Adobe Unveils Powerful New Collaboration and AI Capabilities in Photoshop

Adobe has announced at Adobe MAX  new innovations in Photoshop that make the world’s most advanced image editing application even smarter, more collaborative and easier to use across surfaces. Share for Review (beta) enables users to conveniently collaborate on projects without leaving Photoshop, and new features make editing images in a browser far more powerful. Additionally, the flagship Photoshop desktop app adds breakthrough features powered by Adobe Sensei AI, including selection improvements that enhance the accuracy and quality of selections, and a one-click Delete and Fill tool to remove and replace objects in images with a single action.

“In a world where everyone can be a creator, Adobe is ensuring that Photoshop evolves to serve all creators across platforms and devices,” said Scott Belsky, chief product officer and executive vice president, Creative Cloud at Adobe. “This year, we’ve made Photoshop smarter and more collaborative so you can easily get feedback and create spectacular images even faster.” 

Collaboration First

Seamless collaboration has become critical for creative workflows in today’s increasingly digital economy. Supporting collaborative work from anywhere, the new version of Photoshop introduces Share for Review, enabling convenient collaboration between creators and stakeholders: All feedback is managed and incorporated directly within the Photoshop app.

This new feature lets creatives easily share a preferred version of their work in the form of a web link. Collaborators can review the project and comment right in their browser, even without a Creative Cloud subscription. Whether creators are sharing work for stakeholder review, or collaborating with their coworkers, Share for Review syncs comments across devices, and works wherever users do – at the office, at home or on the go.

AI Innovations Make Creation Faster, Easier and More Powerful

New AI features launching today in Photoshop include:

  • Selection improvements that enable users to hover over, detect and make detailed selections of complex objects with a single click, creating higher quality and more accurate selections of elements such as skies, foregrounds, subjects and hair, while preserving detailed edges.
  • One-Click Delete and Fill selects and removes objects from images, filling the removed area using content-aware fill, in a single action in Photoshop on the web.
  • Photo Restoration Neural Filter (beta) helps Photoshop on the web users bring old or damaged photos back to life, using machine learning to intelligently eliminate scratches and other minor imperfections on old photographs.
  • Remove Background is now available in Photoshop on the web (beta), enabling one-click background removal.
  • Masking and Brushing are also now available in Photoshop on the web (beta) and make precise adjustments faster and easier from a web browser.

Photoshop and Lightroom AI image-editing features were used over 1.3 billion times in the past year. These innovative tools power mundane Photoshop tasks, such as selecting detailed objects, changing a person’s expression or removing blemishes from a portrait. By simplifying complexity and speeding up time-consuming processes, Neural Filters and other AI-powered features give Photoshop users more time to do what they love – create.

Improved Multi-Surface Experiences

Photoshop delivers an approachable and intuitive experience across desktops, iPads and browsers, enabling creators to work wherever and whenever inspiration strikes. Photoshop on the iPad continues evolving to ease creation on tablets. iPad users gain access to Photoshop’s powerful one-tap Content-Aware Fill and Remove Background features, using AI to accurately replace unwanted elements in photos so creators and editors can work faster.  

Review: GoPro Lens Mod

It’s taken me a while to warm to the GoPro Lens Mod. You see I just wasn’t sure if it were any use to me seeing the stuff I do and film.

Having a boat has changed all of that. As did a little lateral thinking.

Why so? Because the main selling points of the Lens Mod when attached to a Hero 9 Black or Hero 10 Black are stabilisation and field of view.

Yes, yes, I know these cameras already have lots of built in stables but adding the Lens Mod upgrades the camera with Max HyperSmooth plus it will let you shoot at 2.7K / 60 frames a second AND at an ultrawide 155° field of view.

Cop that every other GoPro!

Up until now when fishing from a boat, to get as much action as possible I have used a 360° camera such as the Kandao QooCam or more lately the GoPro Max, and have the 9 or 10 on standby for candid stuff.

With the Lens Mod, I get the best of both worlds.

And there is an added bonus in that the horizon lock facility is simply brilliant. As you’d imagine, a boat on the briny is not the most stable platform, especially when cruising along or when stationary in any sort of swell, so having this facility makes the footage so much better without any roll and yaw to make the viewer a bit queasy. It’s also a boon for any more motor sport stuff I do in the future for the same reason.

It doesn’t matter how much you twist and turn the camera. As yet I have not been able to beat it.

Surfers and jet skiers will love it! Oh and with the Lens Mod, you still get 5 metre depth water proofing although as a SCUBA diver, I don’t recommend underwater shooting with the Lens Mod as light refraction under water plays havoc.

(I don’t surf but here is some footage I found on YouTube showing the effect)

 

Finally, you also get MAX Timewarp which is also super smooth.

Changing from the standard to the Lens Mod is simple; just twist and turn the original and it pops out. Reverse the process with the Lens Mod attached. You will need to go into the camera’s menu system to activate it though so don’t forget that bit.

The Lens Mod costs A$159.95 and IF you have a use for it, is worth coughing up the dollars for. If you cannot see a use, then my advice is not to bother. Oh and if you have any other model GoPro with the removable lens (its not really the lens but you know what I mean), don’t bother as it won’t fit.

There’s more info on the Lens Mod at the GoPro website.

 

New Adobe Releases from its “MAX” Conference

There is a whole pile of stuff coming from the annual Adobe-Fest known as MAX.

I’ll attempt to bring the main things of interest as soon as I can. Here is the first, which for many, is probably the most relevent at this stage.


Through the latest updates to Creative Cloud flagship apps—powered by Adobe Sensei AI technology—Adobe defines the future of creativity through continuous innovation. Major releases at MAX include:

  • Photoshop : Three AI-powered Neural Filters in Photoshop desktop and Camera Raw file support on the iPad.
  • Lightroom/Lightroom Classic : More powerful and precise ML-powered masking capabilities, recommended presets and Community Remixing.
  • Premiere Pro : Enhanced Speech-to-Text capabilities and a Sensei-powered beta Remix feature.
  • After Effects : Faster Previews and Renders with Multi-Frame Rendering and beta Sensei-powered Scene Edit Detection capabilities.
  • Illustrator : Improved 3D effects and access to Substance 3D materials on desktop and a Sensei-powered Vectorize Technology Preview on iPad.
  • Character Animator : Powered by Adobe Sensei, creators can now animate their entire body with Body Tracker, using movements and gestures to animate their puppets.
  • Substance 3D : Tighter integration of 3D content, effects and capabilities across Illustrator, XD and Stock. A new Modeler (Private Beta) app joins the Substance 3D Collection, showcasing the role that 3D and immersive technology will play in helping users create the future.
  • Fresco : Turn any drawing layer into an animation layer to create motion, draw with new perspective guides and grids, and use non-destructive adjustment layers to explore and enhance colors.

Enabling Connected Creativity

At MAX, the company previewed the future of creativity on the web, which is designed to help creative teams collaborate in real time, across multiple surfaces and stakeholders, regardless of device or location.

  • Frame.io : The recent acquisition of Frame.io combines Adobe’s industry-leading creative video editing software, Premiere Pro and After Effects, with Frame.io’s review and approval functionality to deliver a powerful collaboration platform that will radically accelerate the creative process. Frame.io’s cloud-native platform is a secure and elegant way to gather feedback from everyone involved in the video production process and will enable every stakeholder to effectively contribute to the creative process.
  • Photoshop (Beta) and Illustrator (Private Beta) on the web : Browser-based experiences where millions of individuals, teams and stakeholders can view, share and comment on cloud documents on the web. Collaborators with a Photoshop subscription can make quick edits and retouch/adjust images, while Illustrator subscribers can access essential design tools and editing workflows using a set of early features.
  • Creative Cloud Spaces (Private Beta) : A digital space built to fuel collaboration among teams, Creative Cloud Spaces simplifies decision-making by putting everything they need in one place. This includes project files, libraries and external links so everyone on the team has universal access to drive creative projects from start to finish. Spaces will be accessible across desktop and mobile through Creative Cloud Web and available in Photoshop, Illustrator, Fresco and XD.
  • Creative Cloud Canvas (Private Beta) : To unlock a new level of collaboration, Canvases enable teams to lay out, visualize and review creative work together, in real time, without ever leaving the browser. On a Canvas, teams can place shapes, text, images and stickers, as well as linked documents from Creative Cloud apps, so anyone can make quick edits to the original creative in the corresponding app with a single click.

In addition, an all-new Workfront plugin for Photoshop gives creatives the ability to collaborate in context. Through an embedded Workfront update screen in Photoshop, creators can see tasks and issues, and post and view comments related to the project they’re working on.

GoPro Hero 9, MAX and other models tricks and tips …

On a regular annual basis I write a piece on how most people have no idea of all the features and functions of their gadgets and apps / software, and that you can gain HEAPS by reading the manual or online PDF etc.

This year I have been beaten to the punch by GoPro, which has released a blog post on that very subject relating to Hero 9 Black, GoPro MAX and other models in the range.

Below is a summary, but if you want to read the whole thing and get extensive information on each,  nip over to https://gopro.com/en/us/news/things-you-didnt-know-your-gopro-can-do

 

  1. Chillax while GoPro automatically uploads your content to the cloud.*
  2. You can turn your camera on andstart recording with one press of the shutter.
  3. You can mouth off to your GoPro, and it WILL respond!
  4. What’s a HiLight tag? Only the best way to mark your favorite moments while you’re recording.
  5. Go vertical for TikTok and the ‘gram.
  6. Give your stabilization a boost.
  7. Add some flair with Capture Presets and On-Screen Shortcuts.
  8. Your GoPro can turn back time.
  9. It takes two … fingers to change presets without using the rear touch screen.
  10. Give the rear display a tap-tap-taparoo to lock exposure.
  11. GoPros are waterproof and mountable straight outta the box.
  12. Water and GoPros go together like PB&J. But, like peanut butter, sometimes water can be runny and cause you to slip into another mode.
  13. Tell us you’ve mastered TimeWarp without telling us you’ve mastered TimeWarp.
  14. Shoot to impress by abiding by the Rule of Thirds.
  15. Only you can prevent light flicker.
  16. Set your self(ie) up for success by tailoring your photo mode to the environment or output you want.
  17. You can command your GoPro to do reallycool things with QR codes. GoPro
  18. Feeling overworked after trying all these GoPro hacks? Let your camera take a breather with a reset.

Finally, we’ve all been there with electronics—sometimes they just need a hard reset. Press and hold power button for 10 seconds to reset your GoPro.

 

 

Review: GoPro Remote for Hero 8, 9 MAX

The test of a user interface is simple. Can it be worked out quickly and easily, and therefore have you up and running with a minimum of fuss if a user manual is not available.

In other words, you have to explore the device itself and work out how to use it, without any outside help.

This was the way I had to learn the new GoPro Remote designed specifically for the Hero 8 and 9 Black as well as the 360° GoPro MAX.

Able to control 5 separate cameras up to 60 metres away via Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity, the GoPro Remote is a simple 4 button device and thankfully, doesn’t take a lot to master.

To start, simply make sure your GoPro camera has the latest firmware updates, and then swipe down and left to bring up the Connections menu. From here, choose Remote on the camera.

With the Remote, turn it by pressing the top mounted button and select the Pair option, and within a second or two, all being well, the Remote will pair with the camera and display its name on screen – in my case, Cyberman9 for my GoPro 9 Black.

From here it’s a simples set of combinations of the three buttons (2 on the side and one on the top) to navigate through the camera menu system and using the large front mounted circular button to select.

Not all controls are available mind you. GoPro says that the “most used” functions are catered for including powering on and off, changing modes and shutter control. From our testing, most of things you might want to do on-the-fly were accessible.

All commands can be seen on the small monochrome LCD screen of the remote, even in bright sunlight, and there is the option of mounting the Remote to say, bike handlebars or your wrist with a strap (although ours did not come with one). GoPro says the design of the Remote makes it suitable for use in water down to a depth of approximately 5 metres as well.

Charging the remote is via USB C.

The GoPro remote for Hero 8 and Hero 9 Black cameras and the GoPro Max retails for AUD$129.95 and is available from the GoPro online shop.

 

 

Major GoPro MAX Upgrade

Shoot 360 3K Video at 60fps for High-Action Capture and 2x Slo-MoTime Lapse Video and Time Lapse Photo Added to 360 Mode

GoPro released an update for its MAX 360-camera today that unlocks new options for spherical video and photo capture. New features include the addition of 3k at 60 frames per second, Time Lapse Video and Time Lapse Photo, all in 360 mode.

The availability of 3K video at 60fps gives users more flexibility when filming things that are action-oriented or anything that simply would look cool in slo-mo, from speeding down a mountain to simply tossing a frisbee.  This 2x slo-mo mode also allows for more time to pan and zoom around in the frame while the action is happening so you can get the perfect shot. 

Also new is the addition of 360 Time Lapse Video and Time Lapse Photo – features already available in single-lens HERO mode and now brought to spherical capture. Time Lapse Video mode in 360 means users have more interval options for capturing longer periods of time – ideal for a sunrise, sunset or scenic drive. 

Time Lapse Photo enables hands-free 360 photo capture during activity. Prior to this update, a MAX user would have to press the shutter button to capture a 360 photo, but in Time Lapse Photo mode, creators can select a single photo from all the shots taken or use the footage to create an actual time lapse. 

“3k60 video enables more diversity in what you can capture and play back, particularly in high action scenarios,” noted Abe Kislevitz, Creative Director of Media and also one of GoPro’s earliest employees. “Adding time lapse video and time lapse photo provides additional options for shooting longer activities or moments with a greater amount of creative control.”

An additional feature of the new update extends horizon leveling capability in single-lens HERO mode to TimeWarp and Photo modes, allowing for more freedom in mounting and shooting without the worry of horizon lines.

An integral part of the MAX experience is the GoPro App – a one-stop mobile editing tool for  360 content that transforms footage into polished images and edits. The new firmware update allows for 25% faster offload of MAX content to the GoPro App when using a 5GHz Wi-Fi band, which means you get from capture to share more quickly.

To learn more including its ability to livestream, MAX HyperSmooth in-camera stabilization, MAX TimeWarp and MAX SuperView, visit the GoPro website.