Adobe CC 2021 Update

[Manfred M]

For those of us using the Adobe Subscription Model; version 2021 of Photoshop, Lightroom and other products were just released.

Some interesting new machine learning features as well as some updates for selections that seem to work better for selecting hair cleanly. For the landscape photographers, sky replacement looks very impressive, which means I probably wasted money on Luminar 4...

[Donald]

Hasn't reached this side of the pond, or at least the northern reaches of Europe, yet.

[Manfred M]

Hasn't reached this side of the pond, or at least the northern reaches of Europe, yet.

I suspect that they are rolling things out slowly to ensure that their servers are not overloaded:

I got mine from a link Adobe showed on their website: https://creativecloud.adobe.com/apps/all/photoshop

[mugge]

I just updated the new version of Adobe and, as Manfred said, the sky replacement is terrific.

[Stagecoach]

For the landscape photographers, sky replacement looks very impressive, which means I probably wasted money on Luminar 4...

Yes it's extremely impressive.

I'm not one for changing skies but have just used it on a couple I totally blew this past weekend, 10 seconds work and the result behind trees and vegitation is magic.

[ST1]

Hasn't reached this side of the pond, or at least the northern reaches of Europe, yet.

It was available here in deepest darkest North Yorkshire yesterday Donald. Maybe it is delayed on "Auld Reekies" ring road :-)


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[Donald]

It's managed to negotiate the Edinburgh by-pass and has arrived in Glenfarg.

'Sky Replacement' indeed looks a wonderful tool. All I've got to to now is convince myself that using it is not a manipulation too far, which is how I tend to see such things.

I know that it's an old-fashioned view of things, particularly as I'm one who produces everything in B & W, but it's the way I'm wired:- If the sky isn't what I want, then go back and take the shot when it is. But this could maybe bring my attitudes up-to-date!

[Manfred M]

All I've got to to now is convince myself that using it is not a manipulation too far, which is how I tend to see such things

Donald; it is "manipulation", no question about it, but is it an acceptable amount of manipulation?

My answer is "it depends". I know one highly regarded, local photographer who would consider your usual style as manipulation as he believes cropping an image to any extent is manipulation. If you want to have a square format image, you should be shooting with a camera that creates images in that format.

Even in the internationally competitive environment (FIAP - Fédération Internationale de l'Art Photographique), the answer is not so clear. If the rules suggest that only traditional editing techniques; cropping (including straightening of lines), dodging and burning are permitted, then this clearly would not be allowed. In the modern world, removing sensor dust is also "legal". On the other hand in an open category you use this tool to add a sky you had taken, I suspect it would be permitted; using one of the stock skies that comes with the software might not be.

If someone asked the photographer if the sky had been replaced and the answer was "no", when in fact it was, in my view that too would be unacceptable. If the answer was honest and the photographer used either a stock sky or one of their own and this was disclosed to the person asking the question, I would not have any issues with this at all.

Most of the images that I post here are manipulated; generally using traditional techniques (in my case, 95% of my time is spent dodging and burning) and cropping is usually minimal. I will do more extensive "surgery", if necessary and will be open and honest about it.

[rpcrowe]

Looks like this will give me some fun times... Here is a brekdown of the new capabilities...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3dI5iHUH2U

I can go back to earlier "Pre Covid -19)" images and play with them...


I don't worry about whether the changes can be considered a manipulation or not. IMO. every time you photograph an image - you are manipulating it - just by deciding on the "in camera" crop you are using your focus and exposure as well as the other parameters you choose...

[DanK]

Donald,

I share your hesitation, but I can't say I can really justify it. In some cases, I do quite dramatic alterations, including removing things, greatly increasing texture, and increasing various forms of contrast. With apologies to people who have seen this pair before, this is one pair that I often use to show this:






Would replacing a sky be fundamentally different?

For that matter, if I had the coordination and skill to paint the scene--I have neither--would it be unacceptable to paint a different sky than the one I saw that day?

So for photos that aren't documentary in any sense, I think of editing tools as paintbrushes.

That said, I still feel uncomfortable replacing skies, even though I can't easily explain how it's different from what I often do.

Dan

[Round Tuit]

I have tried the sky replacement of the latest release of photoshop and it works amazingly well. I can see where it would be very useful say for a real estate agent fixing pictures of houses for sale. For me, that level of automation would take away my ownership of the pictures that I create and the personal satisfaction that I get from editing the raw capture to reflect my vision. It will not become a tool that I use frequently.

[Manfred M]

Then of course are some of the other Neural filters that use Adobe's Sensei machine learning tool.

Here is a picture of me as a baby; first the original and then with the aging filter applied.

1.




2.

[Geoff F]

Anybody found any drawbacks to the new version?

I have become wary of updates which don't work as well as the previous versions for the simple operations which I use most often.

After the last major update I had a lot of problems with slowness, particularly with brushes and clone tool etc. So I reverted to using the 2019 software.

Eventually I deleted 2020 version and reinstalled it plus some new updates and that has been working OK for most of the time but with occasional glitches that are usually cured by turning the programme off then restarting it.

Simple updates don't seem to work for me, it downloads but won't install properly unless I delete the existing software and do a complete reinstall.

So now I am rather cautious of any updates.

[Stagecoach]

Anybody found any drawbacks to the new version?

I have become wary of updates which don't work as well as the previous versions for the simple operations which I use most often.

After the last major update I had a lot of problems with slowness, particularly with brushes and clone tool etc. So I reverted to using the 2019 software.

Eventually I deleted 2020 version and reinstalled it plus some new updates and that has been working OK for most of the time but with occasional glitches that are usually cured by turning the programme off then restarting it.

Simple updates don't seem to work for me, it downloads but won't install properly unless I delete the existing software and do a complete reinstall.

So now I am rather cautious of any updates.

Yes I have found a problem Geoff.

After having transferred NIK Plugin into the latest PS version and using 'Colour Efex Pro 4' the image locks up and the alterations do not show. This happens each time I use it but strangely if I save the image at that point the alterations are saved with it. I have not had any other problems.

I've presently reverted back to the previous version as I need to get some work done and will investigate further later on.

The great thing about it is that it's so easy to revert to older versions of either PS or ACR, or download from scratch.

[Manfred M]

After having transferred NIK Plugin into the latest PS version and using 'Colour Efex Pro 4' the image locks up and the alterations do not show.

I might have gotten lucky or there could be a difference between our computers as I have tested that set of Nik filters and they ran flawlessly on my 6-year old machine.

To answer Geoff's question - while I don't expect to use the sky replacement all that often, there are some places where I might use it in parts of an image and given how it is implemented with layer masks, I can see me using it in some tricky areas.

The Select Subject functionality has really improved how hair is extracted and cleaned up. I can see myself using that in my portraiture work. Some of the beta neural filters look like they have some potential; the Smart Portrait and Super Zoom look very interesting and there are few that are not available yet that might prove interesting as well.

I use the line tool when I try to explain things in my work and they have improve it too; much easier to manipulate after it has been placed than it was before.

While I had not used the Object Select tool a lot in the past, they seem to have refined its algorithm a bit and the selections seem to be more accurate.

The Help tool has been redone and actually appears to be useful now.

The big stuff seems to be the integration of their Sensei engine for machine learning and a few useful tweaks in some of the functionality that I use and if this is developed and rolled out over the next number of months, I suspect there are some tools I will be using here as well.

[pschlute]

Here is a picture of me as a baby; first the original and then with the aging filter applied.

That is quite frightening Manfred !

[pschlute]

Just watched the video that Richard linked to. Very educational. Sky replacement now holds no fear.

[Stagecoach]

I might have gotten lucky or there could be a difference between our computers as I have tested that set of Nik filters and they ran flawlessly on my 6-year old machine.

Problem solved.

I'd just dragged the Google Nik folder into the Plugin directory as I had done before.

So I uninstalled it, re-started the computer and re-loaded the NIK collection from the .exe file. All is now fine.

[Tom Barry]

I downloaded it today and got the message of a “program error” every time I tried to open a photo. A tech from GeekSquad and I spent three hours trying to fix it, and failed. I got online with Adobe and there was an endless stream of people with the same complaint. I’m done in and will check in with Adobe from time to time to see if they ever fix something which it should have caught before releasing the upgrade.

[pschlute]

Tom, a number of us here are not having issues with PS 2021. When you updated did you select "remove older versions" ?

Have you seen this ... https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb...oropeningfiles