I’m over my CoVid-19 and have much of my stamina back. Hikes are close to 3 miles now. So, I am getting there.
I have the new Photoshop and have been playing with it. This video takes you through the new features and changes. I chose this one because of the time mark references in the description.
Photoshop 2021 Released October 2020
Much of the ‘NEW’ is about the Neural Filters which are Artificial Intelligence in action. Some of them require access to a cloud account and are processing on Adobe’s remote servers rather than in your computer. They can take almost a minute to respond. There is only a small easily missed indicator that anything is happening. Took me a bit to figure out I just had to be patient.
Most of the Neural Filters are amazing. Some… they aren’t quite ready for prime-time, which is why those are called BETA. Even if not that great now, we can see what is coming.
Adobe has released a new set of updates. For those of us in Second Life, there isn’t a lot to get excited about in this update. There is enough to be interesting.
I suspect the most useful update in Photoshop is to the Select Subject feature. Jesús thinks its better. The example used in the video… leaves me undecided. I’ll have to get some experience with it before I decide. I suspect he is right. And the Adobe examples do make it look better than Jesús’ example.
On to the updates…
Lens Blur – They have improved this feature too. I often use it. The viewer’s Depth of Field does some nice blurring on its own. While the viewer’s DoF is simple and more than adequate, Photoshop’s Lens Blur is awesome… and complex offering many controls.
If I think I want to blur a background, foreground, or combination of the two in a photo I’ll snap both a Color and Depth image. Then I use Lens Blur to get the look I want.
It will let you blur just background, just foreground, or some combination of both. One uses the Set Focal Point in the tool to select what is in focus. That selects a shade of gray in the depth map to consider in focus and progressively blurs other levels of gray as they go darker or lighter.
Watch this video to see a comparison between the old and new Select Subject and some other features.
Select Object– This is now a tool in the tool’s pallet. It is different than the Select Subject tool. Adobe explains the difference this way:
The Object Selection tool is useful when you only need to select one of the objects or part of an object within an image that contains multiple objects. While the Select Subject command is designed to select all the main subjects in the image.
I was annoyed that it was often hard to find Select Subject when working in an image. I had to select some specific selection tool to get access to Select Subject. The first thing I find when I go looking for this ‘Object’ tool is that I don’t have it. So, off to find out why. Adobe explains how to find it here.
This is a tutorial on how to use Black Dragon to capture DEPTH information for use in Photoshop (PS). The techniques can be used in GIMP and Paint.Net. The buttons are just in different places.
The reason you may be interested in using PS rather than a viewer’s built-in DoF is to get more control. Viewers tend to provide a perfect render of a scene. Our eyes pick up the texture and dust of real-life so a computer image usually doesn’t fit our experience of how the world looks. Making a photo-realistic is about adding the subtle noise of real life to an image.
Nal @ Port of Senses
This image raised some questions in the SL Forum thread How does your avatar look today? (About 1,300 pages) Mostly, I think, because I pointed out I did the Depth of Field out of focus thing using Photoshop with a Black Dragon Depth map.
Most viewers provide Depth Maps. You can create Windlight settings that will create a depth map too, but that is a PITA. It is easier to use a viewer that has the feature. So, Firestorm or Black Dragon or the Linden Default Viewer. I haven’t checked the others. I assume most have the feature.
There are a number of things in the new Photoshop. This is one I don’t remember seeing mentioned by others. I think it is handy for making pattern backgrounds.
While I am pointing out somewhat ignored features I’ll include this WordPress-Facebook feature.
In WordPress when posting there is a feature section labeled Open Graph and Twitter Card Tags. You may have to go into WP’s settings and enable Open Graph display on the editor. Whether in the Classic or Block editor the section will appear below the bottom of the editor.
There are two fields in the section, Use this image and Use this description. These are for automated systems that pick up on articles in your blog. The image field needs to be set to avoid Facebook, aggregators, and other automated systems grabbing the first image they find to use with their display of an article on your blog. If these systems comply with web standards they will use these two fields, if available, in whatever they post. Continue reading →
Today I got my update to Adobe’s Photoshop 2020 (v21.0). It has several very handy new and improved exiting features. I’ll let PiXimperfect’s guy explain them.
This is a handy video to bookmark as it has links into the video for the various features. These are the links you will find on the YouTube page.
Fun Photography – Every so often I mention the SL Forum thread ‘How does your avatar look today?’ (page 665 – Looks for short) In it, someone (name withheld to protect the guilty) posted a picture with their avatar in bunny custom… not the furry kind, the Playboy kind. So sexy.
The picture started a thing… my tail is cuter than your tail… no… not competitive just fun… people curious to see how they looked as bunnies and some probably were influenced by a bit of exhibitionism and took the opportunity to show off. I suspect some measure of that fun and look-at-me stuff runs through those all peeps posting in the thread. My hand is up.
The Bunny Pictures
However, there is a thing in the group about getting together for group photos. Probably one of the more fun things people in the thread do. I think of it as girls behaving badly… I’ll leave the interpretation of the term ‘badly’ up to you. Those older and younger than I seem to have different meanings for it. I intend this as the fun type ‘badly’.
Whatever, that ‘get together thing’ got Saravendi thinking (post). Seems things weren’t working out for people to get together in their bunny outfits. So, she very nicely PUT them together from the photos they posted. That was a hit. The idea grew, lots of Me-Too-Please posters followed. So, lots of additions and a growing picture which Saravendi was neat enough to keep editing. Continue reading →
If you have a Flickr account, you know how popular photography is in Second Life. So, photo-how-to’s are popular too. Then there are the peeps with a bit of exhibitionist in their blood posting in, How does your avatar look today?
Hamlet is featuring videos by Cassie Middles (Flickr URL). The video shows how to use Cynefin’sProjection Lighting Kit (L$650) (Video below). Mixed in is how to use your Windlight settings and adjust the sun to get the lighting you want.
Cassie also made a video showing how to use the resulting image and improve it. Below. Continue reading →
A new version of Photoshop is out. Here is a video explaining 20 of the more interesting new features. They include mention of a couple of performance improvements, which I don’t think much of… but, I will pay attention when I try the tasks next.
Some basic key operation has changed. Undo (Ctrl-Z) is one. I think the new behaviors are more logical. But, I will have to unlearn the old ways now committed to muscle memory. The changes affect a number of things. So, I’ll be bumping into them.
And there are sort of small changes that will make using PS much nicer.
