When we first sneaked content-aware fill in Photoshop CS5, there were more than a few misbelievers. Gizmodo called it, “the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.” VentureBeat called it, “the power of the gods,” and suspected, “there just has to be sorcery involved.” ProLost called it, “actual witchcraft.” YouTube commenters said, “grab the torches.”

Of course, we were flattered. And actually, a little frightened. So here we are to tell you: It’s not witchcraft – it’s only science! Content-aware fill began in 2007 when Eli Shechtman joined the team and introduced a patch-based synthesis algorithm he had developed at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The speed issue was solved in our research labs in collaboration with our colleagues at Princeton University. PhD student Connelly Barnes (now a post-doc in our Cambridge, MA satellite lab) developed the initial prototype code during his Adobe Seattle internship in the summer of 2008. Our joint work became the foundation for a technical academic paper published at SIGGRAPH 2009, entitled “PatchMatch: A Randomized Correspondence Algorithm for Structural Image Editing.”

Previous state-of-the-art academic methods for filling missing pixels in images were impractical in the real world – taking hours to fill just a few hundred pixels! Our work showed how to accelerate the bottlenecks of these methods by factors of 20-100, which suddenly made it seem feasible to use them in real shipping software. Even before the paper was in print, we began discussing how we could bring it to Photoshop. Thanks to lots of hard work and tight collaboration between our lab and the Photoshop team, we were able to ship the feature the following spring – a pretty short time for a research paper to have an impact on the real world! In addition to shipping in Photoshop, that little summer internship project became the foundation for Connelly’s PhD thesis, which he successfully defended last spring.
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Experiencing Photoshop
It’s not easy to explain what we do for a living. The conversation normally goes like this:
“So, what do you do?”
“Do you know Photoshop?
“Yah.”
“I’m a Photoshop Experience Designer.”
“You’re a designer and you use Photoshop?”
“No, I work at Adobe and I design the Photoshop experience.”
“Oh, awesome! I love Photoshop! – So what does that mean exactly?”

What we talk about when we talk about experience design
Tons of people use Photoshop every day, for tasks as varied as painting in the backgrounds of feature films, CSI-style forensic science, creating surreal worlds, designing amazing posters, illustrating fashion, designing the next big web app that you’ll be hearing about any day now, or just having a bit of fun. Each of these experiences is intensely personal, deeply engrained and profoundly meaningful.

For many folks, using Photoshop is like a playing an instrument or riding a bike. They’ve gotten so used to the ways that they do things that they don’t think about them anymore. However, there is so much going on just under the radar of the conscious mind. Tools are selected and complex actions are performed without pause. At its best, the experience of creation is fluid, natural, and obvious. When this flow is impeded, there is great opportunity for improvement.

For those using it for the first time, the powerful diversity of Photoshop can be daunting, often overwhelming. Building up the understanding of how to do something, and learning the ins and outs of the tool takes time and effort. Ideally, the more straightforward this learning process is, the better. The sooner a person can start making what they see in their mind’s eye, the sooner the particulars of how they are doing it can fade away. Forgetting the interface, in favor of immersing yourself in the process of making, is what we’re constantly striving for as experience designers.
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Today we released Photoshop update version 13.0.3 (for Mac perpetual customers) and version 13.1.1 (for Creative Cloud members, Mac and Windows), resolving the following bugs:

• Certain PSD files fail to open when they have layer FX applied to layers
• The application crashes when opening certain EPS files
• On Retina machines, the application crashes when the Navigator panel is displayed in some workspaces

How to get the Update

1. In Photoshop, choose Help > Updates.
2. The Adobe Application Manager will launch. Select Adobe Photoshop CS6 and choose Update.

How to confirm that the Update worked

1. In Photoshop, choose Help > About Photoshop (Win), or Photoshop > About Photoshop (Mac)
2. For Mac perpetual customers, the version at the top should be Version: 13.0.3
3. For Win/Mac Creative Cloud members, the version at the top should be Version: 13.1.1

Giving us feedback

The quality of Photoshop wouldn’t be what it is today without our passionate and loyal customers around the world. Giving us regular feedback helps us to find and fix issues that we may otherwise not know about. We are listening.

Here are a few ways that you can send us feedback:

• Give feedback on Photoshop.com
• Give feedback on the Photoshop User to User forums
• In Photoshop, choose Help > Adobe Product Improvement Program, then click Participate

A little over a year ago we shipped Revel 1.0. In that time, we have learned so much about you and what you want from a photo app like Revel. One of the things we heard loud and clear was that a lot of you loved Revel, but you really wanted a free version of the app. There’s an old adage in show business to give the audience what they want, and that is exactly what we are doing today.

Here is a summary of the changes we are making to Revel:

• We are eliminating the 30-day trial and replacing it with a free version of Revel that you can use for as long as you like.
• You can still upgrade to Revel Premium as an in-app purchase in the Revel App.

With the free version of Revel you get:

• The ability to import as many photos as you want in the first 30 days
• After that you can import up to 50 photos every month
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At the end of the year, it’s important to celebrate what has been achieved, and look forward to the new successes that lie ahead. For Photoshop Touch, 2012 was an exciting year. The app was launched for new devices including iPad, iPad mini, Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, Kindle Fire, and more, plus added new languages and great new features!

We are excited to announce that iTunes has named Photoshop Touch to the App Store Best of 2012 list in the Post PC-Creation category, aimed at finding apps that “untether creativity from your desktop, enabling you to craft masterpieces and share them from wherever life inspires you most.”

The award comes just one week after Photoshop Touch was named to the App Store Hall of Fame, a fitting way to reward fans who have used Photoshop Touch to push the boundaries of image editing.

In addition to Photoshop Touch, Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom app was also named to the Mac App Store Best of 2012. Lightroom was named as one of the “Best Apps of 2012,” and is currently averaging a 4.31 out of 5-star user rating on the Mac App Store.

Thanks to all of the fans who have supported Photoshop Touch and Lightroom for the past year. Recognition like this wouldn’t come without the support of our customers. We’re looking forward to another great year in 2013!

Photoshop is more than just software, it’s a celebration of creativity and the ability to make any image into something inspirational. Before Photoshop, artists were enhancing and manipulating photographs through any number of methods, including photomontage, combination printing, overpainting, retouching, or a combination of any of the aforementioned processes. To celebrate these pioneers, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is hosting an exhibit titled Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop.

In conjunction with this exhibit, we would like to invite the Photoshop community to share their photo manipulations with us for a chance to win some special prizes. Every week, from now through February 7th, we will post an image from the Faking It exhibit that will serve as inspiration for that week’s submissions. Photoshop fans can submit their own altered photograph showing their interpretation of the theme, and at the end of each week, a random winner will be chosen to receive a print copy of the 296-page exhibition companion Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop by Mia Fineman.
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There’s never been a better time to become a Adobe Creative Cloud member because today, Adobe Photoshop gives Creative Cloud members exclusive access to more than a dozen exciting new features that will take your Photoshop workflow to the next level!

If you’d like to see some of these new Photoshop features for Creative Cloud members in action, check out this video from our own Principal Digital Imaging Evangelist Julieanne Kost, in which she shares her top 5 new features for photographers.

Here’s a closer look at what’s new in Photoshop CS6 (13.1) for Creative Cloud members:

• Retina Display Support: See more of the details in your images and in the Photoshop user interface when viewing on new Retina displays available on MacBook Pro.
• Smart Object support for Blur Gallery and Liquify: Enjoy the creative freedom to experience nondestructive editing with Blur Gallery and Liquify, now that both features offer Smart Object support. These effects can even be applied non-destructively to video layers.
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Wondering why you’ve received a notification from your Adobe Application Manager (AAM) today?

Well, we’re pleased to announce that an update for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator CS6 is now available for Creative Cloud members and Mac customers! For more details and to learn what’s new, please join us at the Create Now event on Dec. 11 at 10 a.m. PST. You can RSVP for the event here.

How to get the update:
1. In Photoshop or Illustrator, choose Help > Updates
2. The Adobe Application Manager will launch. Select Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator CS6 and choose “Update.”

Tomorrow is Help-Portrait Day, a day that mobilizes photographers worldwide to lend their time and photography skills to their local communities. To learn a little more about Help-Portrait day, I enlisted the help of Adobe Computer Scientist Max Wendt, a veteran of the program.

Tell us about yourself! What’s your role on the Adobe Camera Raw team?
Max: I am based in Madison, Wisconsin and have been a Computer Scientist with Adobe for over fifteen years. My background is in music — I have a degree in saxophone performance, and am currently studying the double bass — so my focus on performing arts photography was a natural extension of that.

 I also run a small photography business, primarily serving the performing arts community. I’m relatively new to the Adobe Camera Raw team. I have been working on camera and lens profiles, as well as the DNG utilities.

What is Help-Portrait, and what compelled you to get involved?
Max: Help-Portrait is a way for photographers to give back to their communities. The idea is very simple and open-ended: find someone in need, take and print their portrait, and give it to them. The details of exactly whom to shoot and how that’s done is up to the photographer.

In practice, it often becomes a bigger thing: many photographers form groups and work together to serve more people. Non-photographer volunteers join in and help in many ways: assisting shoots with large groups, translating for non-native speakers, organizing events, donating food or clothes, etc.

I first got involved with Help-Portrait when my friend Kelly Doering introduced me to the idea. Those first few years we were small and scrappy, but we brought along Santa and Mrs. Claus, and donations of hats, mittens, and scarves from a local knitting guild. We got a great response, and I really did feel like I got more out of it than I was giving.

The last two years, our smaller group has joined forces with a group organized by Amandalynn Jones and Jim Gill. We transformed a local food pantry into a temporary photo studio on Help-Portrait Day. We set up six shooting bays and a small reception area with a table of knitted goods and live music. In order to better align with the food pantry’s schedule, we did Help-Portrait Day a week early this year. We had 139 sessions with 476 people, eight dogs, and one cat. Fourteen photographers shot throughout the day, many taking multiple shifts, and a small army of other helpers made everything run smoothly.
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