by only rescaling the least interesting or important regions of the photo, leaving the more interesting regions untouched.

An example can be seen in the following video. At the top smart resizing is used, while ordinary resizing is shown at the bottom:

I’ve tested this plug-in with the following image:

I resized the image in Photoshop with Image/Resize, deselected Constrain Proportions and lowered the width from 500 to 300 pixels.

As you can see, the main subject is distorted.

I used the same original, but this time I resized with Picutel Smart Resize after making a selection around the girl first.

This time no distortion of the main subject. Slight distortions in the background can be easily corrected with cloning, but wait…. there is more.

You can even take it a step further and make multiple selections. In this example I included the big roll of hay in the background in my selection:

It doesn’t happen so often that you come across a plug-in that is actually useful. It’s not the ultimate solution, because in some cases you still need to do some cloning in the background, but regardless of this it’s still an impressive product and I’m looking forward to future developments.

Ever wondered why you don’t hear sound when you play a video in Photoshop CS3 Extended?
To play the video with sound, you need to hold down the Alt key (option key on the Mac) while clicking on the play button:

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories has developed a new way of resizing images (media retargeting).

A short article can be found here.

Photoshoproadmap has collected for you some links to great makeover techniques and plugins.

Check it out here.

Just a short selection of Adobe articles that can help you to troubleshoot some problems you might have with Adobe Photoshop CS3:

Adobe ImageReady CS2 feature location guide for Photoshop CS3

Troubleshoot system errors or freezes in Adobe Photoshop CS3 on Windows XP

Troubleshoot system errors or freezes in Photoshop CS3 on Mac OS

Optimize performance of Photoshop CS3 on Windows XP and Vista

Optimize performance in Photoshop CS3 on Mac OS

Troubleshoot installation problems in Adobe Photoshop CS3 on Windows XP

Troubleshoot installation problems in Adobe Photoshop CS3 on Mac OS X

Photoshoproadmap, always good for unique tutorials with lots of detail, has released yet another great tutorial called “Create a colorful Print-and-Play puzzle for your kids with Photoshop”.
The 5 page tutorial explains how to create glossy looking shapes and text, how to add proper shadows, how to build the puzzle board and its pieces and how to add some finishing touches. You can even download two complete puzzles at the end of the tutorial and make your kids happy in no time!

To be able to select a single color with the Magic Wand tool, you need to use 3 different settings:

1. Select the Eye Dropper tool and set the the Sample Size to Point Sample. This will not only have an effect on the Eye Dropper tool, but also on the Magic Wand tool.

2. Select the Magic Wand tool and set the Tolerance to 0.

3. Uncheck the Anti-Alias option.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3