Highlight of Adobe’s Changes Coming Today- What You’ll Use
Today (make sure you watch this CreateNow event that you could register for last week) Adobe is unveiling a host of changes to Photoshop and the Creative Cloud. There is a good amount of new stuff, but I’m going to highlight the things I think you guys will find most useful and stuff that I found to be the most interesting as far as a a lot of power and flexibility in a program. As much as I might say, if you have the time I really suggest taking part in their live stream, as they will go into more detail than I will.
Classic Crop Tool Returns!
Many of us were not really that excited about Adobe’s update to the crop tool in CS6. Adobe listened, and now the old crop tool can be used! Just select the settings after choosing the crop tool and choose “Classic Crop Tool.” It’s easy as that!
Conditional Actions
This is probably something many of you will be ecstatic over: adding “If/Then” options to actions. Now you can edit batches of images without having to set multiple actions. For example, let’s say you want to crop a set of images where you have a mix of both portrait and landscape oriented photos. With the new actions, you can say crop to 250 px wide if it’s a portrait oriented image, or crop to 700 px wide if it’s landscape. The addition makes actions a heck of a lot more usable.
Non-Destructive Video Effects
I don’t know how many of you use Photoshop to edit video right now, but this new update might have you consider it. In Photoshop, you can create effects for video, but in the past the affects have existed as additions to the file in a destructive format. Now the effects act more like layers, allowing you to hide and delete them at will. This is a lot more powerful and more Photoshop-like and is a big advancement for the program.
Larger JPEG Support
Photoshop now can handle larger JPEGS without crashing, which is big for those of you using a Nikon D800.
CSS Support
Ever design something in Photoshop and wish you could just magically get the web code for it? As things stand now, graphic artists often render a design in Photoshop and send it to a web developer to code. With this update, you can just copy the CSS for anything you design. It still requires a little work to make it perfect, but it cuts a massive amount of time from the coding aspect of building a design. Huge leap forward.
Other Updates more for Graphic Artists (but worth looking into because they’re cool):
- Improved 3D Rendering
- Image-Based Lighting Enhancements
- Enhanced Textures
- Global Type Styles
Creative Cloud Updates:
Adobe is pushing the Creative Cloud, and it’s likely going to make the disc versions of the software obsolete within the next couple of years. Big news for companies or larger studios: Creative Cloud will be available in teams. The whole interface can be managed from an admin panel and users can be activated or deactivated at any time. This is a big deal for companies, as it will eliminate the need to upgrade software (Creative Cloud updates automatically, even totally new versions of software).
Adobe Muse: This is a new program made to allow anyone to design their own website with no knowledge of code. This month, Muse is extending support to allow for development on tablets and smartphones. Muse is not part of the Creative Suite, exclusive to the Cloud.
More updates:
- Desktop sync in a “Dropbox” like fashion. Collaborative sharing, more than just one file at a time. Folders to people and groups.
- Creative Cloud gives 20 gigs of storage per person, and 100 gigs per team of cloud storage.
- Adobe is not making the training videos internally, they are instead partnering with professionals in North America, Europe and Japan who will leverage their knowledge to create the instructional content. All services and training in one place, included with the Creative Cloud.
- Rolling over to team setup from individual account with no penalties. Seamless.
For more information, make sure to hit up Adobe today. You like what you see? Let us know in the comments below.
