Reasons to Consider Upgrading to Photoshop CS5

The wait is over, and CS5 is here! So, what should designers be aware of in this new, update version of Photoshop? Lets take some time to go over some of the cool new features:

1. Content Aware Fill. This baby looks like a real time saver.  Apparently, you can remove an object that was in front of some sort of background, and Photoshop can magically fill in the missing background behind the object that you have removed.  Otherwise, you would have to spend time cloning the background until you think you’ve made it look realistic.
2. Complex Selections. There is another filter that looks amazing and would be a great time saver.  What it does is allow you to make complex selections, like hair for example, and accurately get all of it without compromising edges, or colors, so that you can seamlessly move somebody from one background to another without it looking bad!
3. Puppet Warp. This is a neat little thing… what it allows you to do is smartly warp something.  The example that Adobe used was an elephant with it’s trunk hanging straight down.  You can select the elephant (the entire thing) with puppet warp with which will create a wireframe around the elephant.  From there, you can pinpoint certain areas that you want to stay put, and others that you want moved, and you can accurately warp the trunk of the elephant to curve and come up towards is mouth!
4. 3D Extrusions. This is something that used to only be unique to Illustrator I believe, and what it does is easily allow you to make a 3D object from any flat layer, like text.  But now this ability is integrated right into Photoshop, so you don’t have to jump between softwares when trying to get some 3D objects, which should save a lot of time and desktop clutter.
5. 64 Bit. Now this is a great improvement for speed, because you will be able to do everything faster, without waiting so long for rendering times for complex filters like a lens blur for example (that filter takes ages to load).  Adobe says that this will make all Photoshop tasks 10 times faster than normal… YEAH!

These were the standouts for me when I was reading over the features list and I think that they will make upgrading a very real consideration for a lot of people.  If complex selections actually work as advertised, then both that feature and 64 bit will probably make me upgrade.


What are your thoughts?  Upgrade, Maybe, No?  Let us know in the comments section below.  Thanks for reading.