UPDATE, 6/17/15, 11:15 am MST: I called Nik/Google support because of my laptop install whining that I need to buy Nik Efex when I have a 2nd installation available (we all get two installs just like Photoshop). The problem was that I didn't uninstall it from my older laptop so the 2nd license was still designated. This is a new laptop and it had never been installed before. ANYWAY, I called Google and the fella emailed a new link to download and it was all good. I did have to manually restore my presets which I walys save a copy of. They are in your User Folder in AppData\Local\Google. The full path if you want to copy and paste (and just change Paul to your username) is C:\users\Paul\AppData\Local\Google.
So one other thing to note: In the original post I mentioned that I went to the Edit menu and down to the bottom to my Adobe ID and selected Download Settings, and all of my workspaces and Custom Key Commands were restored. Well, once I installed Nik and that all worked, none of my Nik Keyboard shortcuts were there, I had one for almost every effect. Naturally when I downloaded my settings, Nik wasn;t installed so the shortcuts had nowhere to go. SO, after the Nik install, I simply ran Download Settings again, and sure enough the keyboard shortcuts were there for the Nik stuff. Glad that worked!
UPDATE ON Nik Efex, 6/16/15, 9:15pm MST: I re-installed Nik Efex on my laptop after installing PS 2015 and now it's telling me to buy it. Doesn't recognize the license. However, on my main desktop PC, after installing PS 2015, I went to the C:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop CC 2014\Plug-ins folder and copied all of my Google/Nik and OnOne preset folder/files and simply pasted the whole shebang into C:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop CC 2015\Plug-ins. Fired up PS 2015 and ran up some Nik filters and it's all good! Mac users, same should apply, manually load up the 2015 Plug-ins folder wherever it's stored Copy, not MOVE, lol... keep the safe set!).
So DON'T reinstall Nik. If you have already and it worked, then great. If not, give them a call, I'm sure they've been hammered since yesterday, lol.
Original post:
If you've signed up for the Creative Cloud subscription no doubt you got the email about the big 2015 release. I've already installed it, and found some things that y'all will need to know before installing it. Here's a bullet list of observations; I encourage you to read through this before installing:
If you keep the original Photoshop CC installed side-by-side with 2014 (and now for 2015) in order to use the Oil Paint Filter and/or Kubota Actions, Adobe by default has the 2015 installer set to wipe out any old versions. Therefore you MUST do this before you install 2015 if you want to keep an older version as well:
Start Photoshop 2014 and at the bottom of the Edit menu you'll see your Adobe ID. Hover on that and choose Upload Settings. This will get your latest menus and workspaces saved in the Adobe Cloud.
Manually uninstall 2014 first from the Programs & Features Control Panel (in Windows; not sure how Mac apps are uninstalled buy you guys/gals should know that). Make sure you keep Remove Preferences UNCHECKED, you want to keep those there for the 2015 install.
Now install 2015 by clicking the button in the CC app. When the popup window appears to begin the process, click Advanced and UNCHECK the Remove Older Versions box. If you don't, 2015 will delete the original CC version.
Once installed, you'll have original CC and 2015 (or just 2015 if you didn't want to keep anything older). Now to apply your settings so you have your workspaces and keyboard shortcuts and menus:
Make sure you run 2015 As Administrator, it bombs if you don't.
In Win 8, I just go to C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs, find the Photoshop shortcut, right-click on it and choose Properties, and on the Compatibility Tab just check Run this program as as administrator. Adobe uses the Windows Registry HEAVILY, so for Win 7, 8 and the upcoming 10, always run Adobe stuff as Admin.
OK, once PS 2015 starts, it should auto log you in if your previous version was logged in. If not, log in from the Help menu.
Then, go to the Edit Menu and all the way at the bottom where your Adobe ID is, and this time select Download Settings. Oncve I did that I had my world set up just like 2014 was with all of my custom keyboard shortcuts, panels, etc etc etc.
I noticed (and read later on an Adobe Tweet) that plugins do NOT copy over, so break out those installer files and license keys folks! I need to reinstall Nik Efex, haven;t done that yet. I'll shoot a flare later if that fails.
GOOD NEWS: All of my Tony Kuyper Luminosity Actions AND the dashboard to launch them all work!
So What's New That Matters To Us Nature Shooters?
Good question. A few years ago when I saw Text and Shapes go full vector I started to wonder in Illustrator would eventually meld into Photoshop. This 2015 version is a HUGE step in that direction, most of the new features are for graphic designers, such as Artboards (yep, right out of Illustrator) and finally a Glyph panel to leverage all of the special characters in fonts. Plus you get full 3D printing support, device preview for most phones and tablets (web designer stuff), 3D drawing support enhancement and Bump Maps. Seriously, I predict Photoshop to become the mega shopping mall of all photo and graphics needs and Illustrator will vanish, lol. My other guess is that Lightroom will get Layers and when that happens it'll become the gold standard of photo editing, in which case I will still use Photoshop, lol. ANYWAY, here's some of the things in PS 2015 I saw that us nature shooters will like:
Haze filter in ACR (and Lightroom). Will add or subtract atmospheric haze. Haven't tried it yet.
ACR now blends HDR and panoramic shots, nice! Total Lightroom-style editing that leaves the original untouched.
Here's another cool ACR feature: the local adjustment tools now support White and Black slider adustments. I can see that being useful for making things like underexposed foregrounds "paintable" to increase contrast without touching mid details.
Patch and Heal tools now leverage the graphics card GPU and allow on-the-fly preview of what will change before you let go of the mouse button. This is huge, being able to tweak location and see the result while moving the mouse.
For panoramas, PhotoMerge has the Content Aware technology to fill in the blank areas. Nice! (if it works, lol)
Hold down ALT on PC or Option on Mac and select About Photoshop. This clears RAM and Scratch Disks. I'm pretty sure you can already do that with Edit>Purge>All as well.
The support for Hi-Res monitor scaling is now a real feature, not a Beta option. I'm hoping that means they refined it to work well.
Layer Styles: You can have multiple of the same effect. Most of the effects (i.e. Drop Shadow, Inner Glow, etc) have a + button where you can stack effects, maybe for dual color glows, etc. Probably more of a Graphics feature.
Most adjustments under Image>Adjustment can be applied as Smart Filters now. Big step towards full non-destructive editing.
There are a few interface changes as well. Don't panic when you see "Save For Web" missing from the file menu, lol. It's now tucked inside File>Export. Oddly it says Save For Web (Legacy) so apparently this is another extremely useful feature that Adobe plans on getting rid of maybe?
There's a new File menu option that says Save as Quick PNG which does exactly what it says, maybe that's the new Web saving option? PNGs are the gold standard for web graphics because they support transparency, and by adding that as the new method with no options on size, Adobe is probably doing the way-too-fast forward thinking of "everyone has hi speed internet now, web images don't need to be that small". They did that with Encore when CC came out, That's teh program I used to author DVD and BluRay discs for video projects. Adobe eliminated it saying the world has moved to streaming video. Raise your hand if you've never played a DVD or BluRay in the past 3 years... hey, where did everybody go?? Anyway, that's Adobe's mindset, move away from the last-century limitations and proceed as if everyone as 100MB download speeds. So enjoy Save for Web, I'm sure it''l be gone goodbye in 2016.
Last thought: Adobe tweeted out this morning that the dev team is working on a frantic fix for a problem arising if you use Extensions in Photoshop. Evidently somebody doing Unit Testing fell asleep and now Adobe has to fix it in a rush. But overall 2015 runs well as far as I can tell. Tomorrow I have a real estate shoot and will hammer away with HDR work and heavy use of Nik Efex, so if I hit a major issue, I'll be back.
I tried the haze filter today on a Chipping Sparrow I shot before the dust from driving settled and like how it worked because the dust simply disappeared while I slid the slider, then I tried a hawk in a fog and like it too.
Interesting that I've received notice of any kind from Adobe and I am a subscriber. Is it typical for announcment to NOT go to all subscribers at the same time? Clicking on Creative Cloud also shows no update, nor does going to help>updates in CC2014.
The syncing is pretty much horrible. I never get updates when there's a new Camera RAW, I always have to go manually download and install. What you need is the new Creative Cloud Dashboard, THAT'S what will give you access to the updates. Try opening that and see if there's an Update link somewhere.
I discovered an issue with PS CC 2015 (and probably the updated PS CC 2014). It was driving me crazy, all of my Nikon D810 images when opened in ACR looked like they already had haze applied. Typically I download the RAW files to my PC and at the same time use Irfanview to create jpg files for quick viewing. The converted jpg files looked great but when I opened the NEF file in CC 2015 ACR all of them looked flat, hazy & subdued.
Where the person basically says: I was also excited with the news of this release, UNTIL I found that both LR and ACR seem to have a bug where images taken with a D810 camera don't have the option of Adobe Standard camera profile. It is missing from the Camera Calibration list, and images already edited with it get converted to the next profile on the list - Camera Flat. NOT what most of us with D810s want!
I am glad it worked for you Paul. I like it on the two images I tried but I was really getting annoyed with the hazy appearance of my NEF files in ACR.
You can update your original post with this info so Nikon D810 users know not to update until they get this fixed or do the fix like I did.
Discussion
5 repliesUPDATE, 6/17/15, 11:15 am MST: I called Nik/Google support because of my laptop install whining that I need to buy Nik Efex when I have a 2nd installation available (we all get two installs just like Photoshop). The problem was that I didn't uninstall it from my older laptop so the 2nd license was still designated. This is a new laptop and it had never been installed before. ANYWAY, I called Google and the fella emailed a new link to download and it was all good. I did have to manually restore my presets which I walys save a copy of. They are in your User Folder in AppData\Local\Google. The full path if you want to copy and paste (and just change Paul to your username) is C:\users\Paul\AppData\Local\Google.
So one other thing to note: In the original post I mentioned that I went to the Edit menu and down to the bottom to my Adobe ID and selected Download Settings, and all of my workspaces and Custom Key Commands were restored. Well, once I installed Nik and that all worked, none of my Nik Keyboard shortcuts were there, I had one for almost every effect. Naturally when I downloaded my settings, Nik wasn;t installed so the shortcuts had nowhere to go. SO, after the Nik install, I simply ran Download Settings again, and sure enough the keyboard shortcuts were there for the Nik stuff. Glad that worked!
UPDATE ON Nik Efex, 6/16/15, 9:15pm MST: I re-installed Nik Efex on my laptop after installing PS 2015 and now it's telling me to buy it. Doesn't recognize the license. However, on my main desktop PC, after installing PS 2015, I went to the C:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop CC 2014\Plug-ins folder and copied all of my Google/Nik and OnOne preset folder/files and simply pasted the whole shebang into C:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop CC 2015\Plug-ins. Fired up PS 2015 and ran up some Nik filters and it's all good! Mac users, same should apply, manually load up the 2015 Plug-ins folder wherever it's stored Copy, not MOVE, lol... keep the safe set!).
So DON'T reinstall Nik. If you have already and it worked, then great. If not, give them a call, I'm sure they've been hammered since yesterday, lol.
Original post:
If you've signed up for the Creative Cloud subscription no doubt you got the email about the big 2015 release. I've already installed it, and found some things that y'all will need to know before installing it. Here's a bullet list of observations; I encourage you to read through this before installing:
So What's New That Matters To Us Nature Shooters?
Good question. A few years ago when I saw Text and Shapes go full vector I started to wonder in Illustrator would eventually meld into Photoshop. This 2015 version is a HUGE step in that direction, most of the new features are for graphic designers, such as Artboards (yep, right out of Illustrator) and finally a Glyph panel to leverage all of the special characters in fonts. Plus you get full 3D printing support, device preview for most phones and tablets (web designer stuff), 3D drawing support enhancement and Bump Maps. Seriously, I predict Photoshop to become the mega shopping mall of all photo and graphics needs and Illustrator will vanish, lol. My other guess is that Lightroom will get Layers and when that happens it'll become the gold standard of photo editing, in which case I will still use Photoshop, lol. ANYWAY, here's some of the things in PS 2015 I saw that us nature shooters will like:
There are a few interface changes as well. Don't panic when you see "Save For Web" missing from the file menu, lol. It's now tucked inside File>Export. Oddly it says Save For Web (Legacy) so apparently this is another extremely useful feature that Adobe plans on getting rid of maybe?
There's a new File menu option that says Save as Quick PNG which does exactly what it says, maybe that's the new Web saving option? PNGs are the gold standard for web graphics because they support transparency, and by adding that as the new method with no options on size, Adobe is probably doing the way-too-fast forward thinking of "everyone has hi speed internet now, web images don't need to be that small". They did that with Encore when CC came out, That's teh program I used to author DVD and BluRay discs for video projects. Adobe eliminated it saying the world has moved to streaming video. Raise your hand if you've never played a DVD or BluRay in the past 3 years... hey, where did everybody go?? Anyway, that's Adobe's mindset, move away from the last-century limitations and proceed as if everyone as 100MB download speeds. So enjoy Save for Web, I'm sure it''l be gone goodbye in 2016.
Last thought: Adobe tweeted out this morning that the dev team is working on a frantic fix for a problem arising if you use Extensions in Photoshop. Evidently somebody doing Unit Testing fell asleep and now Adobe has to fix it in a rush. But overall 2015 runs well as far as I can tell. Tomorrow I have a real estate shoot and will hammer away with HDR work and heavy use of Nik Efex, so if I hit a major issue, I'll be back.
I tried the haze filter today on a Chipping Sparrow I shot before the dust from driving settled and like how it worked because the dust simply disappeared while I slid the slider, then I tried a hawk in a fog and like it too.
Interesting that I've received notice of any kind from Adobe and I am a subscriber. Is it typical for announcment to NOT go to all subscribers at the same time? Clicking on Creative Cloud also shows no update, nor does going to help>updates in CC2014.
The syncing is pretty much horrible. I never get updates when there's a new Camera RAW, I always have to go manually download and install. What you need is the new Creative Cloud Dashboard, THAT'S what will give you access to the updates. Try opening that and see if there's an Update link somewhere.
Mia, I just tried the Haze Filter. Wow, dream come true, it truly restores contrast and removes haze about as good as I've seen.
Paul,
I discovered an issue with PS CC 2015 (and probably the updated PS CC 2014). It was driving me crazy, all of my Nikon D810 images when opened in ACR looked like they already had haze applied. Typically I download the RAW files to my PC and at the same time use Irfanview to create jpg files for quick viewing. The converted jpg files looked great but when I opened the NEF file in CC 2015 ACR all of them looked flat, hazy & subdued.
I finally had time this evening to research the issue and found the answer on this page: http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom-d810-adobe-standard-profile-missing-update-lowers-contrast-of-images
Where the person basically says: I was also excited with the news of this release, UNTIL I found that both LR and ACR seem to have a bug where images taken with a D810 camera don't have the option of Adobe Standard camera profile. It is missing from the Camera Calibration list, and images already edited with it get converted to the next profile on the list - Camera Flat. NOT what most of us with D810s want!
Adobe responded with this temporary fix: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb/lightroom-6-1-ignores-the-nikon-d810-adobe-standard-color-profil.htm
I am glad it worked for you Paul. I like it on the two images I tried but I was really getting annoyed with the hazy appearance of my NEF files in ACR.
You can update your original post with this info so Nikon D810 users know not to update until they get this fixed or do the fix like I did.