Photoshop CC 2018 review

Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 is a comprehensive and powerful software tool that caters to a wide array of creative needs, from photo editing to digital painting and graphic design. Here’s a detailed look at its usage:

Interface and Layout:

• Photoshop CC 2018 presents a user-friendly interface, with tools arranged in a vertical toolbar on the left, and adjustable palettes on the right for managing layers, adjustments, and more.
• The workspace is customizable, allowing users to tailor the layout to their workflow, highlighting essential tools and panels while minimizing distractions.

Core Features:

• Layers: Central to Photoshop’s functionality, the Layers panel facilitates complex image compositions, adjustments, and manipulations, offering granular control over each element’s visibility and interaction through masks and blend modes.
• Selection Tools: Photoshop excels in creating precise selections, essential for tasks like background removal or object isolation, showcasing its prowess in handling intricate and detailed editing challenges.
• Retouching Tools: Tools like the Clone Stamp, Healing Brush, and Patch tool provide robust options for removing blemishes, duplicating elements, or correcting imperfections, enhancing the overall quality of images.

Advanced Capabilities:

• Liquify Tools: Known for its ability to modify shapes and contours, the Liquify feature underscores Photoshop’s capacity for detailed and sometimes controversial adjustments, particularly in altering human figures.
• Comprehensive Editing: From basic tweaks to advanced composites, Photoshop supports an extensive range of editing tasks, making it the go-to software for professionals seeking meticulous control over their images.

Conclusion:
Photoshop CC 2018 stands out for its depth of features, customization options, and precision editing capabilities. While it may require a learning curve to master its advanced functions, its comprehensive toolset makes it an indispensable asset for serious photographers, designers, and digital artists who demand the highest level of control and creativity in their work.

Photoshop CC 2018 introduced several new features and improvements:

1. Integration with Lightroom CC: Photoshop CC 2018 can display Lightroom photos directly from its start screen, facilitating a smoother workflow between the two applications.
2. Spherical Panorama Editing: With the rise of 360-degree VR imaging, Photoshop CC 2018 added support for editing spherical panoramas, allowing users to modify and enhance these immersive images directly.
3. HEIF File Support: The software now supports HEIF image files, including the depth maps created with the iPhone’s Portrait mode, allowing for enhanced background blur effects.
4. Improved Selection Tools: The Refine Mask dialog offers more accurate and realistic results, making it easier to handle complex selections with irregular edges.
5. Curvature Pen Tool: This new tool provides a more intuitive method for tracing curved outlines, enhancing the precision of path creation.
6. Enhanced Adobe Camera Raw: New luminance and color range mask tools in Adobe Camera Raw improve the selectivity of adjustments applied through gradient or radial filters.
7. Brush Tool Improvements: The update brought better brush preset management, performance enhancements, and new brush stroke smoothing tools.
8. Support for Variable Fonts: Photoshop CC 2018 supports variable fonts, allowing live adjustments to font characteristics like weight and slant.
9. New Learn Panel: For beginners, the new Learn panel offers tutorials for common editing tasks, supplemented by ‘rich’ tooltips that explain tool functions with images and GIFs.
10. Enhanced Layer Management: Users can now cut and paste layers between documents more efficiently, a feature that was surprisingly absent in earlier versions.
11. Performance Enhancements: The update includes various performance improvements, from faster file creation to optimized blending, layering operations, and memory management.

In summary, Photoshop CC 2018 focused on enhancing integration with other Adobe tools, improving user experience with new learning resources, and expanding its capabilities to handle emerging image formats and editing needs.

Verdict

So is Photoshop CC 2018 still the ultimate image-editor? The answer to this question comes in two parts. First, if what you want is a supremely precise, technical and efficient image manipulation tool, then Photoshop CC 2018 really is the ultimate. It does have a rival in Affinity Photo 1.6, though, and it’s a very serious one.

Affinity Photo goes about the same jobs in a slightly different way but ultimately if you put the same effort into learning Affinity Photo as you might Photoshop, then you’ll discover a program that can match it for power, control and precision – and without having to pay a monthly subscription fee.

But while Photoshop is supremely powerful at what it does, it may not do everything you want, and that’s the second part of this verdict.

For managing your image library, enhancing raw files in bulk, sharing your work with clients and fans and assembling a portfolio, you need Adobe Lightroom or one of its rivals. Photoshop works on single images, it doesn’t attempt to act as a kind of digital hub for your photography in the way that Lightroom does.

Lightroom is perfect for quick photo effects and regular photo enhancements, but you still need Photoshop for layered image montages and masking effects.

And with Photoshop you have to bring your own ideas and inspiration. Unlike some other photo-editors, it doesn’t show you how your images could look with a dozen different photographic effects applied.

With Photoshop, you definitely have to bring your own ideas, which can be a bit of an issue because that’s what a lot of us actually want some help with.

To a degree, Lightroom can help here, with its collections of preset image effects, and Lightroom and Photoshop really do make a very effective double-act.

Indeed, for photographers the most cost-effective way to get Photoshop is via Adobe’s Photography plan, at £9.98/$9.99 per month (paid annually), which includes both programs.

Photoshop CC 2018 is an excellent tool for a very specific set of tasks, but in a broader context the imaging world has moved on and it’s more likely you’ll use Photoshop as just one of your photo-editing tools rather than the only one.