I "upgraded" to Photoshop CC a couple days ago because (1) I was bored and had nothing better to do and, (2) I believe the Dec deadline is a real deadline. I didn't feel the need for any of the new features, but I spent a few hours today checking them out. Googled "Photoshop CC new features" and read a dozen of so of those hits to find what's new.
I don't do video or 3D, so I ignored that stuff, but a couple of other things caught my eye, for different reasons.
First was the new "Upright" adjustments in the Lens Correction tab of ACR (combined with the new ability to run ACR as a filter within Photoshop). I've spent a lot of time using transform, and the Adaptive Wide Angle filter, and even the DXO Optics Viewpoint plugin to correct wide angle distortion in architecture shots. It looks like the new ACR Upright adjustments does the job better, quicker, and automatically.
The auto part amazes me. It actually analyzes the image to find horizontal/vertical elements, then applies farily intelligent corrections based on those elements. All the other tools require drawing lines over horizontal/vertical elements, then click dragging to align things by sight. For example, the Adaptive Wide Angle filter requires drawing a lot of lines, takes a lot of time and patience, and often has a lot of trial and error.
The second thing that caught my eye was the new Minimum/Maximum filters. The new part of these is the addition of a "roundness" option. Adobe says the new option will allow better refinement of masks.
Now, I've been in the Photoshop game for over 10 years, and have spent a lot of that time on forums reading tips and techniques. I bet I've read about every masking tutorial made. And I bet I could count on one hand the number of times I've seen the Minimum/Maximum filters mentioned. So, I've got to wonder, how did that enhancement make the cut for new features?
I've seen hundreds of new feature suggestions. Some are even reasonable. Very few of them made the cut. But I've never seen anyone asking for a better Min/Max filter. Obviously one person asked for it. Anybody know him? Whoever he is, he must have a lot of influence at Adobe!
