I was playing around with some photos in Photoshop earlier today, and I was also using Luminar as a plug-in, when I stumbled across something cool, almost by accident. It’s one of those things, that seems kind of obvious on hindsight, but I had never thought of trying this before. You can use Luminar non-destructively within Photoshop if you use it on a smart layer. 

I wanted to share a quick video tip with you about removing people from a shot in Photoshop. This isn’t a video about how to use the clone tool or anything like that. In fact I only use the clone tool for a short part of it. I actually use two images to remove the people, and combine them using one of Photoshop’s lesser known but really useful tools. First, let me back up a bit and explain the circumstances surrounding the shot.

I’ve talked about MacPhun’s Luminar here before. Specifically I discussed it in the context of the software being a new RAW converter, and I talked about the possibilities it offers. However, there’s another way to use the application, which also works really well, and that’s as a plug-in. You can use it as a plug-in for either Photoshop or Lightroom, and it offers a lot of functionality. Recently I was using it on an actual project, and so I thought that I’d discuss what I did and how I used the software.

I have been having a devil of a problem with Photoshop and Camera Raw for quite some time now. Basically, when opening an image, or pretty much anything that triggered the Camera Raw engine, it would take ages to load the window. I’m not talking about a minor inconvenience of a few seconds either, I’m talking about minutes. On occasion it could take up to 10 minutes to launch the Camera Raw window, which in turn would grind Photoshop to a halt. I searched online for a solution but couldn’t find one. Then, the other day, like a bolt of lightning, a possible solution occurred to me, and it seems to have solved the problem. 

Yesterday Adobe released a major update to many of its Creative Cloud Apps, including Photoshop. The updates include a number of new features, and further integration of Creative Cloud Libraries and Adobe Stock. Photoshop in particular includes some interesting new features.

I normally try to keep the topics on this blog as positive as possible. I try not to court controversy by objecting to anything too strongly, but there’s something that’s been bothering me for a little while now, and it’s Photoshop. With the most recent update, Adobe made some significant changes to the Photoshop interface, and in my opinion, they’re not very nice.

It seems to be the season for updates. Hot on the heels of Capture One yesterday, Adobe has announced updates to many applications in its creative suite including a major new version of Photoshop. 

Yesterday on February 19th, Adobe Photoshop celebrated its 25th birthday. It’s hard to believe that 25 years ago the first version of the venerable photo manipulation software was launched. 

While it probably doesn't get the attention that other important innovations of the late 20th century get, such as the personal computer, Photoshop is still one of the most influential inventions of the time. When you think about how much of the visual world we live in today has been influenced by computer graphics in one way or another, from advertising to movies, and much of that can be traced back to Photoshop. 

Ever since I've started releasing presets for Lightroom, I've been getting requests for Photoshop ACR versions. I've been promising people for a long time that I would release Camera Raw compatible presets, and so I'm delighted to announce that my first sets are now available! The first two sets that I've ported to ACR are my two most popular: Monolith and Steely Blue. Depending on the demand, I'll look at porting the rest of the sets in the coming weeks.