This Photoshop CC Update Is Radical, And I Can't Wait

Photoshop CC's most magical feature is about to get a big update. That's Content-Aware Fill, and it is easily the most important feature added to the software in the past half-decade. I use this feature constantly – especially when it comes to editing photos of gear for review. (Gotta get that dust and hair out of there before it hits the home screen.) Now it's getting much, much more versatile.

Before now, there were a few ways to use Content-Aware Fill in Photoshop. For the most part I'd use it like so: Select a bunch of spaces where bits of dust appear in a photo, hit Shift-Delete, and say Yes, Fill Contents: Content-Aware. There'd be options for Color Adaptation and Blending (Mode, Opacity, option to preserve transparency). And it was and still is magical.

SEE THAT ONE TIME: When I submitted to CC

But making certain I select spaces the right way is important. If I select all the right parts of the picture the right way, the resulting image should look naturally clean. If I select things with slightly too-large or in too-difficult-to-process areas, the results can make the photo look strange. It can turn lines in odd directions and it can place a donkey's leg in the middle of its own forehead.

The newest version of this feature includes a bunch of ways to edit what you've done. It allows the user to turn the result, to tell Photoshop more context (more than none, anyway), and it allows you to direct the program to do exactly what you want it to do, without having to rig the selection space. You can be much more precise, and the magic shall become yours, at last.

Above you'll see what's going to happen with the next update to Photoshop CC's Content-Aware Fill. The fact that this update is coming to Photoshop CC (with Creative Cloud) suddenly makes me highly aware of the fact that the subscription cost pays for updates such as these. For that I am excited to a high degree.