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Adobe gave folks a look at some early, in-the-works technology, including “Perspective Warp” in Photoshop and “Video Color Grading” in After Effects, at this week’s Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles.
The digital media and marketing software company presented a behind-the-scenes look at cutting-edge design and interactive technologies at Adobe MAX, The Creativity Conference. Focused on creativity and expressiveness, MAX brings together more than 5,000 creative industry professionals.
Known as MAX Sneak Peeks, these glimpses offer an opportunity to see inside Adobe’s engineering labs and to preview breakthrough applications and features during their early stages of development. For example, the new Camera Shake Reduction tool that analyzes and corrects blur from camera movement, which was just unveiled as part of the newly announced Adobe Photoshop CC, was first shown publicly at MAX Sneak Peeks in October 2011.
“The Sneaks embody the spirit and passion for technology innovation that thrives at Adobe,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager of the Digital Media Business at Adobe, in a statement. “The presentations are always a sensation at Adobe MAX; the energy and enthusiasm from the audience is electric and demonstrate that our creative customers are always ready to embrace the new.”
The Perspective Warp feature in Photoshop enables users to adjust the perspective for parts of a photo while keeping the rest of the image intact. Liquid Search enables users to search without words to describe what they are looking for. Instead they can use a silhouette, then draw it, resize it, drag it and reshape it, and Liquid Search will do the rest.
And then there’s “Painting with Bob,” which enables users to create a masterpiece painting without painting. Special brushes allow users to “paint” by copying a picture using a variety of special strokes and textures. In addition, Adobe Muse is gaining code-free Website special effects. Muse is a platform for building Websites without having to write any code. Adobe said next up for Muse will be code-free color transformations, 3D motion and more.
Adobe also discussed a Sneak Peek of its Creative Cloud as a Service for Photoshop. In the opening keynote at the event, the company talked about how Creative Cloud makes it possible to host that “Adobe magic” as a service to power all sorts of apps and more. This sneak is an example of that, a Photoshop feature running in the crowd and made better over time thanks to crowdsourcing.
In another sneak, Adobe introduced Audio Layers, which enables users to easily separate desired audio from background noise. Users simply use a visual editor to paint the sounds they want while identifying those sounds they don’t want, and the tool will do the rest.
Adobe Sneak Peeks Offer Glimpse at Upcoming Technology
Other Sneak Peeks from Adobe MAX 2013 included:
- Drawing Tools Revisited: The opening keynote introduced a hardware project named “Mighty“—and a related short ruler project named “Napoleon“—which aims to marry traditional drawing tools with the mobility and flexibility of tablet devices. Innovative next-generation hardware like these need new yet familiar software, Adobe said.
- Responsive Design with Edge Code (Edge Code): Edge Reflow is the perfect tool for creative pros who want to build modern, responsive Websites. But what about developers whose workflow is highly code-based? Here’s an Edge Reflow-inspired experience available right inside of Edge Code.
- Playing with Lighting (After Effects & Photoshop): Photographers will often tell you that “It’s all about the lighting.” This sneak lets you experiment and play with lighting after the fact. Tweak image lighting based on a selected sample and turn your home movies into blockbuster hits—or at least make them look the part—by adjusting lighting modeled on any movie you choose.
- Navigating and Debugging Asynchronous JavaScript in Brackets (Edge Code): Developers never again have to ask: “What code runs when I click this button,” “What code caused this callback to be called,” or “Why didn’t this code ever run?” This Edge Code plug-in reveals all.
- Digital Publication Special Effects (DPS): Digital publications shouldn’t merely be copies of their print counterparts. After all, tablets and devices can do so much more. This sneak impresses with just how easy it can be to add animation, special effects and even accelerometer-based movement to your digital publications.
- PSD Lens (Edge Code): Most Websites start off as Photoshop comps that designers then turn into Web pages (which is why Photoshop includes features that assist creative professionals in quickly and easily converting their creations for Web use). But what about developers who are more comfortable in code and use a very different workflow? This sneak allows Edge Code users to open PSD files right inside their editor, exposing all that Photoshop goodness in real time as they type.