at the Pshop CS5 class could fill a book, or er, a 6 hour class! LOL! The class was great and I did learn alot. Since it was geared toward mostly photographers, some of the stuff about Camera Raw and HDR were over my head. But the section of Photo Stylings were awesome! Plus, at the end of class Ben taught us how to make actions and all the tricky things that could happen with them.
Besides advanced HDR (high definition resolution) and the new mini-bridge, the coolest thing about CS5 is this thing called "Content Aware Fill". If you have something missing in your picture, like sky or rocks, you just select the blank area and under Fill, choose Content Aware. It acts like a really smart clone tool and fills in the sky and rocks for you. You can also use this to take things out of your photo that you don't want, like electrical lines or a sign.The results were not perfect, but they drew some oooohs and ahhhs from the audience. From a geek standpoint, it was pretty awesome.
The new puppet warping feature allows you to take an object and map on it where it might bend and move. Ben animated an armadillo tail and it was cool but I could not figure out how I might use Puppet Warping in my work, except maybe to change the perspective on an element.
Refine Edge is revamped for CS5 and is really useful for extracting hair things like Fibers, yarn and such.
The new beta 6.1 version Camera Raw (available at labs.adobe.come) has a very powerful feature which can take a fish eye lens image and flatten it out. I imagine this may be used in reverse to create some "Lens Baby" affects? But I think I took a potty break about then so I missed how to reverse it! :)
Like I said the section on Photo Stylings and Actions were well worth the class and more directly applicable to how I use Photoshop, and I hope to share what I learned here with you. The one thing I was really excited about yesterday is why I always get geeked about Kelby seminars... the deals! I signed up for a year-long access at KelbyTraining.com for about $100 off the price and got almost $500 in free dvds and books! I picked up Scott's CS4 Down and Dirty Tricks and his Digital Photography series, as well as some Corel Painter tutorials by Fay Sirkis.
Now I just need to sit down and take the time time learn plus upgrade to CS5!
xoxo
N.
