Adobe Photoshop Cs5 Content Awareness Brief tutorial on this new tool.

[Saint_Michael 3]

In this tutorial I want to cover the content awareness tool that is introduced in Adobe Photoshop CS5. If you seen the video in the weeks before CS5 came out, you would have seen the demo video of it working in action.

 

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

If you were like me, you drool over what content awareness does and that is this tool has the ability to remove objects quicker and cleaner like they never there in the first place. After spending some time with the content awareness tool, some of that time was actually finding it, content awareness does have some drawbacks to it and so that is what I want to bring up while demonstrating how content awareness works.

 

One of the first things I notice about this tool is that is has a unique flaw or rather an interesting side affect to it. It acts like the clone stamp plain and simple and will show it by using the following image.

 

What I am going to do is use the content awareness tool and select the sky above the buildings and after I select it you will see why I reference the clone stamp tool in Photoshop.

 

 

 

As you can see, if you were to do the same thing with the clone stamp tool, more or less unblended, you pull off the same result, thus the reason it is unique flaw or interesting side affect. Why is this important, simple you can create interesting textures or background images on the fly and that could benefit graphic designers in some way when creating posters and large scale images.

 

Not to beat a dead horse, well I will, content awareness is a more efficient clone stamp tool because of the fact content aware blend more efficiently then clone stamp, and what could take hours could take seconds or minutes with it.

 

 

The next thing I like to point out is that brush size matters, you will notice that there is only one brush type with limited features, and this is important because of what I mentioned earlier about the clone stamp. However, in the image below I will show you what happens when you use a large brush size with a smaller object.

 

 

As you can see I basically clone stamp part of building where that metal piping use to be, however, if you were to match the brush size to the object you want to remove, then it looks like it was never there.

 

 

As you can see, it looks a lot cleaner, however, if you have a trained eye or zoom in closer, you can tell that that area looks off in some way and if you were to blow this image up, well it could be quite an embarrassment for you if it looks obvious that something was removed.

 

Now, if the item you want to remove is behind a solid color or has no detailed background, then there isn't much of a problem, however, if you were to do this in a picture like the one I am using then it takes careful execution to blend the area to match it with everything else.

 

 

The final thing I would like to discuss is extending the size of the image using content awareness. This is where the tool is most broken, and I bet your asking why do you even want to extend the image to begin with? Well, actually that is a good question and the best answer I can come up with is cut off images or resizing them to look bigger. Regardless, the role of content awareness is to fill in the gap and so what I did was resize the canvas to proper 00 width and height i.e. 700x500.

 

 

The reason I say it's broken is that you can't just fill in the white area automatically, you have to go through a painstaking process to try to match the area with the rest of the image and after trying various methods. It gets rather brutal, but odds are if a person spends enough time with the image it is possible to make it work. However, if your working with solid colors with little detail it won't matter, but if you're using an image like I am you just want to go RAWR!

 

 

In short, if you want to extend the image in anyway, take panorama shots and just combine and blend for best photo layout, hopefully in the coming months and possible updates, content awareness can be improved on.

 

It is an awesome tool that will save a lot of man hours, but with the few things I have pointed out in this brief tutorial, content awareness can't be used all the time. However, with a lot practice, patience, and tools, the untrained eye might not even tell the difference.

 

This is the content awareness tool and I am Saint Michael so long and goodnight.

[iGuest 3]

Everyone who talks about Photoshop CS5 seems to be focusing only on the content awareness tool This was a good intro SM. I'm a total n00b to photoshop and wanted to start learning, so I downloaded the trial version of CS5, and started watching a few videos on Youtube. I have a quick doubt if you don't mind - in one of the videos, CS2 (or 3) was being used, and there was a feature called "Extract" or something like that in the "Filter" menu. It was used like an alternative to the Magic Wand tool, to separate an image from its background. I liked the feature since I felt it gives more control, but in CS5 I couldn't find it anywhere. Do you know if it's hidden elsewhere?

[Little Asterisk 1]

@guest

The extraction tool you are looking for, I believe, does not exist in the newer (CS4 and CS5) versions of Photoshop. However, as I recall, you can download a separate plug in set for free from Adobe's site and implement these in a newer version of Photoshop. If you need any help installing, this tutorial came up during my short Google search on your problem: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Hope that helps.

@Saint_Michael

Good job, you made a nice tutorial.
The "Content aware fill" is a nice feature in CS5 but, as always, more of a hype was created over this feature than it was supposed to. It's all fun and games, but when comes to "real-life" work you'd still need to use the mighty "clone stamp".

In my honest opinion, the tool works alright on "clean" backgrounds, but chokes often when some more complex stuff appears in the background.

[The Simpleton 2]

@guest

 

The extraction tool you are looking for, I believe, does not exist in the newer (CS4 and CS5) versions of Photoshop. However, as I recall, you can download a separate plug in set for free from Adobe's site and implement these in a newer version of Photoshop. If you need any help installing, this tutorial came up during my short Google search on your problem: youtube.cfeature

 

Hope that helps.

Lol I was that guest I was automatically logged out and didn't notice it.

 

Thanks for the video. I haven't tried it out yet but I'm sure it'll work just fine A lot of videos on Youtube still show people using CS2 AND CS3. Does that mean CS4&5 have lesser features or is it simply because the people haven't been able to update yet? I still have 4 weeks of my trial of CS5 so I want to learn as much as possible before it expires!

[Little Asterisk 1]

CS4 and CS5 don't have that feature implemented at all. I just guess the Adobe guys found them unnecessary, or they weren't used that much.EDIT: Whoa, just now I understand what you meant to say :)I guess these guys haven't upgraded because the software itself costs around 800$ (I think) ;)As for the ones who... Well, do not pay for their software - why, they're probably using Photoshop only for some basic stuff, so they probably don't have the need to upgrade. There is this guy who makes great drawings (I'll post a video and name if I remember who it is), and he's using Photoshop 4, 5 or 6 (not really sure) on his old Macintosh. So,... It's really not that much about the software now, is it?

Edited June 25, 2010 by Little Asterisk (see edit history)

[The Simpleton 2]

EDIT: Whoa, just now I understand what you meant to say
I guess these guys haven't upgraded because the software itself costs around 800$ (I think)

Doesn't upgrading from a previous version cost much lesser? Around $200-$300 if I'm not wrong....

As for the ones who... Well, do not pay for their software - why, they're probably using Photoshop only for some basic stuff, so they probably don't have the need to upgrade.
There is this guy who makes great drawings (I'll post a video and name if I remember who it is), and he's using Photoshop 4, 5 or 6 (not really sure) on his old Macintosh. So,... It's really not that much about the software now, is it?

That's true - and once they've become comfortable with that particular version, they find it tedious to get used to the new version so they're happy with the old version. Oh, and if you remember the name of that guy, do post it over here, coz he seems to have good talent

[Saint_Michael 3]

Everyone who talks about Photoshop CS5 seems to be focusing only on the content awareness tool This was a good intro SM. I'm a total n00b to photoshop and wanted to start learning, so I downloaded the trial version of CS5, and started watching a few videos on Youtube. I have a quick doubt if you don't mind - in one of the videos, CS2 (or 3) was being used, and there was a feature called "Extract" or something like that in the "Filter" menu. It was used like an alternative to the Magic Wand tool, to separate an image from its background. I liked the feature since I felt it gives more control, but in CS5 I couldn't find it anywhere. Do you know if it's hidden elsewhere?

 

Though it is already mentioned in previous posts, there are three ways to do this, one being the extract filter plugin which can be downloaded here. Or, you can use the refine edge option for the same result by going to select > refine edge. The third option is to use the background eraser tool and there you can focus on removing specific colors from the image your working with. However, that tool still requires a steady hand and patient, especially if it is a gradient background as you be dealing with hundreds of colors.

 

As for the two options I did mention they are both in CS5.

 

@guest

 

The extraction tool you are looking for, I believe, does not exist in the newer (CS4 and CS5) versions of Photoshop. However, as I recall, you can download a separate plug in set for free from Adobe's site and implement these in a newer version of Photoshop. If you need any help installing, this tutorial came up during my short Google search on your problem: youtube.cfeature

 

Hope that helps.

 

@Saint_Michael

 

Good job, you made a nice tutorial.

The "Content aware fill" is a nice feature in CS5 but, as always, more of a hype was created over this feature than it was supposed to. It's all fun and games, but when comes to "real-life" work you'd still need to use the mighty "clone stamp".

 

In my honest opinion, the tool works alright on "clean" backgrounds, but chokes often when some more complex stuff appears in the background.

 

All Content Awareness is a smart clone stamp tool and so it reduces the time needed to use the clone stamp tool.

 

Lol I was that guest I was automatically logged out and didn't notice it.

 

Thanks for the video. I haven't tried it out yet but I'm sure it'll work just fine A lot of videos on Youtube still show people using CS2 AND CS3. Does that mean CS4&5 have lesser features or is it simply because the people haven't been able to update yet? I still have 4 weeks of my trial of CS5 so I want to learn as much as possible before it expires!

 

Your best bet is to go to the adobe website for videos or lynda.com for videos as well. As for features CS5, there are a lot of them. Just a few minutes ago I found another way to use content awareness and of course they gave a new way to look at color selection when using the eye dropper tool.

 

 

CS4 and CS5 don't have that feature implemented at all.

 

I just guess the Adobe guys found them unnecessary, or they weren't used that much.

 

EDIT: Whoa, just now I understand what you meant to say

 

I guess these guys haven't upgraded because the software itself costs around 800$ (I think)

 

As for the ones who... Well, do not pay for their software - why, they're probably using Photoshop only for some basic stuff, so they probably don't have the need to upgrade.

 

There is this guy who makes great drawings (I'll post a video and name if I remember who it is), and he's using Photoshop 4, 5 or 6 (not really sure) on his old Macintosh. So,... It's really not that much about the software now, is it?

 

The upgrade itself is $600 and full versions is $1700. Yeah I agree that most people don't use everything that hte software has to offer and I would not be surprise if people are still using hte older versions because of basic needs.

 

 

Doesn't upgrading from a previous version cost much lesser? Around $200-$300 if I'm not wrong....

 

 

 

That's true - and once they've become comfortable with that particular version, they find it tedious to get used to the new version so they're happy with the old version. Oh, and if you remember the name of that guy, do post it over here, coz he seems to have good talent

 

Yeah the upgrade is cheaper as I mentioned above of course there are people like me who don't want upgrades .

[The Simpleton 2]

Your best bet is to go to the adobe website for videos or lynda.com for videos as well. As for features CS5, there are a lot of them

Thanks for the tip SM. I found some useful videos over there.

The upgrade itself costs $600? No wonder people are still using old versions without complaining about it! If this trend goes on then Adobe won't have many takers for its future versions at all. They'd better watch out and do something about their pricing soon.