Pedrosa: Photoshop CS6 Going to the Darkside

Albert Pedrosa
Photo mania

I’VE been using Photoshop since 1995 starting with the version 3.0. Although there were many breakthroughs in the previous upgrades, the CS6 blew me away. The entire experience using the application doesn’t only feel like driving a new car but comparable to an upgrade from a sedan to an Audi R8.

Photoshop started in the late 80’s when “Spandau Ballet” and “Tears for Fears” were still topping the charts. It actually started as “Image Pro” designed by the Knoll brothers and sold as an application for scanners. In the early 90’s, the application was purchased by Adobe, backed by the same developers, the image application just flew on its own.

Two decades after, here we are enjoying the rich-feature application that continued to wow us in every upgrade. Recently, CS6 came out sometime May this year. CS or creative suite actually started 2003 when the different graphics applications under the rooster of Adobe were grouped together for better collaboration between different application.

What makes the CS6 different from all the other upgrade is the appearance. One look and you’ll know that you’re in the latest version. There’s no mistake. Adobe turned to the darkside and gave the users a new experience. Just like an artist breaking out from a creative drought and exploding into new realms. That’s how you’re gonna feel when you use the new CS6.

Adobe is very excited about their “Mercury Graphics Engine” which uses the strength of your GPU or graphics processing unit found in your graphics card. Many claimed that this new technology only benefits the video editing applications. You should try using Photoshop CS6 and you’ll experience a better response in your everyday task. This technology also made real time effects found in CS6 possible.

From a photographers point of view, the crop tool is really a game changer. Now you can crop your image non-destructively. It means that even after you crop the image, you can still re-position your cropping at any stage of your post processing workflow. This is one feature that we enjoy in LR and is quite frustrating in the previous versions.

Lighting effects came back with a bang and of course a more intelligent “content-aware” feature are among the wonders of CS6. You’ll also find it weird when you work with adjustment layers since a new properties tab is managing your mask and adjustments tabs in one tab. I’m not sure where adobe is taking us with this merging of tabs.

The new saving feature is also a gem in this version. Now you can save a huge file and continue working on your other files while your file is being saved in the background. Auto saving feature is also happening in the background while you work for recovery purposes in case your computer crash.

I’d like to talk more about PS CS6 in my future articles. Meantime, keep on shooting everyone! For comments and suggestions, email me at photography@grp.ph.