Q & A With The Restorationist Janine Smith

This week, with the indulgence of the Honorable Mr. Squirrel and you, the reader, I’m going to attempt to answer a few questions. You see, I get asked these particular questions a lot, on a fairly regular basis, so maybe by answering them here I can save someone the time of writing the email. Or you can still write me, but with a different question!

Can you remove the watermark from this photo for me?

Well, yes, I can. Anyone that’s fairly competent with tools that have been in Photoshop since the beginning (i.e. Clone Tool) can remove a watermark, which  makes all the people getting all up in arms over the Content Aware features in CS5 pretty funny, actually. However, just because I can doesn’t mean I will. In fact, let me be blunt: I won’t. There’s no reason you’d need me to take a watermark off your own photo – none I can think of anyway. But while we’re on the subject of watermarks, if you put watermarks all over your photos, maybe you should reconsider that. Personally, I think the only thing a big fat ©in the middle of the photo, or your name repeated over and over across the entire image does is prevent people from seeing your work. If someone wants your photo bad enough, go back to the beginning of this answer and read the part about “anyone that’s fairly competent”, again.

I’ve heard you say (over and over) that retouching and restoration are not the same thing, but I know a lot of people that say “retouching” and mean restoration. Why do you keep saying that?

Because they aren’t the same thing. While it’s true that old school restoration artists referred to their craft as “retouching”, I still maintain they are two different disciplines. Restoration is the art of restoring, literally, something (a photo, a painting, a house) back to its original condition. If it’s done correctly, you use original material – in the case of digital photo restoration, this might mean borrowing areas, or pixels, from the original to repair damaged areas, or, if there’s no other choice, materials as close to the original as possible. For example, if there’s a football player in the damaged photo and he’s holding something, one can assume by taking the context of the photo into consideration, that the object is not a loaf of bread or a baby, correct? So compositing and integrating a picture of a football into that space would not be amiss. Retouching, on the other hand, is a form of photo manipulation, changing aspects of the photo, taking away from and adding to the original. That’s not to say that aspects of retouching are not ever used in restoration, and vice versa, but they are two different disciplines. Not all retouch artists are restoration artists any more than all restoration artists can do retouching. I like to think of it this way: Retouching is taking a photo to the next level; restoration is taking it back to the first level.

I took my old photos to a photographer and the restorations were awful! Since restoration is part of photography, all photographers know how to restore, right?

Right! And all pilots know how to fix planes, right? It’s all aviation…right? First of all, speaking in the digital sense, of course, the last time the damaged photo had anything to do with photography was when it was taken (unless you take a photo of the photo before restoration, but that’s the next question). Not every photographer knows, or wants to know, how to use Photoshop. Some are really good, brilliant even, at taking great photos directly in the camera! Some know how to do editing adjustments to their work in Photoshop , of course, but what part of taking pictures and adjusting their photos has anything to do with repairing a 100 year old photograph? I do believe that photographers, who happen to have excellent Photoshop skills, have a better chance at becoming a great restoration artist because if they’re great at their craft, photography, they have a great “eye”, something essential in great restoration. If you don’t have any artistic sensibility at all, you probably aren’t cut out for the work, anyway, because knowing and understanding the composition and structural and physical elements in a photograph are crucial to successful restoration, especially if you’re ever going to rise above the basics. Sure, most people can fix a few spots here and there, but only an artistic eye is going to be able to do the really hard stuff. That’s why artists, especially those who know human anatomy, are also great candidates for exemplary restoration artists. Let’s put it this way, I’m a fairly competent photo restoration artist and I know enough about Photoshop to, probably, be considered an expert. I also own a camera. But you won’t ever be catching me out claiming to be a photographer, or a pilot, either, for that matter…

I want to restore my photos; is it best to scan or photograph my originals?

This is probably the question I get the most and the answer is: it depends. I know, I live to be difficult, but the truth is there is no pat answer. Sure, I know people who state loudly, for all to hear, that you should always, always I say!, photograph the original. I will lay you odds, right now, that those people have, at least some of the following:

a)      A good camera (also a good bet that it’s a DSLR, not a point & shoot),

b)      A lighting set up of some sort,

c)       Filters

d)      A copy stand

e)      At least a modicum of photographic talent

Why do I say this? Because I have a Canon S70 point & shoot, no lighting set up, no filters and no photographic  talent and frankly, when I try to photograph originals, they pretty much come out on the “suck badly” end of the Wowser Scale. In other words, friends, you most likely won’t be able to take a photo of your original, bending over it while it’s lying on the kitchen table under the overhead light and expect it to be better than a scan. Then again, if the scanner retailed for $29.95 at Pipi’s Bargain Electroniks Sooper Store when you bought it last month, the point & shoot thing might not be all that bad. It’s all relative, you see. A decent scanner with good software is always going to out trump a camera outfit you don’t have. At the same time, if you have both a good camera set up and a good scanner, I suggest trying both to see what results you come up with and go with the best one. That being said, sometimes you won’t have a choice. If you have an original that cannot go into a scanner, for instance, such as a convex oval crayon portrait in (or out of if it’s not broken and flat) its frame, no matter what type of camera you have, a photo of it will be better than nothing at all. At least there would be a digital record. If you’re lucky enough to have a number of them, or any old photos in their original frames, it might be worth it to rent a camera set up, or ask a friend to bring theirs!

Thanks for bearing with me! I hope this answered someone’s question, somewhere!

AJ's Guide to Tuning Photoshop's Performance

Today we’re going to hit some quick points for tuning Photoshop performance. Windows users will want to visit Edit->Preferences->Performance, while Mac users can goto Photoshop->Preferences->Performance.

You can change Memory Usage, History & Cache, Scratch Disks, & GPU Settings within Photoshop’s performance settings.

Memory Usage

This controls how much RAM Photoshop will access while working with images. As a general guideline, 4GB RAM or more, usage can start at 70%. If using less than 4GB RAM, usage should be between 50-60%. Understand the more memory assigned to Photoshop the less the computer’s operating system can use. Photoshop LOVES RAM. Windows 7 & Apple’s Snow Leopard allow for 64-bit processing, and greater RAM capacity. IF you are not multi-tasking applications, try increasing the usage %.

History & Cache

History is often confused with Undo. You only get one Undo in Photoshop, but you can step backwards through your last 20 History states. Each History state is a capture of your image loaded in the computer’s RAM. This means a 10MB image will take up 200MB of RAM with 20 History states. A 100MB file quickly uses 2GB RAM.

Reducing the number of History states allows Photoshop to utilize RAM for other things. If you rarely undo, or use very few History states try reducing the number to 5-10. If you see a significant increase in performance at 5 History states, you need more RAM.

Cache Levels refers to screen redraws, typically when zooming in & out or panning an image. Default setting is 4. If your Photoshop documents are small and contain many layers try reducing the number of cache levels. If you build large documents with fewer layers try increasing cache levels. A cache level set to “1” is the same as turning the cache off.

 Scratch Disks

When Photoshop uses up allocated RAM it will begin to swap the image file to the computer’s hard drive. As a general guideline, performance can be increased by setting the scratch disk to a different physical hard drive. NOTE – this is NOT the same thing as creating a partition on a single drive. If you work with large files, consider a separate scratch disk after getting more RAM installed.

 GPU Settings

Simply put, Photoshop can make better use of computer hardware by using the video card GPU for graphics processing versus the computer’s CPU.

Summary

Before you run out and purchase that new machine consider the following upgrades (in order of importance):

1. RAM – If you needed an excuse to get away from Windows XP this is it. 64-bit OSes allow for more RAM. Photoshop chews through RAM like candy.

 2. Video Card – an easy upgrade that doesn’t break the bank. 512MB minimum VRAM, grab 1-2GB if you can.

 3. Hard Drive – Only necessary if you work like Bert Monroy with GINORMOUS files.

Last Month, This Month and What's New

Last Month

April started with Mike Hoffman completing his look at blending modes and Janine taking a break from restoration to bring us the hugely popular Photo-Cube. New to TipSquirrel, Justin Seeley joined the ‘Nuts’ to bring us a tutorial on Creating an Action. A warm welcome to Justin, who hopes to bring us an exclusive Photoshop Quicktip every month!

 CS5 Special

Then it was into our CS5 coverage. It was really interesting to see how different people approached the new Photoshop, bring their own demands and requirement to their own work-flow. I’d like to thank AJ Wood, Mike Hoffman, Janine Smith, Justin Seeley and Tim Shelbourne for their tutorials and articles.

 AJ Makes an App and Names The Talent

Also launched by friend of TipSquirrel AJ wood in April was the Adobe Talk iPhone App. With a lot of cool features this app also has its own link to TipSquirrel.com! Great stuff, thanks AJ! You can find out more about this app here. AJ was also responsible for naming the TipSquirrel authors the Photoshop Nuts. I always refereed to them as The Talent, but in hindsight maybe The Nuts is more apt 😉

Additions and Changes

Regular readers will notice there’s another new name in there, Tim Shelbourne is a much respected digital artist and its great to welcome him to the ever growing band of Photoshop Nuts. Fans of Tim will be delighted to hear that he’ll be joining us on a regular basis very soon.

There’s been a couple of changes to the look of TipSquirrel.com too for May. The long list of links have been moved to a page of their own. This page is in the process of being tidied up and updated. If you know of a link that isn’t included please let me know at the usual email address of blog@tipsquirrel.com.

The links have been replaced with a couple of links to CS5 from Amazon at the moment, as this is the most relevant product. We’ll update these as we think the need may arise. A bigger Amazon store is in the pipeline and will be available very soon. We’ll be supported by Amazon in the US, UK, France and Germany.

 This Month

If all goes to plan we’ll be bringing you articles and tutorials by regular Nuts AJ Wood, Justin Seeley, Mike Hoffman and Janine Smith. We’ll also be welcoming back Richard Hales, and one of the original Nuts Simon Rudd.

We’ve got three new contributors this month, TipSquirrel is delighted to welcome Heathrow, Dan Moughamian and a rescheduled Dave Cuerdon.

How are we packing all these people into a single month? Well, we’re going five days a week, that’s right, no more Friday’s off for the Nuts, we’re doing a full week.

Feedback

We’re always looking for feedback and comments about the site, the Nuts and the tutorials so please, let us know what you think. If you have any ideas for tutorials or you’d like a certain topic covered, then please tell us. We want to make TipSquirrel the site that it’s readers want and to that end we are always listening.

Photoshop CS5 New Feature Tutorials

Well, finally it’s here! CS5 trial is available to download. So if you’re going to grab yours then you may be interested in our CS5 new feature tutorials.

Bridge Improvements	Mike Hoffman
Content Aware Fill	Janine Smith
Refine Edge & then HDR	AJ Wood
Bristle Brushes, Mixer Brushes	Tim Shelbourne
Scrubby Zoom & then CS Review	AJ Wood
Lens Correction & ACR	Justin Seeley
Content Aware Healing	Janine Smith
Layer Management	Mike Hoffman
Single Image HDR Toning in Photoshop CS5	Mike Hoffman

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Watermark It With A Photoshop Brush

Photographer Andie Smith joins us again with a Quick Tip on keeping your work safe online

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If it is on the internet, it’s free. WRONG! But this is how some people think… one of the ways I protect my work from free-loaders is watermarking my images before putting it on sites like Facebook, and Flickr.

Here’s how I do it;
First I create a new canvas 500px x 900px at 72dpi should do it.

I use my Wacom Tablet to sign my name. Of course you could add your logo instead, or as well as, and lower the opacity to 50%

I like to add my web address on top of the signature.

I merge layers (Ctrl / Cmd E) , then holding Ctrl/Cmd I click the layer to get the “marching ants” around the type and signature.

In the Menu I choose Edit > Define Brush Preset and name and save the new brush.

I Now have a brush for my watermark that I can easily add to all my images before I upload them to the  internet.

Use FFT To Reduce Texture

Anyone that knows me knows I never lost that trait found mostly in children around the two year mark, known as the “Why gene”. I don’t want to just know that something works; I want to know why it works! I sometimes just don’t get things at all, until I find out the “why” of it, then suddenly the clouds separate, the sun shines through and all is made clear! Except this time…

I want to share something with you, a wonderful plug-in that’s been around for a long time, but I never used it before. *Why* you ask? Because it’s based on some mathematical type operation that well,  just scares me! *Why* you ask? Because when I’m asking *why* and trying to learn how this thing works, I see things like this:

Then my eyes glaze over and I start hearing the voice of Charlie Brown’s teacher in my head.

However, while going a-Googling this past week, I was reminded of this plug-in and decided to give it a try. The plug-in I refer to is called Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), and if you ever need to restore photos with textures or patterns like halftone or paper grain, it will make the work a little easier. I’ll tell you upfront, it isn’t going to completely and perfectly erase all texture from your photo, and it won’t even work at all on some photos with texture, but it will lessen the texture without losing the detail; something the old way of using surface blur, for instance, then trying to get some detail back with sharpening didn’t manage very well!

This plugin, written by Alex V. Chirokov, tones down any kind of regular pattern in a photo, again, I’ve not seen where it actually eliminated them, but maybe I just didn’t test the right ones. I don’t know why it works, but this is how it kind of seems to me: If you’re looking at a digital image of a photo with a heavy paper texture, the texture looks almost 3D because the light from the scanner shown in the little hollows, almost giving the texture an embossed look. Being the simplistic creature I am, It almost appears as if FFT does something to ‘flatten’ the embossed effect. Either that or it releases little elves into Photoshop that erase the texture.

Let me pause here and address those of you who are (inevitably) saying “What’s wrong with paper texture? I like paper texture!” So do I! I love a nice water color paper effect same as the next guy (Halftone and some other types of texture, not so much, but I’m trying to stay on point, here…), but whether it’s pretty or not, whether I like it or not, isn’t the point, here. The point is that restoring a photo which heavy texture is as hard as Chinese arithmetic! On the plus side, recall what I said earlier: FFT isn’t going to completely eliminate the texture from the photo! In most cases, it will still look textured; it’ll just look less textured!

Back to the plugin: I first downloaded it about four years ago. It didn’t work at all on the photo I was using it on, so I moved on and forgot about it. I initially found it on a Forensic site that had plug-ins for Photoshop. They used this particular plugin to clean up a fingerprint, which is very cool, but the instructions were just a little less than clear. That may have been why the plugin didn’t work, you say? Operator error, perhaps? Skeptic. I found a tutorial on a retouching forum that made the “how” of it fairly simple, so I think I did it right, it just didn’t work. Then, lo and behold, this last week I found an updated version (updated, in this case being 2008), downloaded it and it worked! The older version, it turns out, didn’t work well on larger photos, like the one I was working on. There’s another major difference in the two versions; in the older one, you worked in the red channel. In the newer version, you work in the green channel. Since I still have the older version, I tested three photos with different types of texture in each filter; there’s no distinguishable difference in the results between the old and new version, that I can see, so I can’t tell you why the changes in channels. The elves were bored, maybe? Just to be safe, though, I’m providing you with the latest version of the plugin!

To install the plug-in, download the zip folder and unpack it into your Photoshop Plug-ins folder. Easy, huh? One thing, though. This plug-in only works in 32-bit versions and more than likely will only ever work in 32-bit. So make sure, if you’re on a machine that runs both 32 and 64 bit, you put it in the proper version folder. In Windows, it’s C: > Program Files (x86) > Adobe > Adobe Photoshop version > Plug-ins. When you start Photoshop again, the plug-in will show up in the Filter menu under Fourier Transform.

The basics of the plug-in are:

1. Open your image.
2. Make a duplicate layer (Ctrl or Cmd + J)
3. Go to the FFT plug-in and choose the FFT filter (Filter > Fourier Transform > FFT)
4. The duplicate layer will now look something like this:

1. Go to the Channels palette. If you look at each individual channel, you’ll notice that two of them will be solid, and one, the Green, will have a center star-burst and some surrounding lines and stars. Click on the Green channel to select it.

The texture in different photos will have a different regular pattern, therefore the “stars” and lines will be different. But no matter the pattern, the concept is the same. With the Brush tool selected and black as your foreground color, black out the stars:

Or gray out the stars:

Or clone out the stars…and the lines!

Or any combination, thereof; the important thing is to leave the center star-burst intact!

1. Reselect the RGB channel. This is important, as the next step of the process won’t work if still only in a single channel.
2. Back to the Filter menu, select Fourier Transform, again, but this time, select IFFT, or Inverse Fourier Transform.  A couple of things about this step: If your photo had any color in it at all, it won’t now, and it will be quite a bit lighter, now, than it was originally. This is normal, and we’ll take care of that in the next steps.
3. This step is totally optional, but I’ve found that I like the result if I run a very, very light Gaussian Blur over the layer at this point. Each photo will be different, so you need to try different values, but I’ve found that a range of 0.5 to 1.5 is the range you pretty much want to stay in.
4. Now, to get any color back. Naturally, you can skip this if it’s a black & white photo, but if the original has any color or tonal value at all that you want to retrieve, change the Layer Blend Mode to Luminosity. I’ve seen other tutorials that say to change to Color, but that did nothing for the photos I worked on. Still, if you have a full color photo, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try, just in case!
5. To get some depth back where the process lightened the photo, simply give the photo a Curves Adjustment layer and bring the histogram down into the dark values. Eyeball the results; you can adjust the opacity of the adjustment layer as need to get the tones you want.

1. Continue with your restoration, which is now either a whole lot easier, looks quite a bit better, or both!

Here are close-ups of the three samples I ran the filter on (please look at the full size image so you can really see the difference!):

This photo has a square texture:

Click to go to the 'thumbnail', then click again to see the full size!

This one has a lovely moiré-halftone pattern:

Click to go to the 'thumbnail', then click again to see the full size!

Before, a fairly heavy paper texture and after the complete restoration:

Click to go to the 'thumbnail', then click again to see the full size!

I still don’t understand it, but I’m leaning towards the elves.

FFT_july2008 plug-in download

Photoshop CS5 – The Verdict

 TipSquirrel

Its been a great two week look at CS5 and I’d like to thank the five contributors for their insight. I’ve only been using the Beta version for a week so I’m still getting to grips with all the new features.

My first thoughts are that its different enough to be exciting but similar enough to be familiar. In that, I mean the changes are huge, Content Aware Fill and Brush are amazing to watch, while the brushes are an all new toy to play with. The tweaks and changes, like the layer effect ‘Make default’ button and the rule of thirds on the crop tool are great, a real improvement and make using Photoshop even more of a joy. There’s the bubtle changes too, the magic wand and brush icons get pepped up a little and its a sad goodbye to our gnome friends in the palette options. 

But enough of me jabbering on, lets hear what the experts thought of it; 

 

Janine Smith – Restorationist

I would say that it’s definitely worth upgrading to CS5 if, for some reason, you’re still running CS2 (because this is the last version you can upgrade on, given the three version-to-upgrade cutoff) or, and this is a big or, the new features are relevant to you and your work flow.

I know there are those who upgrade to every new version of all major software, who buy the newest gadget the minute it hits the market and who always dress in the latest *insert fashion magazine name, here*style, but I’m a bit more cautious. If the software version you’re working with still works for you and there’s nothing in the new version that will rock your life, or your work flow, then to my way of thinking, there’s not much reason to upgrade. That being said, I would most definitely encourage you to download the demo of CS5 when it’s available and at least try it! Don’t just make your decision based on what you are hearing others say, decide for yourself! CS5, Photoshop at least, is the newest, freshest, chock full ‘o’ goodness version I’ve seen in a long time, if ever, and I highly recommend it, if it works for you!

 

A.J. Wood – Adobe Community Professional

WOW. So many cool things about Photoshop CS5 it probably makes your head spin right? As an Adobe Community Professional & training partner, I’ve been asked what impact I think CS5 will have on the industry. Features like Content Aware Fill draw a mixed reaction of both excitement & fear. We’re excited because the increased productivity such tools give us, but fear the client’s perception of “how easy” the work has become. Never forget our most valuable asset to our clients is that we are creative problem solvers. A fancy DSLR camera doesn’t instantly make someone a photographer, nor will improvements to Refine Edge & Content Aware Fill be the death nell to Photoshop creatives.

CS5 has a lot to offer the creative community. Whether it’s helping designers move to the web (Flash Catalyst), increasing productivity (After Effects & Photoshop) or providing tools for mobile content development (Flash & InDesign) this is not the time to skip an upgrade. 

 

Mike Hoffman  – Adobe Certified Expert

If you’re a Mac user, CS5 brings you into the world of 64 bits. And, being a recent convert on the Windows side (CS4 has been a 64 bit application, but I have only recently upgraded my system), I can assure you that after running PS as a 64 bit application, you’ll never want to go back. With 64 bits comes the ability to access lots of RAM, and that means speed and responsiveness form your application. Mac users, don’t delay. Upgrade as soon as you can!

However, PS CS5 has a LOT more to offer, and the new features Adobe has brought to the table in this round are nothing short of astonishing. Whether you’re a photographer (Content Aware Fill, improved HDR engine, Lens Correction, ACR enhancements), a designer (Workflow improvements galore, CS Live) or an artist (the new Bristle Brushes and Mixer Brushes), CS5 has new features you’ll use every day.

For me personally, the new 3D capabilities, with Repoussé as the new “killer” feature, is worth the upgrade alone. Look for lots of future tips on these new (and easy to use) features, here on TipSquirrel and on my blog, www.hoffmanartdesign.com

Tim Shelbourne – Artist

There’s always a lot of hype surrounding any release of Photoshop, and having been involved in the last 4 Beta rounds, I’m the first to admit that some PS upgrades are rather less inspiring than others. However, I’m going to pin my colours to the mast here and now, and say that from my perspective , upgrading to CS5 is something I really wouldn’t miss. Okay, so I’m pretty much natural-media-centric, so for me the new Mixer Brush and the Bristle Tips make it a complete no-brainer, but quite apart from that, there is so much about CS5 that just makes it so much more fun to use. For eons now, one of my biggest gripes with PS has been that teenie-tiny Colours panel, fiddling around like a bloody hen scratching for daylight when I’m trying to choose a colour really isn’t my idea of fun, but all that has come to an end now with the new Heads-Up colour picker.

Quite apart from that, in CS5 I can just drag with the Zoom Tool to zoom in and zoom out (I’ve never been a keyboard shortcut fanatic!), and I can also just drag to change the size or hardness of a brush! Okay, so I’ve still not got my long desired Mixer Panel, but I can now make one of my own on another layer with the Mixer Brush… Ooohh, and then there are the new bristle Tips (did I mention those?), well, now you can actually paint properly in Photoshop! And then there’s the Mixer Brush!… and then there’s faux HDR via the CS5 HDR Toning command (without having to convince my camera that bracketed exposures really are a good idea), and being able to adjust Opacity and Fill over multiple layers, and being able to delete all empty layers with a couple of clicks, and, and, the Mixer Brush!!!

Oh, and then there’s SPEED. Trust me, CS5 is fast, quick, nippy, and slick.

CS5 worth the upgrade? Well, let’s say if I can’t find the money, I’ll have a wife for sale on Ebay very soon!

For me, 2010 marks the point in time when Photoshop came of age.

Don’t think about it… Do it!

Photoshop CS5 – Content Aware Fill

Yesterday we saw the improvements to Adobe Bridge, today Restorationist Janine Smith looks at the Content Aware Fill

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We’ve been hearing about the wonder that is Content Aware Fill for quite some time, now. For months it seems, we’ve been seeing wonderful teasers released by Adobe of miraculously disappearing buffalo and ducks. Since Adobe gave the (heretofore unprecedented) okay for it’s Beta Testers to tease the masses with before and after images done in CS5 we’ve been inundated with vanishing buildings, wildlife, flowers, trees and people. It was all so wonderful!

We can now take those pesky squirrels from a field of grass in one easy step! Anti-squirrel grass photographers, rejoice! ^{[Steady now TS]} But are there any actual practical applications for Content Aware Fill? Anything that would make life easier? The answer is double YES! While Content Aware Fill might not be a ‘Magic Button’, it might actually come pretty close in a couple areas.

Alright, that might be stretching it a bit. Content Aware Fill won’t work in every situation, on every photograph. Like any other tool, it won’t work on every texture and in every composition. Sometimes the work will take longer than others and there will, almost always, be a little cleanup to be done, but the time this feature can save you, if it is the right tool in a particular situation, can be astronomical, and that is,, in my opinion, the major benefit of Content Aware Fill. The saving of time.

In the example, below the work was done in six steps. Again, while it may not be 100% perfect, the overall result is much, much cleaner which will add up to, if not a better outcome, certainly a faster work time!

Here are the next 5 steps:

(Click to enlarge)

The same steps with the patch tool alone will need more cleanup which means more time:

When you compare the two, you can see you’ll be spending a bit more time cleaning up the Patch tool work:

The single most exciting feature of Content Aware Fill, to me, is that it works on nothing. Let me explain that. Some of the tools that are usually used in my work, namely the Healing Brush and the Patch Tool, are proximity match tools. In other words, they fill in areas with pixels they take from the immediate proximity of the area you choose. These tools won’t work on transparent areas because there is no content in the proximity of the area.

Content Aware is just that, aware of the content that surrounds the area, not just that which is in the immediate area. It reaches further out, if you will, to find content with which to fill the selected area. What this means, in simple terms, is that if you have a torn area to repair, you can now fix it in one click rather than filling the area in using, for instance, the Clone Stamp Tool. As you can imagine, in photo restoration, this is HUGE! Of course, it depends on what’s in the surrounding area and what should be in the missing area if this will be a good fix. In other words, if the missing area is a hand and the surrounding area is trees, it probably won’t work out well. But, especially if you’re working in a fairly clear area in both the area to be fixed and the one you’re taking content from, it works beautifully.

In two steps on this photo, I do what would have taken a substantially longer time with the Clone Stamp Tool. With one more step:

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s fairly amazing. Is the fill always going to be 100% perfect? No. Will the fill need a bit of tweaking now and then. Definitely. Will it work in every situation? I doubt it. What tool does?

The bottom line is if a person is a bad photo restoration artist, or retoucher, or photographer, or doctor, or anything, no tools on Earth are ever going to make them any better by osmosis. This is a tool and tools, like people, aren’t perfect. But it’s one more tool in your arsenal! Like any tool, if you use it, learn it and perfect it, it will benefit you greatly!

Content Aware Fill will be an important addition to my photo restoration work flow, but not everyone will be bowled over by it. There will still be those who maintain they can do the exact same thing with the good old Patch Tool, and I’m sure they can. But it will take them longer. Maybe even a lot longer. If time isn’t a major concern of yours, or the new CS5 features aren’t relevant to your work flow, this may not be the upgrade for you.

In my opinion, the features in Photoshop CS5 are incredible, more significant, I believe, then a Photoshop version upgrade has seen in many a long year. But for me, without a doubt, the new Content Aware features are the deal breaker!

CS5 is Coming And We've Got It Covered

March was a great month on TipSquirrel.com and it’s a pleasure to say that April looks to be just as good!

Next week sees the launch of Photoshop CS5 and if you’ve been keeping an eye on the ‘Sneak Peeks‘ you’ll know that Adobe have made some amazing additions. So, if you’re thinking of getting CS5 or have pre-ordered it, you’ll want to know how it performs and just what makes this a great up date.

Well, next week we’ll be starting a special CS5 series right here that will last two weeks. Regular authors Janine Smith and Mike Hoffman will be joined by a new contributor, Tim Shelbourne.

Update: Justin Seely will also be contributing to our CS5 coverage. Thanks Justin!

Update 2: AJ Wood will be joining us for a 2 week CS5 coverage. Nice one AJ!

As regular readers will know, TipSquirrel authors approach Photoshop with differing disciplines so it’ll be interesting to see how each one uses and rates the upgrades.

CS5 is launched on Monday 12^th April at 4pm BST. (8am PDT, 11am EDT)

Closer than that, this week sees another new contributor to TipSquirrel. Justin Seely may be a name you recognise from the Photoshop Quicktips podcast and its great to have his expertise on the site.

Thank you for a great March to:

Richard Harrington – A great video on Power Cropping.

Firgs – Drawing With Photoshop Shape Tools – A lesson for beginners

Andie Smith – Adding Vintage Tints

and of course, restorationist Janine Smith and Mike Hoffman

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10 Adobe / Photoshop Things You Probably Don't Know

We’re not really one for lists on TipSquirrel, so here for one day only is our 10 things you may not know

Nack - Tipless

Principal Product Manager, John Nack has no tip on his right index finger, ironically this means he can’t hold a pen or operate a camera.

Although Photoshop celebrated its 20th birthday recently, it is in fact 22 years old. The marketing department missed its true birthday so had to re schedule.

When opening CS3, if the user presses [Space Bar] [Space Bar] [Space Bar] the colour scheme is altered to allow use in very dark conditions. Adobe and NASA designed this scheme for use in the Discovery space shuttle. When asked why astronauts may need Photoshop, NASA claimed this was ‘classified’

Taking the Mickey?

It has recently come to light that a well known animation studio had their software engineers replace the Hand Tool icon with a hand with 4 cartoon type fingers.

Terry White is an accomplished character actor and once played twins in an episode of the original Beverly Hills 90210. His latest project is voice characterization, performing in The Cleveland Show.

In 1994 Adobe were hauled before the European court after refusing to change the name of the Pen Tool. The court bought the action against Adobe stating that “Pens are physical objects that release ink. This ‘tool’ merely plots a path”. The case was dropped after 4 weeks of legal wrangling.

Brush Mystery

If you click repeatedly and quickly enough on the Brush tool a dialogue box appears asking “Are you Sure?”. This has been a feature since v1.0 although no one knows its origin.

In the British version of Photoshop the Lasso tool is known as the Rope tool. Not having any ranches or cowboys, the British have no concept of what a Lasso is.

If the Alt and Shift keys are held down while opening Photoshop 6, the splash screen runs the usual credits but also includes the sentence; “I love you Maureen” a total of 49 times. It is unclear who Maureen is.

It is well documented that you can not scan images of money into Photoshop. In CS5 you will no longer be able to scan in ‘Offensive’ language. At the time of writing we believe the list of words to include ****, ****, ****, ****,****,**** and of course ****.

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Do you ‘know’ any more, we’d love to hear them!

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