The Future of Adobe PS

[Ken Watkins]

I like a lot of others am concerned about the future of Adobe, in particular its supposed revisions to future upgrades. I found this comment which sums up my feelings far more eloquently than I ever could

"As with many of Adobes recent upgrades I think this is little more that a cosmetic makeover and addition of a few tweaks here and there. Some may be useful to some people, but most people will not find it a life changing experience. Some of the features that people are promoting as new, such as crop outside the frame, have actually been possible in photoshop for years but are perhaps not so obvious. Auto save is of little use to serious users who are used to hitting ctrl s when they want to save rather than waiting for the computer to do the job for them. Adaptive wide angle could be useful if you shoot a lot of extreme wide angle, but the existing lens controls are more than enough for most people.

What is more important about this upgrade is that it is in effect obligatory if you wish to stay with the program. From now on if you fail to take the upgrade the next upgrade will not be available to you. Ultimately this means that when you eventually change your computer/operating system you may need to repurchase the full program, or if things go the way Adobe plan, a subscription. Registration is now obligatory for the program to run in addition to activation. That means little privacy as Adobe harvest details about your computer, ip address, and programs installed and whatever else they feel appropriate. It also makes the program virtual impossible to resell should you want to at a later date. The cost of upgrading an existing program on a 12 or 24 month cycle is now approaching the equivalent of around £10 a month, a continual ongoing cost for each Adobe program, and that is on top of the original purchase price. It would seem that this upgrade marks the end of an era for Adobe users, with "more stick than carrot" and a move away from selling the program purely on merit. It's a far cry from the days when photoshop upgrades used to come with major improvements, a fully bound hard copy of the manual, a second cd with extra material and training tutorials, all fully boxed.

I have always used Adobe programs and upgraded them on a regular basis, but have always felt it important that this was by choice and I had the option to defer. The upgrade seems to me to be more of a major step towards an Orwellian future wrapped up in the guise of creative freedom. As such there has probably never been a better time to start looking at alternatives. However, in the meantime it may be worth purchasing this upgrade before it goes up in price, other Adobe programs upgrades are already ominously around £30 more than this one at present. For the corporate user who gets use of the program every day the cost involved is negligible, but for the average user the cost represents a far higher percentage of their income and they need a more certain future for that investment. I have used this program professionally for 18 years and always recommended it to people in the past, but would now be dubious about paying for the full program with such an uncertain future ahead of it. A real shame for such a potentially excellent and well loved piece of software, and that is why I think this is a 1 star upgrade for a 5 star program."

What do others think of this increasing cost and virtual "blackmail"?

[John Chardine]

Ken- The best thing that could happen to Adobe is that Apple buys them and then sells Photoshop full version for $79 on the App Store (only slightly tongue in cheek!).

Regarding the latest upgrade, I agree it is pretty minor. But I think this should be expected in mature programs like Photoshop. In the early days, each upgrade meant a big jump to the next version but as a program gets better and better, you can't expect the same increment. The same thing is happening with the Mac OS- "Mountain Lion" was a minor jump from "Lion" IMO and the last few upgrades have been similar. But you have to ask how much better you can make an already great OS. What Apple does is to make these upgrades virtually free while Adobe holds us to ransom. They do this by cleverly limiting the backward compatibility of Adobe Camera Raw with previous Ps versions. It goes like this- you buy a new camera and ACR is updated to be able read raw files from it, but then you realise that that version of ACR only works with the latest version of Ps.

As for the implication in the quote above that Ps days are numbered, I don't think any of this suggests that. There is simply no alternative to it in my opinion so however much you might hate Adobe, we will continue to shell out for new versions.

By the way, you don't have to activate Ps to run it. I use Little Snitch to permanently block any request from Adobe to activate the software. This does not cause any problems. I don't do this to circumvent licence restrictions, which I abide by.

[Roger Clark]

There are many alternative image processing systems, but none with the wide ranging useful features of photoshop that I know of. But having said that, there are features and tools that Adobe should have included in photoshop long ago. For example, many here know I am a fan of Richardson-Lucy deconvolution. That and other real sharpening tools should have been added to photoshop long ago in my opinion.

I also use Gimp, ImagesPlus, and write my own code. Gimp has come a long way and in terms of functionality is getting close to photoshop, except that it is still only 8-bit. When gimp adds 16-bit processing, there will probably be little need for photoshop. And Gimp is free. ImagesPlus has just introduced 5.0 (I'm still on version 3) with layers and selections, and it includes Richardson-Lucy deconvolution as well as many other more advanced tools. It also works in 64-bit (double precision floating point). However, the interface is a little funky for me (at least version 3) so not as intuitive to me as photoshop. I often bounce back and forth between photoshop and imagesplus in processing my photos. Similarly, many here use other programs (e.g. the Nik software).

Bottom line, no one software "does it all" and it will probably remain that way. But as other systems approach photoshop functionality, then there will be less need for the high priced software.

Personally, once gimp reaches 16-bit, I might drop photoshop and do my processing in gimp, imagesplus and other tools.

And as DSLRs get better electronics, and push the dynamic range, we'll need to move to 32-bits/pixel. Photoshop is really only 15 bits/pixel, and some of our images are likely being impacted by that limit. I see major differences in processing in 64-bits/pixel imagesplus versus photoshop, for example. Many of photoshop's tools result in what I call a "pasty" look when pushed very far. Not so with 64-bit floating point processing.

Raw conversion is another can of worms....

Roger

[John Guastella]

Ultimately this means that when you eventually change your computer/operating system you may need to repurchase the full program

This is not correct. Each PS license can be installed on two computers of the same platform. If you change your computer (maintaining the same platform), you can deactiviate PS installed on a previous computer and simply install it on the new one. As far as operating systems are concerned, PS CS6 works on Windows XP, Windows 7 and (I assume) the upcoming Windows 8, so a license for the Windows version purchased now will be good for years. This should be the case for the Mac license version as well.

As with many of Adobes recent upgrades I think this is little more that a cosmetic makeover and addition of a few tweaks here and there.

I strongly disagree. CS6 is anything but a "cosmetic upgrade". Just the changes to ACR -- especially the new shadows/highlights recovery sliders --are alone worth the upgrade cost.

I don't know where you got the review that you posted, but it seems to me that the reviewer doesn't know what he's talking about.

John

[John Chardine]

Hi John- The Shadows/Highlights sliders in CS6 are not new. They were in previous versions of ACR, just called something different. As far as I can see they work in a very similar way. I must say I like the dark interface of CS6, the new Crop tool, and save on the go feature but whether that was worth the price of the upgrade for me is highly debatable.

[John Guastella]

The Shadows/Highlights sliders in CS6 are not new. They were in previous versions of ACR, just called something different. As far as I can see they work in a very similar way.

Those sliders most certainly do not work the same way, or give the same results, as in previous versions of ACR. This is evident by spending just a few minutes playing with them. The new Shadows slider in particular has worked wonders on some images I previously had concluded were unsalvageable. The other sliders in the Basic panel -- especially the Clarity slider -- also are different. In fact, the new (2012) Process overall is superior to the previous (2010) process.

I think you need to spend some time on the Adobe Photoshop Forum, where during the release of the CS6 Beta some of the Photoshop team described the changes in CS6, and particularly ACR. I'd also recommend that you view some of the videos on the Adobe Photoshop YouTube channel in which JulieAnne Kost details some of these new features.

Bottom line: I stand by my suggestion that the reviewer you cited doesn't know what he is talking about.

John

[John Chardine]

Well John, I've used Photoshop every day for the past several years and have not noticed the degree of difference you suggest. Of course Adobe will try to convince us that there is a big difference between versions to justify the price of upgrading. I just haven't bought their line. Anyway, I rarely have to do much processing on my images like bringing up shadow areas because I try, and usually succeed, in getting the exposure correct (and to the right) in-camera. For critical images I use Canon's Digital Photo Professional for raw development anyway. There is a convincing argument made by Arash on more than one BPN thread that DPP is a superior raw developer for Canon files. I would expect the Nikon equivalent to perform similarly well.

Thanks for the forum and YouTube suggestions. I have been on the forum when Mac OS X Lion came out and there was a bad bug in Ps brushes. I found the Adobe employees on the forum to be unbelievably arrogant and unhelpful so once the bug was fixed I never went back. I will check out the YouTube channel.

By the way, for the record, Ken Watkins started this thread and cited the reviewer, not me.

[Charles Glatzer]

The algorithms applied to the sliders in CS6 are different than those in previous versions.

Chas in BC

[John Chardine]

I don't doubt that for one minute Chas. What I do question is the incremental improvement in the utility of the sliders that would justify the cost of upgrading.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Just noticed this thread, my previous version was CS4 now I have CS6 and I see a marked difference in raw conversion potential. I doubt if I will ever exploit the full potential of Photoshop but I am constantly learning new things on a weekly basis. I would respectfully point out that the new Process 2012 raw converter ACR 7 which is associated with CS6 is indeed very different to the previous versions.

The sliders work differently and there are extra sliders to previous versions offering improved opportunities for fine tuning images. Many of the sliders have the same names as previous versions but they act differently due to the new algorithms in ACR7.

The Exposure slider for example does not work the same as in previous versions - it is really more for getting the most of the mid tone range, this is followed by contrast.

With previous Process 2003 to 2010 the mid point was always fixed whereas in 2012 the mid point varies slightly according to image content. In low key images the mid point shifts to the left and vice versa in high key images this results in better tone differentiation in the tone area that predominate.

In Process 2012 Shadows and Highlights do not interfere with each other - there is no cross over each other, i.e. you can push either to the max without affecting the other.

This is followed by Blacks and Whites which are used really to deal with clipping of highest and lowest points.

In addition to this the sharpening and noise suppression is a big improvement upon previous versions, finer detail and greater noise suppression has been provided.

[Roger Clark]

Just noticed this thread, my previous version was CS4 now I have CS6 and I see a marked difference in raw conversion potential. I doubt if I will ever exploit the full potential of Photoshop but I am constantly learning new things on a weekly basis. I would respectfully point out that the new Process 2012 raw converter ACR 7 which is associated with CS6 is indeed very different to the previous versions.

The sliders work differently and there are extra sliders to previous versions offering improved opportunities for fine tuning images. Many of the sliders have the same names as previous versions but they act differently due to the new algorithms in ACR7..

Jonathan,
There was quite a difference between CS4 and CS5. So how much change from CS5 to 6?

The Exposure slider for example does not work the same as in previous versions - it is really more for getting the most of the mid tone range, this is followed by contrast.

With previous Process 2003 to 2010 the mid point was always fixed whereas in 2012 the mid point varies slightly according to image content. In low key images the mid point shifts to the left and vice versa in high key images this results in better tone differentiation in the tone area that predominate.

If the raw conversion varies with image content, this is really really bad for anyone trying to do a mosaic. For mosaics to merge properly, the characteristic curve needs to be the same in each frame. If true, I'll need to drop ACR as a raw converter as I do a lot of mosaics.

Roger

[Jonathan Ashton]

Roger, I am sorry I don't understand what mosaics are! Hey have they got four legs or two
I would suggest that if you do this type of photography then it may be better not to adjust the contrast in raw - just guessing??? - Probably just showing my ignorance now The images can still be optimised using other sliders in any event I would have thought...and there is still Photoshop of course. Sorry Roger Without knowing what it is you do I cannot really offer meaningful comments... guess you had already sussed that out eh?

[Roger Clark]

Roger, I am sorry I don't understand what mosaics are! Hey have they got four legs or two
I would suggest that if you do this type of photography then it may be better not to adjust the contrast in raw - just guessing??? - Probably just showing my ignorance now The images can still be optimised using other sliders in any event I would have thought...and there is still Photoshop of course. Sorry Roger Without knowing what it is you do I cannot really offer meaningful comments... guess you had already sussed that out eh?

Mosaics are where one stitches multiple frames together to make a larger image. To get them to match, the exposure, and more importantly, the characteristic curve (which includes any adjustments) must be the same for each image, When I do raw conversion of a group of photos in ACR (or any other raw converter), I make adjustments to one key frame, then synchronize all the other frames with the same settings. But if the adjustments applied are scene dependent, then overlapping frames will not match up at all intensity levels and one will see frame boundaries.

Some examples of mosaics:
http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.mosaic/

Roger

[Jonathan Ashton]

Mosaics are where one stitches multiple frames together to make a larger image. To get them to match, the exposure, and more importantly, the characteristic curve (which includes any adjustments) must be the same for each image, When I do raw conversion of a group of photos in ACR (or any other raw converter), I make adjustments to one key frame, then synchronize all the other frames with the same settings. But if the adjustments applied are scene dependent, then overlapping frames will not match up at all intensity levels and one will see frame boundaries.

Some examples of mosaics:
http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.mosaic/

Roger

I see what you mean, I don't know the answer but I may know a man who does, I will get back to you once I get in touch with him.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Roger I have been in touch with Martin Evening , Author, Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers

here is his reply, I hope it may prove helpful, not having done mosaics I cannot add further.
Hi Jon,

Ideally, you want the individual images that you use to construct a mosaic or panorama stitch to all be of the same exposure brightness. That is, in an ideal world. When using Photomerge techniques in Photoshop if the exposure does not match you will see this at the align layers stage, but the blend layers function will correct for this. So, if you don't have perfect matches these can still be resolved in the processing.


To get a perfect match it is best to find a median exposure for your panorama and use this on a manual camera setting to shoot all the other shots. That way you are sure to have matching exposures. But, with most panoramas. the exposure required will vary across the scene, so you may end up shooting some photos too bright or too dark. You can get around this by combining HDR techniques with Photomerge, but that gets complicated. Therefore, if you need to expose differently for different sectors of the panorama and you aren't going to do HDR work, then maybe it is best to use an auto setting, have some photos appear brighter at the ACR processing stage and let Photoshop take care of the blending for you. These are the options you have at the moment as I see it. One thing that can help is to use the Match Exposures command in Lightroom to help even out exposure brightness differences in your selected photos.


I have processed lots of panoramas. Sometimes with uniform manual exposures, sometimes not, but always via Camera Raw or Lightroom first. Sounds to me like you don't need to change what you are doing that much.


Regards,


Martin

[Roger Clark]

Roger I have been in touch with Martin Evening , Author, Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Photographers

here is his reply, I hope it may prove helpful, not having done mosaics I cannot add further.
Hi Jon,

Ideally, you want the individual images that you use to construct a mosaic or panorama stitch to all be of the same exposure brightness. That is, in an ideal world. When using Photomerge techniques in Photoshop if the exposure does not match you will see this at the align layers stage, but the blend layers function will correct for this. So, if you don't have perfect matches these can still be resolved in the processing.


To get a perfect match it is best to find a median exposure for your panorama and use this on a manual camera setting to shoot all the other shots. That way you are sure to have matching exposures. But, with most panoramas. the exposure required will vary across the scene, so you may end up shooting some photos too bright or too dark. You can get around this by combining HDR techniques with Photomerge, but that gets complicated. Therefore, if you need to expose differently for different sectors of the panorama and you aren't going to do HDR work, then maybe it is best to use an auto setting, have some photos appear brighter at the ACR processing stage and let Photoshop take care of the blending for you. These are the options you have at the moment as I see it. One thing that can help is to use the Match Exposures command in Lightroom to help even out exposure brightness differences in your selected photos.


I have processed lots of panoramas. Sometimes with uniform manual exposures, sometimes not, but always via Camera Raw or Lightroom first. Sounds to me like you don't need to change what you are doing that much.


Regards,


Martin

Hi Jonathan,

From the response, I suspect Martin didn't understand the problem. Matching exposures is easy. Matching different characteristic curves is not. Let me illustrate. Given two exposures, made with the same exposure that should fit together side-by-side to make a panorama. If the raw conversion changes the characteristic curve between the two images, even though exposure is the same, the intensities from high to low can't be matched up. Example: say the highlights and shadows match. Let's say some bright clouds that appear in the overlap in the two images have a level of 250 on a 0 to 255 scale. Let's say that a dark object has an intensity value of 11 on a 0 to 255 scale. In CS5 raw conversion, a midtone value of 55 would come out the same in both images. But if CS6 has scene-dependent contrast, we could see the mid tone be 55 on one image and 48 on the other. There is no way to scale the intensity values on one image to match those of the other. unless one knew the non-linear equation. With enough control points the relative equations could be derived from the image data, but I'm not sure any stitching program does that.. When I get a chance, I'll mosaic two scenes, one where I run the curves tool, making a significant contrast change to see if the software I use can handle the difference.

Roger

[Jonathan Ashton]

Roger I am probably getting a little out of my depth but maybe you could achieve matched mosaics without the use of the Contrast slider, i.e. buy using alternative sliders to Contrast e.g. Exposure Highlights Shadows Blacks and Whites - maybe not??

[Roger Clark]

Roger I am probably getting a little out of my depth but maybe you could achieve matched mosaics without the use of the Contrast slider, i.e. buy using alternative sliders to Contrast e.g. Exposure Highlights Shadows Blacks and Whites - maybe not??

Yes, you are probably right. But if one can't use the controls on the converter, why use the converter? It is making photoshop a black box PHD (push here dummy). For example, the chromatic aberration correction in the ACR CS5 was recently upgraded to automatic and the manual controls went away. The automatic version works OK but not superb, and not as well as I could do manually with the pre-upgrade version. It would be fine if Adobe gave the option to keep manual control. Same with scene dependent contrast. Fine, but add a check box to turn it off. It seems to me that Adobe hired some young math programmers who are enthralled with their algorithms. I have yet to see an image processing algorithm, spectroscopic algorithm, or imaging spectroscopy algorithm work well in all situations with all data. (I threw in spectroscopy because 3-color imaging is a simple form of spectroscopy.) Usually, an algorithm produces unwanted artifacts in some data situations. For Adobe to force these algorithms on their users with no way to override when the algorithms produces poor results is a sure sign of its decline. Will we next see the unsharp mask sliders go away?

This gets back to the original question about the future of photoshop. These trends and changes for me may mean I don't use it.

Roger

[Jonathan Ashton]

I take your point Roger, your use is probably much more critically managed when compared to mine (which is probably why the penny never dropped when you initially mentioned mosaics - I went off on the wrong track assuming it may have something to do with scientific/astronomy photography!!).
Regarding to your first point what is the point of having a converter in which you can't use the controls - well for me that is fine in so far that I am not always obliged to use all the controls all of the time.

[Roger Clark]

I take your point Roger, your use is probably much more critically managed when compared to mine (which is probably why the penny never dropped when you initially mentioned mosaics - I went off on the wrong track assuming it may have something to do with scientific/astronomy photography!!).
Regarding to your first point what is the point of having a converter in which you can't use the controls - well for me that is fine in so far that I am not always obliged to use all the controls all of the time.

I'm not sure I'm as critical as many on BPN . The most recent incident I had with the automated chromatic aberration tool in ACR, CS5, was converting some night sky images. See:
http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...Way-Reflection

Bright stars show significant chromatic aberration while fainter stars do not. The ACR algorithm failed because the overall image average was fine, but it is the bright stars that catch ones eye, and one notices the chromatic aberration there more. If I had controls, I could have adjusted the correction to make a better image for our perception, rather than some math average.

Roger