Adobe Photoshop CC 2014: what's new?
Adobe today released a global update for all Creative Cloud products. And at the same time, the design of www.adobe.com was changed .
Almost all applications have made some changes. At the same time, the package received not the expected name CC2, but only a year was added in the name. So now the version of Photoshop is called CC 2014.0.0, not CC2 or 15.0.
Here's what the screensavers look like when starting up in Photoshop CC 14.2.1 and Photoshop CC 2014:
They changed the appearance in the About window a bit:
And here is the “alternative” screensaver for both versions, which is called (on a Mac) by Photoshop> About Photoshop ... Alt and Cmd keys: The
application’s icon has not changed much.
The new photoshop loads on my computer somewhere 5-6 seconds faster, the total launch time is 12 seconds. In the work, the new photoshop is a little more nimble than its predecessor, but it did not accelerate much. But he eats memory 20-30 megabytes more.
I must say that now when I exit Photoshop CC (2014) on my computer every time it gives an error. Obviously, this bug will be fixed in the next update. But not very nice.
The first thing that catches your eye is a small change in the style of controls in dialog boxes. Buttons and checkboxes now look a little different. This is how it was in PS 14.2:
And so in the new version:
As you can see, the windows have become more compact, the distances between the controls have slightly increased, the text on the left has become larger, the background of the windows has darkened a bit, and all the buttons and checkboxes have lost their blue tint and become flatter . It was as if Adobe were preparing to launch Yosemite, but did not dare to make a full “flat”, but carefully reduced the level of gradients. At first, this look is a little annoying, but then you quickly get used to it.
Font size was increased on all panels, so now you don’t need to strain your eyesight on large monitors:
Small changes were made to the New window: now the Advanced options are always shown, they do not need to be opened with an additional click, and some items have been renamed in the window for creating a new preset: The
windows for opening and recording documents, as well as Save for Web, have not undergone any special changes.
Now let's look at the main functionality of the updated Photoshop.
Perhaps the most important innovation that many will like is the ability to dynamically track distances to the borders of objects and the edges of a document. Obviously, this function was borrowed from the Sketch program, which I wrote about in my recent article .
Now, when copying an object with the Alt key pressed, all distances from the borders of the original are dynamically displayed:
When the Cmd key is pressed (Ctrl in Windows) and hovering over an object, the distance to it is displayed. Moreover, this value changes dynamically if you move the object with the arrows on the keyboard:
If you hold the Cmd key while holding it down to an empty area not occupied by any objects, then the distances to the document borders are shown:
And, finally, when copying objects with the Alt key pressed at a certain moment the next copy will jump into place with the same indent value as the previous copy, and this value will be displayed on the screen. This is very convenient for quickly arranging multiple copies at the same distance from each other:
It turned out to be very curious that smart objects can not only be included in the body of a document, but also implemented as Linked Smart-Objects. This should reduce the size of documents received and somewhat speed up the workflow.
In addition, work with Layer Comps has improved, where it is now possible to operate with linked smart objects. It is still difficult to evaluate this supplement, but I think it will be useful for many. Especially for those who regularly work with large layouts.
Speaking of sizes. Now it is possible to import giant PNG files with sizes up to 2 GB.
Several improved work with fonts. For example, when you open a document with fonts that are not on your system, you will now get a dialog box instead of an annoying warning that allows you to find the appropriate fonts.
Added support for TypeKit and font search.
And now, flipping through the list of fonts, you will see an instant display of the font directly on the selected text object. Very useful.
But, alas, support for standard system anti-aliasing with sub-pixel rendering has not yet appeared.
A nice little thing was added for web developers: now the Inner Shadow effect also gets into the Copy CSS team.
Very curious came with blur effects. Now there are a myriad of them. And they are divided into Blur (Average, Blur, Blur More, Box Blur, Gaussian Blur, Lens Blur, Motion Blur, Radial Blur, Shape Blur, Smart Blur, Surface Blur) and Blur Gallery (Field Blur, Iris Blur, Tilt-Shift , Path Blur, Spin Blur). Only 16 types of blur! At the same time, there is completely no possibility of blurring the underlying layers, as is done in Sketch. Yes, without Background Blur, iOS app design is a little more difficult. It seems to me that it was not worthwhile to produce such an unimaginable cohort of various bloors, but it was quite possible to try to combine all of them into a single interface and give the opportunity to choose the type of blur already inside. Better yet, if you made a blur in the form of an effect included in the styles, as is done in Sketch.
Most noteworthy are the blur types Path Blur and Spin Blur. To a certain circle of designers, these innovations will seem very convenient and useful.
Path Blur allows you to blur an object along an editable curve, which can be very useful for creating a loop for a moving object:
A Spin Blur will come in handy for those who want to revive the wheels of cars, motorbikes, bicycles, etc.:
Now you can separate what’s located Focused image from a more blurred background. For this, the Select> Focus Area option appeared:
Tools and commands of the Content-Aware series (Fill, Patch, Move, Extend) added the option of color adaptation of the replaced area, which allows for more realistic mixing of borders:
Here's what Content-Aware Extend looks like in the previous version of Photoshop (A) and in version 2014 (B):
Moreover, the Move, Extend and Patch tools added an adjustment of the color adaptation level:
Also updates touched Photoshop Generator, working with 3D objects, synchronization improved texture support, etc.
Alas, besides the aforementioned Background Blur, we still haven’t done any distinct work with styles, as it is implemented in Sketch, haven’t added multiple fills, shadows and strokes, haven’t implemented sub-pixel rendering for fonts and haven’t tried to somehow optimize workflow for more modern trends .
Photoshop follows the long-beaten track: based on the paradigm of working with layers of twenty years ago, from year to year it only swells and fills with new functions, which often turn out to be unsuitable.
A complete list of innovations and improvements can be found here:
A full overview of the innovations in English can be seen in this video: