I am very impressed with the new power! I am now sometimes completing a single image in RAW (with the exception of sizing and sharpening). Of course there are finishing touches and work to be had in Photoshop (and a lot of improvements there) but still RAW has gotten so POWERFUL!
Like soft proofing for print in Raw (I have been dying for that)! 2012 rendering is very much improved. Two sliders to deal with highlight issues and two to deal with your darks really helps to get much more dynamic range out of a single image. Also individual curves for the Red, Green and Blue channel (FINALLY!) to fine tune color correction better pre PS. I could go on and on!
Posted by Paul DeCesare on April 16, 2012 at 2:09 AM
It's still in Beta Jack, but we're assuming the same upgrade prices will apply: $199 for Standard and $349 for Extended.
Mark, I have been waiting SO LONG for the ability to make the whole interface dark, and finally it's here! That may not sound like much, but believe me, eyestrain goes way down when you're not having to look at a bright UI. That's a big one for me. The new Crop tool felt weird at first but now I can't imagine going back. Rotating a crop and guessing at the angle was so goofy in the past, this is a much needed upgrade, as is adding Content Aware to the Patch Tool (another huge fave for me!).
As for fun stuff, I posted some dorky shots (that first night PS6 was released) after playing around with the Tilt-Shift filter. I know, cliche and all that, but nonetheless it was fun to dink with, lol. I need to spend more time with ACR7, but based on the excellent Noise Reduction and sharpening in CS5's ACR6, I'm anticipating more great stuff from ACR7. You mentioned a few, so obviously it's killer. Can't wait for the production release!
BTW, if anyone has a DSR that shoots video (that's like saying if anyone has a cellphone that has a camera), the Video editing power in Photoshop CS6 is not an Extended-only feature any longer, Adobe will make it part of Standard. If you haven't dabbled at all with video and editing it in Photoshop Extended CS5 mostly because you own CS5 Standard with no video support, do NOT play around with it in CS6 now that it's included. You will get bit by the video bug because of how cool Photoshop does video editing tricks, and it will detract from your photography work, and I'm serious. You have been warned.
Posted by David Bostedo on April 16, 2012 at 8:36 AM
...Rotating a crop and guessing at the angle...
Hey Paul - I'm guessing that you know this, but in previous version of Photoshop, you didn't have to guess at the angle. You could draw a ruler on the screen, then select the image rotation menu item, and the angle field would be pre-populated with the angle you drew the ruler at.
It was still (IMO) stupidly kludgey, but you didn't have to guess.
Why get an image looking just right in the lossless RAW space and then go to Photoshop and have to soft proof it, only to have to convert it and make major lossy changes to it to TRY to get it to look somewhat close (and sometimes no close at all) to what it was supposed to look like in Raw or PS before the soft proof? Matching prints is totally backwards and often never hits the mark (sometimes not even close). Often you are able to get a certain pop, certain colors, a certain luminosity in ACR, and then when you go to Photoshop and do the soft proof, it is all GONE, and not only that, the ACR space was totally unrealistic as to what can be printed in the first place. I have often been totally disappointed by this. For print, why not be in the realistic space to begin with?
If I am going to attempt a master print and have my monitor luminance brought down appropriately, and it is meticulously calibrated and I soft proof in Raw I will be in a realistic space from the get go, and will never have to deal with faulty/unsatisfactory matching. Add the awesome new power of ACR7 and CS6 and the print will be close to done in raw and clean as can be. You will always be looking at reality as you work.
Posted by David Bostedo on April 17, 2012 at 9:52 PM
For print, why not be in the realistic space to begin with?
There's nothing inherent in a raw file and the color space used to represent it on screen that can't be captured in a TIFF or PSD (or even a JPG as far as color space goes). It still has to translate the raw data into appropriate color space (ProPhoto RGB under the covers) in order to display on your monitor. What you see will be exactly the same.
If you go into PS and soft-proof, and that's worse that the raw file soft-proof, you're probably sending the data through additional color space conversions. Otherwise, the soft-proof view should look the same; Whether it's a raw soft-proof, or a TIFF/PSD soft-proof in ProPhoto, shouldn't make a difference. (Note - I haven't tried this... I intend to at some point.)
I think the ability to soft-proof at the raw stage simply allows you to take a look at what a print may look like without having to create a JPG or TIFF or PSD. That way it's easier to tweak the file early in the flow, helping streamline things. It doesn't really do anything different other than that.
In my opinion, I was thinking that raw soft-proofing might allow you to print directly from a raw file + associated sidecar, without ever having to create a TIFF or JPG. I haven't actually tried the functionality in CS6 though... anyone know if that's possible?
Good stuff! Yes, for production maybe, but I would never print directly from raw file for fine art. Just to reiterate for those who might be following along. I love the new soft proofing in raw because this eliminates file matching that too often had to be done (and that wasted extra step). I have found matching an often futile step anyways. Why get an image looking JUST RIGHT and then later soft proof it to find out it CANT look that way, you cant match it and the printer can not print that look? Some images are worse than others obviously. Often reds can be a big problem. So, for fine art prints, allowing raw to SIMULATE what can actually be produced out of a printer makes sense to me. Then once I do import into PS as TIFF, I will also soft proof there and as long as my monitor is good, calibrated well and the custom profile is really good, workflow for the discerning eye is improved. Less tweaking to be done (in PS) because more was done in RAW (with the side benefit of being lossless). It has never made sense to me to work in an unrealistic space (meaning my monitor showing me something that cannot be produced by the printer - and then later being disappointed) with unrealistic colors and contrast... and then later to try to convert that. Now, what we do from scratch can be done with print simulation. Its funny. I used to go as far as making adjustments in raw, guessing, to try to get it closer to what I knew the image would look like one I soft proofed it in PS. I knew it would get darker, so I made it a hair brighter in raw. I knew it would lose some pop, so I pushed pop there a bit... and so on and so forth... That was a funky approach, that I am very glad to abandon.
Posted by David Bostedo on April 20, 2012 at 1:23 PM
...I would never print directly from raw file for fine art.
Assuming you aren't making any further edits outside of ACR or Lightroom, why not Mark? I can't see where you'd be losing anything by not having to actually produce a JPG, TIFF, or PSD. With the new tools in ACR/Lightroom, I think people are increasingly only saving a TIFF/JPG/PSD so that they have a master file and not for any other reason. So if the right tools are supported, I'd think it would be a better workflow in those cases to print straight from the raw (+ associated sidecar of course).
Fine art work IMO, at least for my workflow needs (and will for years to come) more careful work in PS... Even just sizing and sharpening can not be optimized fully in raw.
Discussion
11 repliesI am very impressed with the new power! I am now sometimes completing a single image in RAW (with the exception of sizing and sharpening). Of course there are finishing touches and work to be had in Photoshop (and a lot of improvements there) but still RAW has gotten so POWERFUL!
Like soft proofing for print in Raw (I have been dying for that)! 2012 rendering is very much improved. Two sliders to deal with highlight issues and two to deal with your darks really helps to get much more dynamic range out of a single image. Also individual curves for the Red, Green and Blue channel (FINALLY!) to fine tune color correction better pre PS. I could go on and on!
What are you enjoying about CS6?
What are your thoughts?
Mark, I have been waiting SO LONG for the ability to make the whole interface dark, and finally it's here! That may not sound like much, but believe me, eyestrain goes way down when you're not having to look at a bright UI. That's a big one for me. The new Crop tool felt weird at first but now I can't imagine going back. Rotating a crop and guessing at the angle was so goofy in the past, this is a much needed upgrade, as is adding Content Aware to the Patch Tool (another huge fave for me!).
As for fun stuff, I posted some dorky shots (that first night PS6 was released) after playing around with the Tilt-Shift filter. I know, cliche and all that, but nonetheless it was fun to dink with, lol. I need to spend more time with ACR7, but based on the excellent Noise Reduction and sharpening in CS5's ACR6, I'm anticipating more great stuff from ACR7. You mentioned a few, so obviously it's killer. Can't wait for the production release!
BTW, if anyone has a DSR that shoots video (that's like saying if anyone has a cellphone that has a camera), the Video editing power in Photoshop CS6 is not an Extended-only feature any longer, Adobe will make it part of Standard. If you haven't dabbled at all with video and editing it in Photoshop Extended CS5 mostly because you own CS5 Standard with no video support, do NOT play around with it in CS6 now that it's included. You will get bit by the video bug because of how cool Photoshop does video editing tricks, and it will detract from your photography work, and I'm serious. You have been warned.
Hey Paul - I'm guessing that you know this, but in previous version of Photoshop, you didn't have to guess at the angle. You could draw a ruler on the screen, then select the image rotation menu item, and the angle field would be pre-populated with the angle you drew the ruler at.
It was still (IMO) stupidly kludgey, but you didn't have to guess.
Why get an image looking just right in the lossless RAW space and then go to Photoshop and have to soft proof it, only to have to convert it and make major lossy changes to it to TRY to get it to look somewhat close (and sometimes no close at all) to what it was supposed to look like in Raw or PS before the soft proof? Matching prints is totally backwards and often never hits the mark (sometimes not even close). Often you are able to get a certain pop, certain colors, a certain luminosity in ACR, and then when you go to Photoshop and do the soft proof, it is all GONE, and not only that, the ACR space was totally unrealistic as to what can be printed in the first place. I have often been totally disappointed by this. For print, why not be in the realistic space to begin with?
If I am going to attempt a master print and have my monitor luminance brought down appropriately, and it is meticulously calibrated and I soft proof in Raw I will be in a realistic space from the get go, and will never have to deal with faulty/unsatisfactory matching. Add the awesome new power of ACR7 and CS6 and the print will be close to done in raw and clean as can be. You will always be looking at reality as you work.
There's nothing inherent in a raw file and the color space used to represent it on screen that can't be captured in a TIFF or PSD (or even a JPG as far as color space goes). It still has to translate the raw data into appropriate color space (ProPhoto RGB under the covers) in order to display on your monitor. What you see will be exactly the same.
If you go into PS and soft-proof, and that's worse that the raw file soft-proof, you're probably sending the data through additional color space conversions. Otherwise, the soft-proof view should look the same; Whether it's a raw soft-proof, or a TIFF/PSD soft-proof in ProPhoto, shouldn't make a difference. (Note - I haven't tried this... I intend to at some point.)
I think the ability to soft-proof at the raw stage simply allows you to take a look at what a print may look like without having to create a JPG or TIFF or PSD. That way it's easier to tweak the file early in the flow, helping streamline things. It doesn't really do anything different other than that.
In my opinion, I was thinking that raw soft-proofing might allow you to print directly from a raw file + associated sidecar, without ever having to create a TIFF or JPG. I haven't actually tried the functionality in CS6 though... anyone know if that's possible?
Assuming you aren't making any further edits outside of ACR or Lightroom, why not Mark? I can't see where you'd be losing anything by not having to actually produce a JPG, TIFF, or PSD. With the new tools in ACR/Lightroom, I think people are increasingly only saving a TIFF/JPG/PSD so that they have a master file and not for any other reason. So if the right tools are supported, I'd think it would be a better workflow in those cases to print straight from the raw (+ associated sidecar of course).