Software Review
Adobe Photoshop CS5 represents a large and impressive step forward in terms of workflow, productivity and feature convenience. If you're familiar with earlier versions of Photoshop, the first thing you'll notice is a marked enhancement in the convenience of your favorite tools, and the ease with which you can access and integrate them into your project. Compared to Photoshop CS4, its faster, smoother and more effective.
The veteran set of powerful imaging tools that Adobe Photoshop is so well known for have been updated to perform even better in CS5. For example, the core features Dodge, Burn, Sponge and Clone Stamp tools have been improved and simply work more efficiently - both by themselves and as a toolkit. The big successes of Photoshop CS4 such as Content Aware Fill and Edge Detection (which work to erase disruptive figures from an image without blemish and sharpen edges for clarity respectively) have kept their starting spot in the CS5 line-up, but their intuitivity and effectiveness have taken a step forward.
A series of new, fun tools have also been added, such as the color-aware painting brushes (which recognise colours in a picture and re-align the paintbrush accordingly, allowing even water colour-like effects), which, whilst not revolutionizing the Photoshop product, nonetheless provide hours of experimenting and some very stylish effects.
Primarily though, workflow and productivity is where Photoshop CS5's features come into their own. Never before has everything seemed so accessible and integrated into the overall editing process, simply in terms of location and compatibility of the tools.