Expand your creative options and take advantage of more image editing power than ever before with state-of-the-art new tools in Photoshop CS5. Make complex selections more quickly and easily. Paint with natural and realistic effects. Move, warp, or stretch any part of an image, or remove image elements and see the space fill in like magic. Speed up all your imaging tasks with 64-bit cross-platform support, more GPU-accelerated features, and dozens of time-savers suggested by Photoshop users.
Adobe Photoshop CS5 delivers breakthrough capabilities to help you create images with impact. Refine your images with reengineered photography tools for removing noise, adding grain, and creating high dynamic range (HDR) images. Get precise results when making complex selections. Remove any image element and see the space fill in almost magically. Paint with naturally textured brushstrokes and realistic color blends. Also work fast with cross-platform 64-bit support and dozens of other time-savers.
Adobe Photoshop CS5 delivers breakthrough capabilities to help you create images with impact.
Upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS5
To install an upgrade version of Photoshop CS5 software, you must have an eligible earlier version of Adobe software:
Photoshop CS2, CS3, & CS4
Photoshop CS3 & CS4 Extended
For more information on eligibility, visit www.adobe.com/go/upgradeinfo.
Top reasons to upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS5
Complex selections made easy
Get precise results in fewer clicks when selecting intricate image elements, such as hair, and eliminate background color around selection edges. Automatically vary selection edges and perfect masks using new refinement tools.
Content-Aware Fill
Remove any image detail or object and watch as Content-Aware Fill magically fills in the space left behind. This breakthrough technology matches lighting, tone, and noise so it looks as if the removed content never existed.
Superior HDR imaging
Create photorealistic or surreal high dynamic range (HDR) images with unprecedented speed, control, and accuracy. Get better-than-ever results thanks to automatic ghost removal and greater control with tone mapping and adjustments, and even give single-exposure photos the look of HDR.
State-of-the-art raw image processing
Use the Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 6 plug-in to nondestructively remove image noise while preserving color and detail; add grain to make digital photos look more organic; enjoy more control as you perform post-crop vignetting; and more.
Extraordinary painting effects
Achieve natural and realistic painting effects with the Mixer Brush, which offers on-canvas color blending, and Bristle Tips, which let you create lifelike, textured brushstrokes.
Puppet Warp
Precisely reposition or warp any image element. Swing a raised arm to a person's side in a photo, stretch text to create new effects, and more.
Automatic lens correction
Save time with automatic correction of lens distortions, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. Photoshop CS5 uses an image file's EXIF data to make precise adjustments based on the type of camera and lens you used.
Efficient workflow
Enjoy productivity and creativity boosts thanks to dozens of features and enhancements requested by Photoshop users. Straighten images automatically, pick colors from an onscreen color picker, adjust the opacity of many layers at once, and more.
Better media management
Easily manage media with more flexible batch renaming, and access your assets in the context of what you're working on by using the customizable Adobe Mini Bridge panel in Photoshop.
Faster performance across platforms
Speed up day-to-day imaging tasks and process very large images up to 10 times faster by taking advantage of cross-platform 64-bit support. (Requires a 64-bit-capable computer with a 64-bit version of Mac OS, Microsoft Windows 7, or Windows Vista. Actual performance varies depending on amount of RAM, driver types, and other factors.)
Streamlined creative reviews through integration with CS Live services
Use Adobe CS Review, part of new CS Live online services, to initiate a more secure review without leaving Photoshop. Reviewers can add comments to your images from their browsers, and you see those comments appear automatically on your screen. Adobe CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time. Visit www.adobe.com/go/cslive for details.
New GPU-accelerated features
Take advantage of GPU-enabled enhancements to everyday tools. Crop with the Rule of Thirds grid; zoom with click-and-scrub functionality; and sample colors with better visualization and an onscreen color picker.
Easier user interface management
Use the collapsible Workspace Switcher to quickly navigate and choose among favorite user interface configurations. Live workspaces automatically record your user interface changes so panels will remain in place even if you switch away for a while.
Superior black-and-white conversion
Explore an endless variety of black-and-white looks. Use the integrated Lab B&W Action to interactively convert color images; create gorgeous HDR black-and-whites with greater ease and speed; and experiment with new presets.
Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended provide unparalleled editing and enhancement control with powerful new selection-refinement tools that produce superior results with complex subjects and state-of-the-art noise removal, sharpening, and raw-image processing with Adobe Camera Raw 6. Click to enlarge.
Create powerful images with the professional standard
Easy access to core editing power
Get just the tools you need--exactly when you need them--as you perform common editing activities. Adjustments and Masks panels guide you in making precise adjustments and masks.
Extraordinary creative tools
Achieve realistic painting effects with the ability to mix colors on canvas and create natural brushstrokes. Merge multiple exposures into stunning high dynamic range (HDR) images. Move, remove, warp, or stretch any image element.
State-of-the-art photography
Easily merge multiple exposures to extend the dynamic range with more power, precision, and fidelity than ever before. Convert to black-and-white in new ways. And use Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tools that intelligently preserve color and tone details.
Industry-leading raw image processing
Enjoy superior results when you convert raw images with the Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which offers support for over 275 camera models plus nondestructive editing so you can experiment without harming your original photo.
Automated compositing tools
Easily create a single image from a series of shots that have different focal points, smoothly blending color and shading and extending your depth of field. And take advantage of accurate, automatic layer alignment.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom integration
Enjoy tight integration with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software (sold separately), easily moving files from Lightroom to Photoshop CS5 to create HDR images, panoramas, and multilayered Photoshop documents. Roundtrip your files back to Lightroom.
Efficient media management
Manage your media visually with Adobe Bridge CS5 software. Enjoy more flexible batch renaming plus the ability to access files in the context of your work using the customizable Adobe Mini Bridge panel.
Powerful printing options
Get outstanding prints in less time with automation, scripting, and a print dialog box that's easier to navigate.
Broad file format support
Import and export hundreds of image file formats, including PSD, AI, PDF, NEF, CRW, TIFF, BMP, Cineon, JPEG, JPEG2000, FXG, OpenEXR, PNG, and Targa, and video formats including 3G, FLC, MOV, AVI, DV Stream, Image Sequence, MPEG-4, and FLV.
Extensibility
Personalize Photoshop and extend its capabilities with custom panels that developers create to accomplish specific tasks, the Adobe Photoshop Marketplace for third-party plug-ins and resources, and Adobe Community Help for tips and tricks.
The Edge Detection and Decontaminate Colors features help you make highly precise selections of complex subjects quickly and easily, enabling faster, more accurate compositing of multiple images. Click to enlarge.
Magically remove unwanted detail in your photographs with Content-Aware Fill. In this example, the boat has been removed from the photo by making a rough selection around the subject (left) and then filling the area with the Content Aware option selected in the Fill dialog box. Click to enlarge.
With new tone-mapping and alignment technologies, sophisticated controls, and an updated dialog box, HDR Pro helps you to produce a variety of creative outcomes from a single set of source files. Click to enlarge.
Recreate the look of your favorite film with the new Grain feature. Left: Original photo. Right: After grain has been applied.
Top new features of Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended
Intelligent selection technology
Photoshop CS5 takes the time and frustration out of making precise image selections and masks, providing you a faster way to extract subjects from their backgrounds and create realistic composites. New intelligent selection technology offers better edge detection and faster, more accurate masking results of complex subjects, like hair. Automatic color decontamination helps you eliminate background color around the edges of a selection, resulting in more seamless compositions when placing extracted subjects on new backgrounds.
Experienced Photoshop users know that the best
selections are created by constantly adapting the selection technique for differences in the subject's edges--one method for hair and another for the edge of a building. With Photoshop CS5, you can produce highly accurate masks and selections faster and more simply than before with a set of new adaptive selection-edge modification controls. Smart Radius automatically matches the best selection approach with the subject's changing edge characteristics, and the extra view modes assist you in previewing the quality of your selections. The Refine Radius and Erase Refinements tools customize your masks and selections as you make them. These tools, in combination with the color decontamination settings, help eliminate any residual background color from around the edges of your selections.
Content?Aware Fill
One of the most exciting new features in Photoshop CS5 is the remarkable ability to remove an image element and magically replace it with details that match the lighting, tone, and noise of the surrounding area so that it looks like the content never existed. Now, you can make substantial changes to photo composition quickly and easily, as even large complex subjects can be seamlessly erased.
You can use Content-Aware Fill with the Spot Healing Brush or as an option of the Fill feature to replace content in an active selection. Selecting the Content-Aware setting with the Spot Healing brush changes the way the tool fills in the areas you paint. This retouching approach is designed to account more fully for the structure and detail of the image elements that surround the painted area, providing a near-invisible result when removing unwanted objects. Alternatively, you can select the object to be removed, and then replace the area with synthesized details from the area surrounding the selection, simply by using the Content-Aware option in the Fill dialog box.
HDR Pro for creativity and precision with the next generation of high dynamic range imaging
With just a few clicks, you can go beyond the capture capabilities of your camera by combining multiple exposures into a single high dynamic range (HDR) photo that preserves the full tonal range of a scene with high contrast. Photoshop CS5 introduces HDR Pro for more control over the HDR merging process and greater adjustment power over the mapping of tones and the styling of HDR output, resulting in images that range from photorealistic to highly surreal.
HDR Pro offers extended controls, an enhanced dialog box, and improved image processing. New algorithms enable more accurate alignment of source files and automatically deghost any problem areas that occur when trying to merge source photos where subjects have moved during capture. You can even select a source file to be used as the sole reference for any ghosted areas or allow the feature to do this automatically for you.
New tone-mapping tools and adjustment controls give you the power to implement your own HDR vision, producing photos that range in style from fully textured images of high-contrast scenes to wildly hyper-realistic creations. Save your favorite styles as presets and apply them to multiple groups of source files to provide a common look and feel to your HDR photos. And for times when you don't have multiple source files, create the look of an HDR-processed image from a single photo with the new HDR Toning feature that allows you to mimic the tone-mapping results traditionally achieved in high dynamic range photos.
Together with the existing Photomerge feature (which allows for image stitching), the exposure-merging capabilities of HDR Pro can add up to high-bit-depth, 360-degree panoramas ideal for composite photography, video, and beyond.
The Auto Stack Panorama/HDR files option in Adobe Bridge CS5 and the new panelized Mini Bridge groups source files together into stacks for quicker creation of HDR images in Photoshop CS5. You can even start the creation of an HDR file by choosing Tools > Merge To HDR from the Mini Bridge panel inside Photoshop.
State-of-the-art raw-image processing
The Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which ships with Photoshop CS5, now supports more than 275 camera models as it continues to provide you with the industry-leading conversion of raw files. In addition, the utility provides advanced, nondestructive image editing and enhancement for raw files, as well as for other standard formats, including JPEG and TIFF. Now you can remove noise, achieve better quality sharpening, and creatively apply new styles of vignettes and film-like grain.
You can now shoot at higher ISO settings with confidence, because the updated controls in the Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in remove the noise common in such high-ISO images (as well as in photos captured with long exposures and pictures from consumer cameras) while still preserving excellent color and detail.
New controls for adding grain and additional post-crop vignetting settings join many creative options already available in this utility, such as the Adjustment Brush and the Graduated Filter. For the first time, you can add grain-like texture to photos as part of your nondestructive editing workflow. Adjust amount, size, and roughness of grain to easily give composites a more natural, seamless appearance by matching levels of grain across all source images--or simply use the feature to make a digital photo look more organic or film-like.
Updated post-crop vignetting options offer more creative control over the corner darkening and lightening process, and your favorite vignette effects can be saved as presets for quick application across multiple files.
Upgraded sharpening options produce clearer photos with fewer artifacts while providing better control over key details, especially when working with high-resolution pictures produced by multi-megapixel cameras.
Extraordinary painting effects
With a new Mixer Brush, a Bristle Tips feature, and a new mechanism for blending colors, Photoshop CS5 redefines the way you paint. You can take advantage of more natural and realistic painting effects, making it easy to take your imagery and designs in new artistic directions.
The Mixer Brush lets you define multiple colors on a single tip, and then mix and blend them with the underlying hues on your canvas, achieving creative results that rival traditional painting media. When starting with a photo original, you can use a dry, empty brush to blend the existing colors while at the same time adding a painterly effect to the image. Mixer Brush settings provide extensive control over the wetness of the canvas colors, the load rate that determines amount of paint loaded on the brush, the mixing rate between brush and canvas colors, and whether the brush is refilled, cleaned, or both after each painting stroke.
In conjunction with these new mixing features, Photoshop CS5 incorporates unprecedented control over stroke characteristics of its painting tools with Bristle Tips. Bristle Qualities define key bristle properties such as shape, length, stiffness, thickness, angle, and spacing, which affect how the color is laid on the image as you paint.
The Bristle Brush Preview feature provides a visual representation of these changes, and you can save your tip configurations for future use, allowing you to build a customized collection of Bristle Tips to experiment with when using Photoshop brush tools.
The Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in includes new features for better sharpening, adding grain, removing noise, and producing creative vignette effects. Click to enlarge.
You can use Puppet Warp to interactively reposition, reshape, and transform key objects in your photos. In this example, rose photos, like the one above, were twisted and layered to form a wreath and the letters in the center of the composition (left).
The Lens Correction feature located in the Photoshop CS5 Lens Correction filter provides camera- and lens-specific correction for three of the most common lens-related aberrations.
Black & White Technique action both converts and tints color photos to produce sophisticated monochrome images.
Puppet Warp
Puppet Warp gives you more freedom when pushing and pulling elements within an image. The feature lets you recompose an image to make it more appealing, or to fit a specific layout, by allowing the precise repositioning of any element within a Photoshop document, or selection, by simply clicking and dragging. After you reposition an object, Photoshop adjusts the rest of the image to account for the shifted pixels.
After choosing Edit > Puppet Warp, click on your image to drop pins establishing anchor points where you want image parts not to move, and handles that you can use for warping. Then drag any of the pins to reposition the picture elements. Use Puppet Warp to swing a raised arm to a person's side, warp and stretch text to create new effects, or reposition intrusive objects in a photo to create a more pleasing composition.
Automated lens correction
The Lens Correction features in Photoshop CS5 create better quality captures by removing or correcting the three most common lens-based errors: geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. This means you can use a wider range of lenses with the confidence of producing images of the highest quality. With the aid of the Adobe Lens Profile Creator (available separately as a free download from labs.adobe.com) you can produce custom profiles characterizing the optical aberrations of your camera lenses. When installed and selected in the Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5, the profile automatically removes or corrects the three types of distortion.
The Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5 is redesigned to include manual adjustment controls under the Custom tab, and settings for locating and applying custom Lens Correction Profiles (LCP files) under a new Auto Correction tab. Installed profiles that match your camera and lens combination are used to apply precise distortion corrections to your photos. Suitable profiles can be located easily based on the EXIF data automatically recorded with the image, and if a suitable profile is not present in the Lens Correction filter, then with a single click within the dialog box, you can search online for the correct profile to meet your needs.
Individual error types can be selected in the filter's settings, as can options for handling any transparent areas that surround the corrected image.
User-inspired productivity enhancements
Photoshop CS5 helps boost productivity and creativity throughout the editing workflow with dozens of enhancements inspired by Photoshop users. Some of these include:
A neutral-density preset for the Gradient tool
The ability to save 16-bit Photoshop documents in 8-bit JPEG format in a single step
An option for reversing the clone source using the flip buttons in the Clone Source panel
A Don't Show This Message Again option when saving files with maximum compatibility
Default value for Shadows/Highlights changed from 50% to 35%
The ability to move a selection while the active layer is hidden
An on/off option for trackpad gesture support on Mac and in Microsoft Windows 7
A new layer command for deleting all empty layers via scripts
A Straighten button on the Ruler tool options bar
A Close All Open Images Without Saving option
A Save As option for always defaulting to the folder to which you last saved an image
The ability to drag and drop a file onto an open Photoshop document to create a new layer
Multiple improvements in Lens Correction filter options, including:
Grid Display is off by default
Show Grid, Grid Size, and Grid Color settings are now sticky
Default grid size is increased from 16 to 64 pixels
Decimal point adjustments are allowed as values for the Chromatic Aberration sliders
A third Chromatic Aberration slider enables the correction of green/magenta fringing
The Background Color Edge setting is replaced with the Black Color entry
A White Color option is available in the Edge menu
Reset options are changed so that only the calibration settings are reset, not the Grid options
A new Cache Tile Size control in the Performance section of the Preferences dialog box
Zoom in and out with the new scrubby zoom tool
Presets for setting Cache Tile Size and Cache Levels simultaneously
The ability to use keystrokes to set values in the Adjustments panel text fields
Performance increases of up to 50% when importing OBJ files
Sample colors faster using the new on screen color ring built into the eyedropper tool
Customizable default values for Layer styles
New creative resources, including actions, tools, presets, brushes, swatches, shapes, gradients, styles, and tool presets
Window and Door shapes added to list of meshes that can be created from a layer
An option for changing the opacity of multiple selected layers
The ability to create a mask from the transparent areas of a layer
Pick colors faster using the new on-screen color HUD
Print settings saved with the image file, allowing one-button printing with user-selected values
Selecting a printer automatically lists the profiles installed for that printer at the top of the profile list
Printer-specific profiles are selected automatically when choosing a printer
Customized print settings can be recorded as part of a Photoshop Action
An overlay grid can be displayed when using the Crop tool
Layer groups can be nested more than five levels deep
New Paste Outside and Paste Inside commands, along with the previously existing Paste In Place option, are included in a new Edit > Paste Special menu
Streamlined creative reviews through integration with Adobe CS Review
Collaborate with colleagues and seek client comment quickly and easily with Adobe CS Review, a new CS Live online service* designed to simplify and accelerate the design review process.
With CS Review, you can avoid the hassles of large email attachments, logon problems with FTP servers, and time-consuming next-day air deliveries usually associated with client reviews by instead initiating a secure, shared review. Comments are displayed in near-real time and in context, providing convenient feedback on your images and designs. You can access the CS Review service from within Photoshop CS5.
Faster performance with cross-platform native 64-bit support
Tight deadlines and large file sizes make performance a high priority for many Photoshop users. Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended deliver cross-platform 64-bit support, allowing you to perform day-to-day imaging tasks up to 10 times faster. Video and photo professionals, especially, benefit from the extra performance, as gains are even greater if you regularly work with very large files, where processing can be up to ten times faster when you take advantage of higher addressable RAM amounts--limited only by what your hardware accommodates.
To help you tweak the performance of your setup, Photoshop CS5 lets you adjust history, tile, and cache controls in combination.
Greater access to key resources via flexible custom panels
Photoshop CS5 offers easy ways to integrate and extend your workspace with customized panels. With the aid of the Configurator 2.0 panel utility (available separately as a download from labs.adobe.com) you can produce your own panels, bringing together your most used tools and menu selections and incorporating your favorite web feeds or video tutorials.
Stay connected to the greater Photoshop community and all facets of your digital life directly from within Photoshop CS5 by using panels you create or those produced and distributed by other users. You can access anything that lives on the web--favorite blogs, video content, even your email--with these integrated panels. You can even expand content beyond a panel's standard viewing area when you need a magnified view.
Easier interface management with Live Workspaces and Workspace Switcher
Creating dedicated, task-specific workspaces that mimic your individual workflow increases productivity and efficiency by hiding the features you don't use and exposing the ones you do. New Live Workspaces auto-save any changes you make to a task-specific workspace, so that if you switch to a different workspace and then back again during an editing session, your panels remain exactly where you left them. The number of entries displayed in the collapsible Workspace Switcher can be altered, and the position of each workspace can be rearranged. This provides quicker navigation between frequently used setups.
Superior black-and-white conversion
Photoshop CS5 continues to support the tradition of producing finely crafted monochrome photos with the inclusion of new ways to explore an endless variety of black-and-white looks. You can use the integrated Lab Black & White Technique action, located in the Default Actions group of the Actions panel, for an easy and interactive way to convert color images. Create gorgeous HDR black-and-whites with greater ease and speed by taking advantage of the new and updated features in HDR Pro. Take your monochrome creations in new directions with conversion presets in the Black & White panel.

The in-camera RAW processing of cameras like the D90 is often derided as a gimmick (if you're serious, you'll do your RAW processing on a computer), but I think it's more than that. I'm probably never going to do much RAW processing. I'm not that dedicated, and I don't have the time or the proper software/workflow. I'm not as fanatical as Ken Rockwell about always shooting JPEG and getting it right at the time of exposure, but I tend to agree. Still, you're not always going to get it right. Since the D90 lets you shoot RAW+JPG (with full-size files), I'm starting to shoot that combination whenever lighting conditions seem tricky. If the JPG looks good, I go with it. If not, the RAW file is there as a backup. If I don't need the RAW .nef file, I usually don't download them to the computer to save storage space, but that's only because it's an old computer with limited storage by today's standards. This was shot on the run the other day, and the JPG looked ghastly because of the sodium vapor lights. But I was able to go back to the RAW file and easily color-balance the image before downloading it.

I usually shoot RAW with a small colour enhanced JPEG as a backup and for happy snappy use. For this shot in difficult light (early morning, overcast, darkened cafe window with a mixture of lights) I just couldn't get the colour I wanted out of ACR, pushing harder than this blew the colours out or produced casts. My JPEG in Bridge looked way better. The above shot shows Adobe Camera Raw processing (left) vs Digital Photo Professional (right). These are my optimised images using saturation and vibrance in ACR plus a bit of increased contrast to bring out the colour vs a dab of increased saturation in DPP. So I switched to my much neglected DPP and there were my reds. I could get more colour than this from ACR but only by shifting red tones to orange, really working the selective sliders then coming back and fighting colour casts with the colour balance tool (magenta was a frequent offender). So I'm sold on DPP for colour management, just wish it had a clarity slider.

This is the eBook version of the printed book.
Today serious photographers shoot raw images only. Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop was the first book devoted exclusively to the topic, explaining the advantages and challenges of using Adobe Camera Raw to produce magnificent images. Real World Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop CS5 keeps pace with new directions in digital photography and raw image processing. Jeff Schewe, a contributor to the development of Adobe Camera Raw from its beginnings, updates Bruce Fraser’s bestselling book with insider knowledge of how new features let photographers optimize and convert images for the best results in Adobe Photoshop CS5.
Hands-on techniques show readers how to expose and shoot for raw image capture as well as use features such as the Adjustment Brush and the Graduated Filter and the new and improved Noise Reduction, Perspective Crop, and automatic Lens Correction. Readers will also learn how to use the latest version of Adobe Bridge to manage the thousands of images--and gigabytes of data--that result from shooting in raw.
This edition:
Builds on the latest version of Camera Raw to extend control over your digital camera's raw file format to produce the best quality images.
Shows you how to take advantage of new features in Adobe Bridge CS5 to select, sort, annotate, and edit thousands of raw images quickly and efficiently.
Guides you in developing an efficient raw workflow incorporating Adobe Photoshop CS5, Camera Raw 6, and Bridge CS5
This is the eBook version of the printed book.
Today serious photographers shoot raw images only. Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop was the first book devoted exclusively to the topic, explaining the advantages and challenges of using Adobe Camera Raw to produce magnificent images. Real World Camera Raw in Adobe Photoshop CS5 keeps pace with new directions in digital photography and raw image processing. Jeff Schewe, a contributor to the development of Adobe Camera Raw from its beginnings, updates Bruce Fraser’s bestselling book with insider knowledge of how new features let photographers optimize and convert images for the best results in Adobe Photoshop CS5.
Hands-on techniques show readers how to expose and shoot for raw image capture as well as use features such as the Adjustment Brush and the Graduated Filter and the new and improved Noise Reduction, Perspective Crop, and automatic Lens Correction. Readers will also learn how to use the latest version of Adobe Bridge to manage the thousands of images--and gigabytes of data--that result from shooting in raw.
This edition:
Builds on the latest version of Camera Raw to extend control over your digital camera's raw file format to produce the best quality images.
Shows you how to take advantage of new features in Adobe Bridge CS5 to select, sort, annotate, and edit thousands of raw images quickly and efficiently.
Guides you in developing an efficient raw workflow incorporating Adobe Photoshop CS5, Camera Raw 6, and Bridge CS5