Showing posts with label 3d graphics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 3d graphics. Show all posts

Adobe Photoshop Extended CS5 Review

Adobe Photoshop Extended CS5
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Adobe Photoshop Extended CS5 Review
CS5 is Aaa...Mazing! It is light years ahead of its predecessors (including CS4). This new version of Photoshop has packed a number of exciting new features and enhancements that help make photo editing quicker, easier, and an absolute delight! With CS5, image editing tasks that used to be painstaking and meticulous work can be accomplished with incredible ease. I'll touch on just a few of these new features that I consider the most useful:
Edge Detection for Selections
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Edge Detection saves you time by helping you to easily make complex selections. CS5 has made major enhancements on the Refine Edge Tool (first introduced in CS3) by incorporating the new Edge Detection feature into it. Edge Detection lets you effortlessly and accurately refine your selection after you've made an initial rough selection, say, with the Quick Selection Tool.
> Feature In Action:
After a rough selection is made, click on Refine Edges on the toolbar. As in CS3 and CS4, this brings up the Refine Edge dialog box. CS5 has the new Edge Detection feature that helps you fine tune your selection. By using the new Touch Up Brush, you can "paint" over the edge of your selection and CS5 will almost magically remove any extraneous bits of selection and add to the selection areas you might have missed. If required, you can use the Decontaminate Colors (also a new feature) to remove any bits of background that might have spilled over into your selection.
> How well it works:
Edge Detection is one of the most, if not the most useful new feature in CS5. It works extremely well when there is a good contrast between the background and the subject to be removed. It makes selecting intricate regions such as the edges of hair or fur (which used to be a real pain) almost effortless. With some practice, Edge Detection can save you a lot of work _and_ time. It's no exaggeration to say that this feature alone is worth the upgrade!
Content-Aware Fill
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Content-Aware Fill fills in a deleted subject with the background. Traditionally, after a subject is removed from the foreground, you have to fill in the deleted area by painting it with cloned pixels. But with Content-Aware Fill, CS5 does this job _for you_.
> Feature In Action:
After an area to be deleted is selected, press the delete key. This will bring up a dialog box that gives you the type of fill to use: Content-Aware, Foreground, Background, etc. With Content-Aware selected, click on OK. Presto! CS5 automatically fills in the deleted area with the background for you.
> How Well It Works:
Content-Aware Fill doesn't always realistically fill in a deleted area. It all depends on the type of background the removed subject is in front of. The Content-Aware Fill works best with landscape backgrounds like a beach or a meadow. It will probably NOT work very well in an urban area full of buildings, for example. With the "right" background, you can get away with deleting fairly large objects/subjects. For example, I was able to use Content-Aware Fill to successfully remove quite a bit of undesired foreground (mostly people and railings) in my shots of the Grand Canyon to produce convincing and natural-looking images.
Puppet Warp
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Puppet Warp lets you place control points on a subject and warp it or move parts of it as though it were Play-Doh (Fun stuff!).
> Feature In Action:
From the edit menu, select Edit/Puppet Warp. You can then click to add control points to manipulate your subject, such as a person (which would have to had been extracted from a picture). You can then bend, stretch, or warp your subject by moving any of the control points. Alternatively you can press the Alt key to make a point act as a "pivot" point (or a "joint" of sorts).
> How Well It Works:
Puppet Warp may seem like a toy at first sight since many of the demos use this feature for moving or manipulating the limbs of a person or animal - but Puppet Warp can be used for much more. When used on a person or an animal, if your intent is to create a realistic image, moderation in the transformation is key. However, if your intent is to create a goofy looking picture (much as you would with the Liquefy Tool), you can do some really wacky transformations in Puppet Warp.
Puppet Warp has some serious applications too. It can be used to correct non-uniform distortions, which is a common problem in stitched panoramas. (For a demo, search for the "Puppet Warp Sneak Peek" video.) You can also use it to tweak the popular "smoke," "halo," or other layered effects that are commonly used on subjects in portrait photography. I personally find Puppet Warp an invaluable tool for this purpose.
Faux HDR
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Normal HDR requires 2 or more source images. CS5 lets you create a _faux_ HDR with just one image.
> Feature In Action:
Go to Image/Adjustments/HDR Toning. CS5 immediately applies a default set of settings, which you can change to suit your preferences. There is a lightening/darkening setting each for Shadows and Highlights. Other settings include color Vibrance and color Saturation, Exposure, Gamma, etc.
> How Well It Works:
The faux HDR is a great tool for salvaging photos where subjects are under-exposed because of backlighting. By using the tool to lighten the darker areas, you can make it seem as though you have a fill light on your subjects! However, lightening darker areas will inevitably introduce some noise. No matter, CS5 actually has a new noise reduction feature that does an amazing job. This HDR feature can really help you create surrealistic images.
Miscellaneous New Features & Enhancements
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CS5 has many niceties such as improved layer pasting called Paste In Place (pastes layer in the same coordinates as the source image), Lens Correction (corrects distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting), Mixer Brush and Bristle Tips (tools for blending colors and painting on your picture/canvas - not quite as complete a suite of tools as Corel Painter, but very impressive nonetheless), Mini Adobe Bridge (a "mini" Bridge in-program), improved noise reduction, a new Workspace Switcher, on-screen color picker, and much more...
> Additional Notes
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A lot of operations in CS5, such as Content-Aware Fill, is memory (RAM) intensive. Memory usage can easily run up in the GB range. On 32-bit systems, there is a limit on the amount of memory that Photoshop can use.
Here's information about RAM usage taken from the adobe site:
Photoshop Version / Windows Version / Maximum amount of RAM that Photoshop can use
32-bit / 32-bit / 1.7 GB
32-bit / 64-bit / 3.2 GB
64-bit / 64-bit / as much RAM as you can fit into your computer
I use Windows XP (32-bit) and ran into a problem where the area I selected for Content-Aware Fill was too large. I got the message "Could not fill because there is not enough memory (RAM)." If you are using a 64-bit system, insufficient memory will not be a problem. CS5 is optimized for systems that use 64-bit addressing.
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In conclusion, the many new features and enhancements in CS5 will help you do more with your images to help you create great looking images in less time and with greater precision. There's no question in my mind that CS5 is well worth the upgrade.
Adobe Photoshop Extended CS5 OverviewAdobe Photoshop CS5 Extended software helps you create the ultimate images for print, the web, and video. Enjoy all the state-of-the-art editing, compositing, and painting capabilities in industry-standard Photoshop CS5, and experience fast performance thanks to cross-platform 64-bit support. Also create 3D extrusions for logos, artwork, and motion graphics; edit 3D objects with advanced tools; and create and enhance motion-based content.

Create powerful images with the professional standard
3D extrusions Easily explore new creative directions: Create 3D logos and artwork with Adobe Repoussé technology. Twist, rotate, extrude, bevel, and inflate these designs, and then apply rich materials like chrome, glass, and cork.
Advanced 3D editing capabilities Push your creative boundaries with powerful 3D editing tools--even paint directly on 3D objects. Add 3D objects to your designs and create amazing composites. Illuminate your scene with real lighting, and animate your objects.
Motion content editing Paint, add text, and clone over multiple frames of an imported video sequence using your favorite Photoshop tools.
Easy access to core editing power Get just the tools you need--exactly when you need them--when performing common editing activities. Adjustments and Masks panels guide you in making precise edits.
Extraordinary creative tools Achieve realistic painting effects with the ability to mix colors on canvas and create natural brushstrokes. Merge multiple exposures into stunning high dynamic range (HDR) images. Move, remove, warp, or stretch any image element.
State-of-the-art photography Easily merge multiple exposures to extend the dynamic range with more power, precision, and fidelity than ever before. Convert to black-and-white in new ways. And use Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tools that intelligently preserve color and tone details.
Image analysis Use measurement and counting tools to extract quantitative information from images. Record and export data for further analysis. Import DICOM files as frames or as a volume to directly analyze and edit your image data.
Industry-leading raw image processing Enjoy superior results when you convert raw images with the Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which offers support for over 275 camera models plus nondestructive editing so you can experiment without harming your original photo.
Automated compositing tools Easily create a single image from a series of shots that have different focal points, smoothly blending color and shading and extending your depth of field. And take advantage of accurate, automatic layer alignment.
Efficient media management Manage your media visually with Adobe Bridge CS5 software. Enjoy more flexible batch renaming plus the ability to access files in the context of your work using the customizable Adobe Mini Bridge panel.
Powerful printing options Get outstanding prints in less time with automation, scripting, and a print dialog box that's easier to navigate.
Broad file format support Import and export hundreds of file formats, including PSD, AI, PDF, NEF, CRW, TIFF, BMP, Cineon, JPEG, JPEG2000, FXG, OpenEXR, PNG, Targa, DICOM, OBJ, KMZ, Collada, U3D, 3DS (import only), 3G, FLC, MOV, AVI, DV Stream, Image Sequence, MPEG-4, and FLV.
Extensibility Personalize Photoshop and extend its capabilities. Use developer-created custom panels to accomplish specific tasks. Visit the Adobe Photoshop Marketplace for third-party plug-ins and resources. And check out Adobe Community Help for tips and tricks.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom integration Enjoy tight integration with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software (sold separately), easily moving files from Lightroom to Photoshop CS5 to create HDR images, panoramas, and multilayered Photoshop documents. Roundtrip your files back to Lightroom.
Top new features of Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended
Intelligent selection technology Photoshop CS5 takes the time and frustration out of making precise image selections and masks, providing you a faster way to extract subjects from their backgrounds and create realistic composites. New intelligent selection technology offers better edge detection and faster, more accurate masking results of complex subjects, like hair. Automatic color decontamination helps you eliminate background color around the edges of a selection, resulting in more seamless compositions when placing extracted subjects on new backgrounds.
Experienced Photoshop users know that the best selections are created by constantly adapting the selection technique for differences in the subject's edges--one method for hair and another for the edge of a building. With Photoshop CS5, you can produce highly accurate masks and selections faster and more simply than before with a set of new adaptive selection-edge modification controls. Smart Radius automatically matches the best selection approach with the subject's changing edge characteristics, and the extra view modes assist you in previewing the quality of your selections. The Refine Radius and Erase Refinements tools customize your masks and selections as you make them. These tools, in combination with the color decontamination settings, help eliminate any residual background color from around the edges of your selections.
Content‐Aware Fill One of the most exciting new features in Photoshop CS5 is the remarkable ability to remove an image element and magically replace it with details that match the lighting, tone, and noise of the surrounding area so that it looks like the content never existed. Now, you can make substantial changes to photo composition quickly and easily, as even large complex subjects can be seamlessly erased.
You can use Content-Aware Fill with the Spot Healing Brush or as an option of the Fill feature to replace content in an active selection. Selecting the Content-Aware setting with the Spot Healing brush changes the way the tool fills in the areas you paint. This retouching approach is designed to account more fully for the structure and detail of the image elements that surround the painted area, providing a near-invisible result when removing unwanted objects. Alternatively, you can select the object to be removed, and then replace the area with synthesized details from the area surrounding the selection, simply by using the Content-Aware option in the Fill dialog box.
HDR Pro for creativity and precision with the next generation of high dynamic range imaging With just a few clicks, you can go beyond the capture capabilities of your camera by combining multiple exposures into a single high dynamic range (HDR) photo that preserves the full tonal range of a scene with high contrast. Photoshop CS5 introduces HDR Pro for more control over the HDR merging process and greater adjustment power over the mapping of tones and the styling of HDR output, resulting in images that range from photorealistic to highly surreal.
HDR Pro offers extended controls, an enhanced dialog box, and improved image processing. New algorithms enable more accurate alignment of source files and automatically deghost any problem areas that occur when trying to merge source photos where subjects have moved during capture. You can even select a source file to be used as the sole reference for any ghosted areas or allow the feature to do this automatically for you.
New tone-mapping tools and adjustment controls give you the power to implement your own HDR vision, producing photos that range in style from fully textured images of high-contrast scenes to wildly hyper-realistic creations. Save your favorite styles as presets and apply them to multiple groups of source files to provide a common look and feel to your HDR photos. And for times when you don't have multiple source files, create the look of an HDR-processed image from a single photo with the new HDR Toning feature that allows you to mimic the tone-mapping results traditionally achieved in high dynamic range photos.
Together with the existing Photomerge feature (which allows for image stitching), the exposure-merging capabilities of HDR Pro can add up to high-bit-depth, 360-degree panoramas ideal for composite photography, video, and beyond.
The Auto Stack Panorama/HDR files option in Adobe Bridge CS5 and the new panelized Mini Bridge groups source files together into stacks for quicker creation of HDR images in Photoshop CS5. You can even start the creation of an HDR file by choosing Tools > Merge To HDR from the Mini Bridge panel inside Photoshop.
State-of-the-art raw-image processing The Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which ships with Photoshop CS5, now supports more than 275 camera models as it continues to provide you with the industry-leading conversion of raw files. In addition, the utility provides advanced, nondestructive image editing and enhancement for raw files, as well as for other standard formats, including JPEG and TIFF. Now you can remove noise, achieve better quality sharpening, and creatively apply new styles of vignettes and film-like grain.
You can now shoot at higher ISO settings with confidence, because the updated controls in the Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in remove the noise common in such high-ISO images (as well as in photos captured with long exposures and pictures from consumer cameras) while still preserving excellent color and detail.
New controls for adding grain and additional post-crop vignetting settings join many creative options already available in this utility, such as the Adjustment Brush and the Graduated Filter. For the first time, you can add grain-like texture to photos as part of your nondestructive editing workflow. Adjust amount, size, and roughness of grain to easily give composites a more natural, seamless appearance by matching levels of grain across all source images--or simply use the feature to make a digital photo look more organic or film-like.
Updated post-crop vignetting options offer more creative control over the corner darkening and lightening process, and your favorite vignette effects can be saved as presets for quick application across multiple files.
Upgraded sharpening options produce clearer photos with fewer artifacts while providing better control over key details, especially when working with high-resolution pictures produced by multi-megapixel cameras.
Extraordinary painting effects With a new Mixer Brush, a Bristle Tips feature, and a new mechanism for blending colors, Photoshop CS5 redefines the way you paint. You can take advantage of more natural and realistic painting effects, making it easy to take your imagery and designs in new artistic directions.
The Mixer Brush lets you define multiple colors on a single tip, and then mix and blend them with the underlying hues on your canvas, achieving creative results that rival traditional painting media. When starting with a photo original, you can use a dry, empty brush to blend the existing colors while at the same time adding a painterly effect to the image. Mixer Brush settings provide extensive control over the wetness of the canvas colors, the load rate that determines amount of paint loaded on the brush, the mixing rate between brush and canvas colors, and whether the brush is refilled, cleaned, or both after each painting stroke.
In conjunction with these new mixing features, Photoshop CS5 incorporates unprecedented control over stroke characteristics of its painting tools with Bristle Tips. Bristle Qualities define key bristle properties such as shape, length, stiffness, thickness, angle, and spacing, which affect how the color is laid on the image as you paint.
The Bristle Brush Preview feature provides a visual representation of these changes, and you can save your tip configurations for future use, allowing you to build a customized collection of Bristle Tips to experiment with when using Photoshop brush tools.
Puppet Warp Puppet Warp gives you more freedom when pushing and pulling elements within an image. The feature lets you recompose an image to make it more appealing, or to fit a specific layout, by allowing the precise repositioning of any element within a Photoshop document, or selection, by simply clicking and dragging. After you reposition an object, Photoshop adjusts the rest of the image to account for the shifted pixels.
After choosing Edit > Puppet Warp, click on your image to drop pins establishing anchor points where you want image parts not to move, and handles that you can use for warping. Then drag any of the pins to reposition the picture elements. Use Puppet Warp to swing a raised arm to a person's side, warp and stretch text to create new effects, or reposition intrusive objects in a photo to create a more pleasing composition.
Automated lens correction The Lens Correction features in Photoshop CS5 create better quality captures by removing or correcting the three most common lens-based errors: geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. This means you can use a wider range of lenses with the confidence of producing images of the highest quality. With the aid of the Adobe Lens Profile Creator (available separately as a free download from labs.adobe.com) you can produce custom profiles characterizing the optical aberrations of your camera lenses. When installed and selected in the Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5, the profile automatically removes or corrects the three types of distortion.
The Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5 is redesigned to include manual adjustment controls under the Custom tab, and settings for locating and applying custom Lens Correction Profiles (LCP files) under a new Auto Correction tab. Installed profiles that match your camera and lens combination are used to apply precise distortion corrections to your photos. Suitable profiles can be located easily based on the EXIF data automatically recorded with the image, and if a suitable profile is not present in the Lens Correction filter, then with a single click within the dialog box, you can search online for the correct profile to meet your needs.
Individual error types can be selected in the filter's settings, as can options for handling any transparent areas that surround the corrected image.
Easy 3D extrusions with Adobe Repoussé (Photoshop CS5 Extended only) Repoussé is an ancient metalworking technique for embossing artwork on the surface of metals such as gold, silver, copper, tin, and bronze. Photoshop Extended offers a powerful new feature, inspired by this traditional technique, for creating eye-catching 3D artwork.
Use Adobe Repoussé to easily convert 2D artwork into 3D objects and then create depth by altering the extrusion properties of the 3D model. Easily extrude text to create logos and 3D artwork for use in websites, video frames, or layouts.
Starting with a text layer, a path, a selection, or a layer mask, you can convert the content to 3D with the Create New 3D Object section of the 3D panel. After the conversion is complete, you can alter the look of your 3D model by manipulating its key extrusion properties--depth, scale, bend, shear, inflate, or twist--in the Repoussé dialog box.
In addition to manipulating these properties, you can inflate the front or back of the extrusion and/or apply a custom bevel. Sections of objects (internal subpaths) can also be inflated by creating a selection first and then adjusting the Internal Constraints settings in the Repoussé dialog box. The 3D Axis widget allows on canvas rotation of the of the model
Enhanced 3D realism and rich materials (Photoshop CS5 Extended only) Bring your 3D creations to life with the materials that ship with Photoshop CS5 Extended. You can select materials from the library of included presets, download additional materials by choosing 3D > Browse 3D Content, create your own, or even edit existing materials to customize them for your needs (in the materials section of the 3D panel). Test a variety of looks for your 3D models and extruded designs by adding different materials or textures to their surfaces. Materials that feature reflection or refraction properties can be rendered with the new Adobe Ray Tracer engine. The Repoussé dialog box, and the Materials section of the 3D panel, both contain options for applying a single material to all surfaces-as well as choosing different treatments--for individual sections and surfaces of your models
Use the 3D Material Drop tool and the Material Load tool to easily load a material and drop it into different meshes, allowing you to sample and apply materials interactively. New overlay controls provide instant feedback about where specific materials and meshes are located in your model, and the updated 3D axis widget now works with lights and cameras as well as 3D objects.
With the Shadow Catcher feature, you can now easily generate a shadow on the ground plane of a scene, and then adjust how the shadow interacts with image content of other layers by altering its opacity and its softness. To further enhance realism, you can use an HDR image to light your scene, or re-create traditional depth-of-field effects in your rendered scene by adjusting the zone of sharpness with the new Distance and Blur controls.
Better 3D performance and workflow (Photoshop CS5 Extended only) Take advantage of better performance and immediate rendering feedback thanks to the improved Adobe Ray Tracer (ART) engine in Photoshop CS5 Extended. ART 2.0 brings substantial improvements in performance when you interact with and edit 3D models. ART 2.0 progressively renders 3D scenes with an option to re-render after a pause, or even perform selective renderings, all while providing more immediate feedback and dramatically reducing the time it takes to preview key areas in high quality.
You also get faster previews and more responsive interaction thanks to changes made in the OpenGL engine, which now fast-tracks the delivery of complex 3D geometry to the video card. Overall workflow performance has been optimized with improved import, interaction speeds, and better merging of 3D objects into a single scene. To aid with fine-tuning and adjustment of these performance features, there is a new 3D section in Preferences.
User-inspired productivity enhancements Photoshop CS5 helps boost productivity and creativity throughout the editing workflow with dozens of enhancements inspired by Photoshop users. Some of these include:
A neutral-density preset for the Gradient tool
The ability to save 16-bit Photoshop documents in 8-bit JPEG format in a single step
An option for reversing the clone source using the flip buttons in the Clone Source panel
A Don't Show This Message Again option when saving files with maximum compatibility
Default value for Shadows/Highlights changed from 50% to 35%
The ability to move a selection while the active layer is hidden
An on/off option for trackpad gesture support on Mac and in Microsoft Windows 7
A new layer command for deleting all empty layers via scripts
A Straighten button on the Ruler tool options bar
A Close All Open Images Without Saving option
A Save As option for always defaulting to the folder to which you last saved an image
The ability to drag and drop a file onto an open Photoshop document to create a new layer
Multiple improvements in Lens Correction filter options, including:
Grid Display is off by default
Show Grid, Grid Size, and Grid Color settings are now sticky
Default grid size is increased from 16 to 64 pixels
Decimal point adjustments are allowed as values for the Chromatic Aberration sliders
A third Chromatic Aberration slider enables the correction of green/magenta fringing
The Background Color Edge setting is replaced with the Black Color entry
A White Color option is available in the Edge menu
Reset options are changed so that only the calibration settings are reset, not the Grid options

A new Cache Tile Size control in the Performance section of the Preferences dialog box
Zoom in and out with the new scrubby zoom tool
Presets for setting Cache Tile Size and Cache Levels simultaneously
The ability to use keystrokes to set values in the Adjustments panel text fields
Performance increases of up to 50% when importing OBJ files
Sample colors faster using the new on screen color ring built into the eyedropper tool
Customizable default values for Layer styles
New creative resources, including actions, tools, presets, brushes, swatches, shapes, gradients, styles, and tool presets
Window and Door shapes added to list of meshes that can be created from a layer
An option for changing the opacity of multiple selected layers
The ability to create a mask from the transparent areas of a layer
Pick colors faster using the new on-screen color HUD
Print settings saved with the image file, allowing one-button printing with user-selected values
Selecting a printer automatically lists the profiles installed for that printer at the top of the profile list
Printer-specific profiles are selected automatically when choosing a printer
Customized print settings can be recorded as part of a Photoshop Action
An overlay grid can be displayed when using the Crop tool
Layer groups can be nested more than five levels deep
New Paste Outside and Paste Inside commands, along with the previously existing Paste In Place option, are included in a new Edit > Paste Special menu

Streamlined creative reviews through integration with Adobe CS ReviewCollaborate with colleagues and seek client comment quickly and easily with Adobe CS Review, a new CS Live online service* designed to simplify and accelerate the design review process.
With CS Review, you can avoid the hassles of large email attachments, logon problems with FTP servers, and time-consuming next-day air deliveries usually associated with client reviews by instead initiating a secure, shared review. Comments are displayed in near-real time and in context, providing convenient feedback on your images and designs. You can access the CS Review service from within Photoshop CS5.
Faster performance with cross-platform native 64-bit support Tight deadlines and large file sizes make performance a high priority for many Photoshop users. Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended deliver cross-platform 64-bit support, allowing you to perform day-to-day imaging tasks up to 10 times faster. Video and photo professionals, especially, benefit from the extra performance, as gains are even greater if you regularly work with very large files, where processing can be up to ten times faster when you take advantage of higher addressable RAM amounts--limited only by what your hardware accommodates.
To help you tweak the performance of your setup, Photoshop CS5 lets you adjust history, tile, and cache controls in combination.
Greater access to key resources via flexible custom panels Photoshop CS5 offers easy ways to integrate and extend your workspace with customized panels. With the aid of the Configurator 2.0 panel utility (available separately as a download from labs.adobe.com) you can produce your own panels, bringing together your most used tools and menu selections and incorporating your favorite web feeds or video tutorials.
Stay connected to the greater Photoshop community and all facets of your digital life directly from within Photoshop CS5 by using panels you create or those produced and distributed by other users. You can access anything that lives on the web--favorite blogs, video content, even your email--with these integrated panels. You can even expand content beyond a panel's standard viewing area when you need a magnified view.
Easier interface management with Live Workspaces and Workspace Switcher Creating dedicated, task-specific workspaces that mimic your individual workflow increases productivity and efficiency by hiding the features you don't use and exposing the ones you do. New Live Workspaces auto-save any changes you make to a task-specific workspace, so that if you switch to a different workspace and then back again during an editing session, your panels remain exactly where you left them. The number of entries displayed in the collapsible Workspace Switcher can be altered, and the position of each workspace can be rearranged. This provides quicker navigation between frequently used setups.
Superior black-and-white conversion Photoshop CS5 continues to support the tradition of producing finely crafted monochrome photos with the inclusion of new ways to explore an endless variety of black-and-white looks. You can use the integrated Lab Black & White Technique action, located in the Default Actions group of the Actions panel, for an easy and interactive way to convert color images. Create gorgeous HDR black-and-whites with greater ease and speed by taking advantage of the new and updated features in HDR Pro. Take your monochrome creations in new directions with conversion presets in the Black & White panel.

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Poser 8 Review

Poser 8
Average Reviews:

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Poser 8 ReviewAfter spending every free hour for the last week with this program, I have mixed feelings about it. I don't make my living from making films, but I have made a few industrial videos with compositing, green-screen live action and various special effects. I'm a serious amateur photographer and musician. So I'm pretty familiar with complex software. My regular 'kit' includes titles like Photoshop, Logic, Final Cut, Digital Performer and so on. But I'm a novice when it comes to 3D and animation in general. I approached Poser 8 with eagerness, and looked forward to learning new things.
Poser 8 is cross-platform. I tested it on my Mac: 8-cores, dual monitors, Wacom tablet. The installation was long but uneventful. I found an update on the website and applied it with no difficulty. Normally, I'm a plunge-in and get going type, but I decided to follow the tutorials. This is where the first problems arose. It doesn't look like anyone did any serious proofreading. Many of the tutorials appear to have been written for earlier versions of the program, and have not been fully updated. There are frequent references to objects in the user interface that have changed--often significantly. There are also references to tools and palettes that have not been described. This is a cardinal sin for writers of tutorials: never use a term you haven't described. I found the tutorials helpful and frustrating in equal measure.
My first experiments with posing the stock figures were done with no one looking over my shoulder. That's a good thing. The controls are very sensitive and first efforts tended to look like accident victims. Ouch! But after a little practice, I began to get the hang of it. There are various amounts of articulation in the provided figures, with the Poser8 figures the most capable. The user can basically operate every joint in the human body. Not every position looks natural, but that's why real animation professionals are different from the rest of us. Poser is centered around building 'scenes', with user control over nearly every facet: camera position, lighting, characters and props. Dolly shots that would break the budget in a real film shoot are available in Poser with only a little effort. As in regular animation, the user can create keyframes, with Poser filling in the intermediate moves. If there are problems in those intermediate frames, you can dive in a little deeper and fix things.
It's important to note that there are a number of features in modern animation that are not present in Poser. There is no gravity and there is no wind. Hair stays in place like a TV weatherman's. Fat doesn't bob up and down as a character moves. Poser characters--although well-articulated--are still obviously mannequins.
One of the features I looked forward to was the so-called Face Room. In this window, the user can import photographs and apply them to characters. The principle is to take an image and apply it to an existing form, reshaping the form to match the imported face. I took a couple of head shots (front and side) of myself and set to work. This was a disaster. The user interface is virtually incomprehensible. I've used both morphing and panorama software in which points must be matched between two shots. Generally, this is simple to use: you set a point on a feature in one shot and then set a matching point on the other shot. You set as many points as you need. In Poser 8, you have only limited points (3 for the nose, 4 for each eye, 4 for the mouth), with none for hairline, earhole, nostrils, bridge of nose or other important features. I spend a few hours with this, following instructions carefully, and never came up with anything better than horrible. My first effort looked like the monster from 'Predator'. My second looked like Gollum. I have my good days and my bad days, but I look better than that!
I've been aware of Poser for a long time. It's been available for well over a decade. But I get the feeling that the developers have spent that decade in a cave, never glancing at other software. To call the user interface 'challenging' would be too kind. There are many types of common controls (like pan and zoom) that you find in all sorts of software. Usually you can figure them out immediately, since there's a real advantage in software behaving similarly. Not in Poser. In the aforementioned Face Room you pan around a picture by dragging on the Pan tool. In every other program, you pan by dragging the image. Poser abounds with peculiarities like this. Features that should be easy to use become arcane. Another feature that demonstrates how to do a good thing badly is the ability to undock windows and tools. Most programs of any complexity allow you to work in an integrated window with the ability to undock sub-windows for use on another monitor. This is generally a good thing. But in Poser, you find that an errant mouse click is all you need to undock a window. After that, it's almost impossible to put it back. And some features like window close buttons are so small as to be nearly impossible to click.
There are also some instabilities in the program. There is a tablet mode for devices such as my Wacom pad. Unfortunately it's buggy in multiple-monitor systems. Perhaps some of my other complaints are simple bugs waiting to be fixed. I emailed customer support to report the tablet problem. I sent the email early on Saturday morning and received a reply within a couple of hours. This was impressive.
I believe that there are many useful things I can do with Poser, but I find the program puts too much unnecessary struggle in the way. There's much hidden potential that is likely to remain hidden.Poser 8 OverviewPoser 8 is the world's most complete solution for creating art and animation with 3D characters. With Poser, it's easy to make 3D art. Poser includes over 2.5 gigabytes of ready-to-pose human and animal figures, textures, props and 3D scene elements. Generate new characters from your facial photographs. Add hair and clothing. Dress Poser's virtual stage with props, lights and cameras to build 3D scenes. Animate and render your scene into photorealistic images and video for web, print, and film projects. Export 3D figures to add characters to other 3D applications. Artists, hobbyists, illustrators and animators--get creative with Poser!

Easily Create 3D Character Art and Animation
Poser 8 is better than ever Along with 8 brand new 3D humans, Poser 8 includes an improved user interface to maximize your workspace while providing better workflow, a new search-enabled library so you can find, organize and use your content easier, a dependant parameter tool that lets you teach objects in the scene to interact with each other, cross body morph brushes to smoothly sculpt a figure across every body part, new photorealistic rendering features that more accurately reproduce light and shadows, and improved character rigging for even better character bending. To save time, Poser 8 has been performance optimized so you can pose your characters and render them faster on today's multiple processor systems.
Poser 8 includes:
8 new figures The new set of eight 3D humans included with Poser 8 are the most advanced figures ever included with the application, and are a showcase for new Poser 8 features. Built from scratch, the figures are performance optimized for the polygon count and have custom photorealistic textures. Rigged using Poser 8's new multiple sphere and capsule fall off zone technology, problematic joints such as hips and shoulders now bend with more realism than any figure on the market. By using the new Dependent Parameter tool to link deformers to specific joint positions, areas such as knees, elbows, chest and collar joints have smoother folds, less stretching and more realism. The new Poser 8 figures are offered in four pairs of male/female couples with European features, African features, Asian features and Hispanic features. The Poser 8 new figures are fully compliant with the Face Room, the Walk Designer and Talk Designer, and via the use of Wardrobe Wizard, much of the included legacy clothing content has been converted to work directly on the figures.
~1.5GB of new Poser 8 Content In addition to the new set of figures, Poser 8 includes an array of new content supplied by third party partners as well content created by the Smith Micro team of 3D artists. A new art-school inspired default manikin opens each new scene, and will serve as a remarkable reference figure for artists. Fully articulated human skeletons that match the male and female figures body topology are included. Various new poses, animations, light sets, props, and accessories to help new users get started are included in the Poser 8 content installer. Poser 8 also includes an additional 1.5GB of legacy Poser 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 content.
New User Interface Poser 8 offers a new evolved user interface, preserving the elements that Poser users are accustomed to, while presenting them in a more concise layout that takes better advantage of various screen resolutions. The new layout produces a cleaner work environment so artists can focus on the project. All controls are presented in floating palettes that can be docked for consistency, session to session, or floated to free up space.
Dependent Parameters Poser 8 unlocks an advanced user secret with the new Dependent Parameter palette. Poser 8 lets the artist create new Master Parameters or turn any existing Parameter into a Master Parameter that can drive any other editable parameters in the scene. Complex interactions can be created such as Full Body Morphs, Partial Body Morphs, Advanced Body Controls, Joint Controlled Morph Targets, Joint Controlled Deformers and Parameter Controlled Scene Assets.
Indirect Lighting By bouncing light and color from object to adjacent object in a scene, Poser 8's Global Illumination system can render images that appear so realistic they can fool the untrained eye into thinking the images are photos rather than 3D renderings.
OpenGL Preview Improvements Preview now displays up to 8 lights and their accumulated values, sorted by intensity. The light properties controller allows you to select each light you wish to illuminate in the scene preview.
Content Management System / Library The new library presents content by category, but with a tighter list view with expanding previews and additional data for each content item. Content items can be loaded into the scene using the traditional Poser UI controls or can now be dragged directly from the Library into the scene. The Poser 8 Library also supports keyword search. Type in a keyword to find exactly what you looking for. Add any selected items to your favorites.
Cross Body Part Morph Creation With Poser 8 comes a significant improvement to the current Morphing Tool. Now you can dial in a Morph Brush and paint morphs across body parts. Easily create effects such as muscle bulges, scales, bumps, horns, veins or wounds; it's only limited by your imagination.
Improved Rigging System Poser 8 has improved upon the existing joint Falloff Zone rigging system by adding any number of new zones to a joint, while adding a new capsule shape to the existing sphere, and allowing the rigger to either multiply or add the Falloff Zone values. This system will permit figure creators to rig challenging areas such as hips and shoulders with more precision, yielding better bending figures.
Tone Mapping and Exposure Tone Mapping helps control very bright and dark areas in an image to produce better, less blown out final renderings with deeper contrast. The feature is very useful, helping to bring the brightest areas back into a reproducible range. Two modes of Tone Mapping are available for differing effects: Exponential Tone Mapping and HSV Tone Mapping. Exposure values are editable when either Exponential or HSV Tone Mapping is selected.
Physically Correct Light Falloff For Spot and Point lights, Poser 8 lets users attenuate (control) falloff to more closely reproduce real-world light behaviors. Constant falloff replicates the previous Poser behavior, and Inverse Linear and Inverse Square add two new methods for getting light to appear more realistic.
Normal Mapping Normal Mapping is a resource-efficient technique to add the appearance of complexity and surface detail to 3D objects. It can transform object surfaces, making them appear more intricate than they actually are, without the added overhead of polygonal detail. This saves designers valuable time and offers increased creative flexibility by allowing faster and more light-weight computation of rendered results.
Performance Optimizations
Figure/Actor pre-lighting and picking
Bending on multi-core/multi-processor hardware
Improved multi-processor support for better scalability when rendering
Cloth simulation multithreaded/optimized
Increased performance for opening/handling complex scenes

Poser 8 Uses:
Professional 3D graphics professionals
3D Hobby/Enthusiast Market
Comic book / graphic novel creators
General Purpose 3D Users
Upgrade Poser Users
Art Students
Traditional Artists/Sculptors

Poser provides a number of professional users with a fast, easy to access resource for 3D humans, animals, and other scene assets. Professional users include: Architectural illustrators, industrial designers, medical illustrators, graphic designers, editorial illustrators, book illustrators, informational graphics, advertising illustration, web illustration, interactive content, story boarding, lighting and theatrical set designers, film/video production
3D hobbyists andenthusiastswho dabble in 3D for personal satisfaction, experiment with Poser to gain 3D experience, and may use Poser to expand into new careers, or create a graphic novel, sci-fi art, fantasy art, or develop a screen play.
Comic book creators and graphic novelists use Poser render images and animations to create their own titles. Single images, multiple page comics and graphic novels delivered via print and digital media are a great use of Poser.
If you work with other 3D applications such as Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Modo, Lightwave, Truespace, Bruce,or Vue; Poser is a perfect way to include 3D character content you're your projects.
Art students looking to gain practical 3D animation experience hone their skills working with Poser characters as part of course work,in art school classes or for extra-curricular experience.


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