Lesson 2: Buying Photoshop
Photoshop 2020 learning Center – Superguide. This is the superguide where you can find all the new features and tutorials on Photoshop 2020. You can also see all our super guides here, listing all the new features in Photoshop and Lightroom since 2007 (CS3). Extended features included. Before Creative Cloud, two versions of Photoshop existed: Photoshop and Photoshop Extended. The latter included powerful image, video, analysis and 3D tools. With Creative Cloud and Photoshop CC you now get all of this in one version - so you don't have to pay any more to get all the exciting features of Photoshop.
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Introduction
If you're thinking about purchasing or upgrading to the latest version of Adobe Photoshop, there are some important things to consider before you buy. For example, you'll need to learn more about the different purchasing options and choose the version of Photoshop that's right for you.
Photoshop purchasing options
If you're interested in buying Photoshop, you have several options to choose from:
- Photoshop CC: If you want to buy the full version of Photoshop, you'll need to pay a monthly subscription fee for Adobe Creative Cloud. Photoshop CC is available for both Windows and Mac.
- Photoshop Elements: If you don't need all of the features of the full version of Photoshop, you might consider buying Photoshop Elements instead. Photoshop Elements is available for both Windows and Mac.
- Mobile apps: If you want to edit photos on the go, there are a few Photoshop mobile apps available for iOS and Android. However, most of these apps may be less powerful and offer less control than the full desktop version.
- Alternative software: If you don't need all of Photoshop's features—or if you're trying to save money—there are many other image editing applications you can use. You can review our lesson on Photoshop alternatives to learn more about some free and low-cost applications you might be able to use instead.
Adobe Creative Cloud and Photoshop CC
Unlike many other applications you may have used, you cannot buy a boxed copy of Photoshop CC. Instead, you'll need a subscription plan through Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe's cloud-based software service. Then, you'll download Photoshop CC to your computer. A Creative Cloud subscription includes other benefits, including cloud-based storage for your Photoshop projects. You'll also receive the newest version of Photoshop whenever it's made available, so you'll never have to worry about upgrading to the most recent version.
You can subscribe to Creative Cloud for about $10 per month (or about $120 per year). Previously, you could purchase a boxed copy of Photoshop without a subscription, but it would typically cost more than $700. While this means the cost of entry for using Photoshop is much lower than it was in the past, keep in mind that this subscription fee will add up over time, especially if you plan to keep the subscription for several years.
You can also buy other Adobe applications through Adobe Creative Cloud, including Lightroom, Illustrator, and InDesign. There are different plans and pricing options available depending on your needs. Visit this page for more information on purchasing a Creative Cloud subscription. If you still have questions about how Creative Cloud works, you can visit Adobe's Creative Cloud FAQ page.
Photoshop Elements
If you don't need all of Photoshop's features, you might consider purchasing Photoshop Elements instead. You can think of Photoshop Elements as Photoshop Light. It gives you access to some of the most popular features from the full version, but it generally costs less than $100 and does not require a subscription. If you don't have a lot of previous experience with image editing, Photoshop Elements may be a good option for you.
Missing features in Photoshop Elements
Below, you'll find a list of some of the main limitations of Photoshop Elements. These are somewhat advanced features, which is why they're not included in this version. If you've never heard about some of the things we mention below, don't worry—we'll cover several of them throughout the tutorial.
- Adjustment layers: Elements has a limited selection of adjustment layers. For example, you won't be able to create a Curves adjustment layer, though it does have a similar feature you can use.
- Layer masks: Elements does not allow you to create layer masks. However, you will be able to edit layer masks for adjustment layers. You'll also be able to edit existing layer masks when working with files created in the full version of Photoshop.
- Layer groups: Elements does not allow you to create new layer groups. However, you will be able to view existing groups when working with files created in the full version of Photoshop.
- Color options: Elements does not include as many advanced options for adjusting color, like the Channels panel. It also has limited support for working with different color profiles and color spaces (such as CMYK).
- Drawing tools: Elements does not include several of the commonly used vector-based drawing tools found in Photoshop, like the Pen tool and Paths panel.
- 8-bit mode: Elements is mostly limited to photos that use 8-bit mode; it offers very little support for 16- and 32-bit modes, which many photographers use to get even higher-quality photos. However, 8-bit mode still offers a high level of quality—it's actually the mode most digital cameras use—so for many people this will not be a major limitation.
Photoshop for mobile devices
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If you want to edit photos on the go, Adobe offers mobile apps. They vary in both features and price, but you should be able to find one that meets your needs:
- Adobe Photoshop Express: Available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone, this free app allows you to make quick changes to your photos, like cropping and applying simple filters. You can also purchase additional feature packs for a small price.
- Photoshop CC on iPad: Scheduled for release in 2019, this app will be just as powerful and fully-featured as the desktop version of Photoshop. While Adobe hasn't yet released many details, it will likely require an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.
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Image Stacks in Photoshop CS3 Extended
Of all the new features in Photoshop CS3, those that stand out for me most are the ones that have been built around the new Align Content feature, engineered by Jeff Chien.
For example, you can use Align Content in Perspective mode to align group portraits and it is now possible to create really accurate Photomerge composites automatically.
Now that Adobe has announced Photoshop CS3 Extended alongside the regular version of Photoshop CS3, we can let you know about what some of the extended features will allow you to do. Of these, the Image Stacks rendering is, in my view at least, one of the most interesting new features in Photoshop CS3, better than Live Filters.
The new Stacks feature was engineered by Chris Cox and was originally designed as a tool for analytical work, where you could place a series of images together in alignment and apply a Stacks rendering to the layers and use this to process them in such a way that Photoshop will highlight the differences found between the layers, or as is shown below, blend the layers according to where there is a high frequency of recurring pixel values to display only the most commonly occuring pixel values. But I have also managed to discover several key creative uses for Image Stacks.
App mail roblox. For this first demo, I had a series of six pictures where there was always at least one person walking through a scene. Using image stacks, I was able to automatically remove them from the shot.
Figure 1- Here is a sequence of photographs that were shot hand held over a time period of a minute or so. There were a lot of people walking in front of the fountain and I just made sure that I captured enough shots so that each portion of the picture had two or more frames where someone wasn't in front of the camera.
Figure 2- I opened all of these photographs in Photoshop and went to the File ➯ Scripts menu to choose: Load Files into Stack. This opened the dialog shown here, where I chose Use: Open Files and checked the Attempt to Automaticallly Align Source Images and Create Smart Object after Loading Layers options.
Figure 3- Depending on how many pictures you have and how large they are, it may take a few minutes to process all the photographs. What you will end up with will be a new document with a Smart Object layer that contains all the previously open image documents as layers grouped within the smart object. If you double-click on the Smart Object layer you will see the full expanded list of layers contained in this Smart Object.
Figure 4- And now for the clever part. If you have the Smart Object open, make sure you close it again. You will want to start with the Smart Object selected (see the Layers palette top left). Go to the Layer menu and choose Smart Objects ➯ Image Stack Mode ➯ Median. Again, the stacks rendering may take a little while to complete. In the result shown here, the Median rendering managed to blend the layers such that nearly all of the people in the merged picture disapppeared completely.
Figure 5- The image stack median rendering did a pretty good job of removing the people, but there were still a few ghost outlines left. Obviously some people were having too good a time in the sun to want to move around much. Plus there were a few bits of rubbish and artifacts around the edges of the picture where the frames had overlapped. I tidied up the final picture by adding a little bit of spotting on a new layer and added some masked curves adjustment layers to provide some dodging and burning to produce the final version shown here.
Tips for getting the best results
When you see this technique demonstrated it does at first look quite magical, but there is a logical explanation for how the process works. The technique relies mainly on the use of the auto-align command to align a chosen set of sample images together and place them within a grouped smart object. After doing a little bit of experimentation I have found that if you record at least five or six (or more) exposures, this should provide enough separate images for Photoshop to process in order to work out which pixels appear most frequently at any particular spot in the picture and use the most commonly occurring pixels only to produce the finished blend shown here.
Removing noise using multiple exposures
Here is a technique that makes use of the Stacks feature in Photoshop CS3 to merge a set of identical exposures and obtain a smoother-looking image.
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8- I started by going to the File menu and choosing Scripts ➯ Load Files into Stack and selected a set of five images to open that had all been shot at identical exposures of a subject with the camera fixed to the tripod. These were photographs that had been shot at a high ISO setting using a long exposure in low light conditions. I checked the Align Source images and Create Smart Object options and clicked OK.
Figure 9- The selected images opened as a single image document grouped together as a single smart object. If I were to double-click on the smart object icon, this would open the smart object in a separate document window and allow me access to all the individual layers, which wasn't necessary in this case, but would be if you wanted to edit any of the individual layers.
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Figure 10
Figure 11- Back in the original Smart Object document, I went to the Layer menu and chose Image Stacks ➯ Image Stack Rendering ➯ Median. The processing may take a little while, depending on the size and number of layers, plus bit depth. Once completed, you will notice how the Smart Object layer has a ‘stacks' icon indicating the smart object has been rendered using the stacks feature.
Figure 12
Epic games mobile app.
Figure 13- Here is a comparison showing a close-up view of a single exposure (Figure 12) and a rendered version (Figure 13) where five separate exposures were merged to produce a smoother, noise-free image. The Median rendering was used here because it analyzes the image content on all the layers and averages out the pixel values to use the most commonly occurring pixel values only, thereby elminating nearly all of the noisy pixels that occur on each of the layers.
Median versus Mean
If you are processing a series of still life captures, then a Mean stacks rendering can remove more noise than Median. For example, if you were processing astronomy pictures, you would want to use a Mean rendering.
The techniques shown here are fairly easy to accomplish. The Align Content feature is so good at recognizing areas of similarity and aligning images together as layers, that you can quite easily get away without having to use a tripod to shoot the pictures that you want to combine together. So anytime you are in a situation where you think it might be useful to remove people from a shot or you want to improve upon the image quailty capture potential of a lowlight scene, just shoot a quick sequence of shots with the camera hand held, keeping it as still as possible.
About Martin Evening
Martin, if you don't know, is a London based advertising photographer and noted expert in both photography and digital imaging. As a successful photographer, Martin is well known in London for his fashion and beauty work. Check out Martin's web site.
Martin also works with the Adobe Photoshop engineering team consulting on new feature development and alpha and beta testing. He worked alpha & beta for Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and was influential with the new Adobe Bridge 2.0 and Camera Raw 4.0.
In addition, Martin is also a principal of PixelGenius where he designed and was product manger for the recently released PhotoKit Color 2. PhotoKit Color 2 applies precise color corrections, automatic color balancing and creative coloring effects. PhotoKit Color offers a comprehensive set of coloring tools for Photoshop 7.0, CS, CS2 (and soon CS3) for both Macintosh and Windows.
