Adobe Photoshop now runs natively on M1 Macs

Adobe released an optimized version of Lightroom in December that ran natively on the M1 Macs, and Windows on ARM machines too. Back then, Adobe also started beta testing M1-optimized builds of some of its more popular offerings such as Photoshop. Well, the product is finally ready for prime time. Adobe has released a new version of Photoshop that runs natively on the new MacBooks powered by the in-house M1 silicon.

Preset Syncing and Invite to Edit Cloud Documents tools are yet to be ported for M1 Macs

Following internal testing, Adobe claims ‘a wide range of features’ offer an average speed boost of 1.5X with the new and optimized version of Photoshop. The company even mentions in its blog post that some tasks are substantially faster compared to what you get on the Rosetta 2 emulated version or the x86-optimized build of the app. Specifically, tasks such as opening/closing files, applying filters, Content-Aware Fill, and subject selection will run noticeably faster on the M1 Macs.

However, there are a few Photoshop features that are yet to be optimized for taking full advantage of the M1 chip, and they will be released later this year. Notable features that are yet to be ported for the ARM-based M1 ecosystem are Preset Syncing and Invite to Edit Cloud Documents. Adobe advises users to revert back to the non-optimized version of Photoshop to use them with the Rosetta 2 emulation layer, in case those features are an integral part of their workflow.

Adobe Photoshop for iPad gets new tools too

adobe photoshop ipad document history
Cloud Documents Version History

Additionally, Adobe has also added two notable features to the Photoshop app for iPad – Cloud Documents Version History and Offline Cloud Documents Editing. The first one allows users to revert back to versions of a document as old as 60 days. Users can also choose to save older versions, rename them or even put them on the bookmark list. The latter allows users to download their cloud-based documents and store them locally for offline editing.

adobe photoshop ipad offline editing
Offline Cloud Documents Editing
View MacBook Pro M1 at Amazon
View MacBook Air M1 at Amazon

The post Adobe Photoshop now runs natively on M1 Macs appeared first on Pocketnow.

Adobe’s Acrobat Web gets new functionalities to make your PDF life easier

In July 2020, Adobe partnered with Google for “.new”  to launch new browser shortcuts to create, convert, compress, sign, and design documents in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Spark. As per Adobe, it saw about 10 million clicks on its existing shortcuts. Now, it is building on the same set of features and bringing them to its web app of Acrobat.

Up until now, Acrobat on the web wasn’t quite as fully featured as the desktop version. If you were looking for capabilities like editing text and images in PDFs, you had to resort to the desktop app. However, that’s changing now. Adobe is bringing this ability to its online service. If you find yourself in need of more specific PDF tools, like editing text and images, redacting, or OCRing, you will have to upgrade to an Acrobat subscription for more PDF power on the web, mobile, and desktop.

Listed below are the new shortcuts introduced by Adobe for Acrobat Web:

  • PDF.new – To create a free Adobe Acrobat PDF from any Microsoft Office or image file.
  • Sign.new – to create a PDF form that you can fill, sign, save, and send.
  • ConvertPDF.new – To convert a JPG into a PDF file.
  • CompressPDF.new – To reduce the file size of a PDF file to make it manageable.
  • WordtoPDF.new – To convert a Word file to PDF.

You can simply type these shortcuts into your browser and you can jump right in. “We have been working diligently to develop additional tools and new shortcuts, so that these simple searches and commands lead to trusted solutions from Adobe,” said Adobe in its blog post. The company plans to roll out more of these shortcuts over the course of the next year.

“We could have done it earlier, but it wouldn’t have been up to the standards of being fast, nimble and quality,” Todd Gerber, Adobe’s VP for Document Cloud told TechCrunch. He said that working with fonts was one of the more difficult problems the team faced in bringing this capability online.

The post Adobe’s Acrobat Web gets new functionalities to make your PDF life easier appeared first on Pocketnow.

Adobe releases a stable version of Lightroom for M1 Macs and Windows on ARM

Adobe began testing a beta version of Photoshop a few weeks ago that will natively run on Macs with Apple’s M1 chip and Windows laptops powered by ARM-based processors such as those provided by Qualcomm. While the test is still underway, Adobe has today released a stable version of Lightroom that is native for M1 silicon and Windows on ARM platforms. In case you’re wondering, this version of Lightroom doesn’t run on top of an emulation layer, which means users can experience buttery smooth usage and no performance bottlenecks.

“We rebuilt Lightroom to take advantage of the newest performance and power efficiency benefits of the Apple M1 and Qualcomm Snapdragon (for Windows 10) processors,” Adobe’s Sharad Mangalick wrote in a blog post. But do keep in mind that this is the new version of Lightroom that we are talking about here, and not the classic version, which is yet to get a native version for M1 Macs and Windows on ARM. Today’s release also marks a new milestone for Adoble as Lightroom is now available on all mobile (Android and iOS) and computing (macOS x86 based on Intel chips, macOS for ARM, Windows x86 based on Intel instructions, Windows on ARM) platforms, as well as the web.

However, Adobe promises that it will soon release updated versions of Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and Adobe Camera Raw that will work natively on Macs powered by Apple’s in-house silicon. Right now, the aforementioned Adobe Creative Cloud apps have been certified to run just fine on the new Apple machines by relying on the Rosetta 2 emulation layer. In case you own one of Apple’s new M1 MacBooks or Windows laptop powered by a Snapdragon chip, you can test out the optimized version of Photoshop as a beta directly from the Creative Cloud app.

Adobe has also announced that the December update adds support for the new ProRAW file format that Apple introduced with the iPhone 12 series. This is now live in Camera Raw, Lightroom Classic, or Lightroom on all platforms. Plus, Lightroom for iOS has introduced support for widgets. Users can now click photos using the Lightroom camera and see Discover Edits and In-app tutorials directly from the Widgets screen.

The post Adobe releases a stable version of Lightroom for M1 Macs and Windows on ARM appeared first on Pocketnow.

Microsoft removes Adobe Flash Player with the latest Windows 10 update

Last month, Microsoft released a timeline for the end of Adobe Flash. It said that the Flash removal tool would be an optional update in Windows Update by early 2021. Now, within a few weeks, Microsoft has released a new update that removes the Adobe Flash version bundled into Windows 10. However, it does not remove any standalone versions you’ve installed yourself. Plus, it doesn’t remove Flash from your browsers, either.

The optional Catalog update paves the way for the eventual end of Flash in 2021. With the new Windows 10 update, Flash support will officially end this year. There will eb no more updates for Internet Explorer 11 and the legacy (non-Chromium) version of Edge by December. Further, the latest version of Edge that uses Google’s Chrome engine, will have its Flash support end in January 2021.

Google and Adobe have already said that they would end Flash support for Chrome, and Flash development in 2020, respectively.

While Google has said that it would end Flash support for Chrome, Adobe itself has announced that it will end Flash development in 2020. Microsoft says, “We are releasing this removal update in advance of end of support to help customers test and validate their environments for any impact that might occur by the removal of Adobe Flash Player. Also, if another security update for Adobe Flash Player is released, customers who take this removal update will still be offered the security update.”

The update is optional as of now, but it will become a recommended update and in the middle of 2021. The company will also be removing Flash-related developer frameworks, group policies, and user interfaces from legacy Edge and IE11. Once installed, this update cannot be uninstalled.

Source: Microsoft

The post Microsoft removes Adobe Flash Player with the latest Windows 10 update appeared first on Pocketnow.

Adobe Illustrator for iPad is here

At its MAX event last year, Adobe announced that it is working on a separate Illustrator app for iPad. It said that the app will be announced in 2020. Now, the company has indeed launched the tablet version of its popular desktop app used for illustrations. Illustrator is the third desktop Adobe app to be made available on the iPad after Lightroom and Photoshop.

Similar to Photoshop’s debut on iPad in 2019, the core functionalities are here with Illustrator for iPad. Some features are still missing, but they are likely not the things you use on a day-to-day basis. The company keeps adding new tools and features to its Photoshop app for iPad, and we expect the Illustrator app to grow as well.

Adobe has redesigned the app to work with Apple Pencil and iPad’s touch support. Illustrator for iPad brings with it the core functionalities alongside being developed enough to convert your strokes and shapes with Apple Pencil into vector objects. Furthermore, it can automatically simplify the curves and the number of points when you’re using Apple Pencil.

Illustrator for iPad comes with the ability to snap the handles on points to specific degrees. You can also select multiple points at once to make vectors easily. Two very useful tools, Pathfinder and Shape Builder have been transformed for the iPad version to offer live previews of these features. Plus, Adobe’s library of over 18,000 Font options is also available on Illustrator for iPad.

Similar to the desktop app, all the work you do on the iPad’s Illustrator app is organised in layers. The work also syncs to your Creative Cloud storage so you need not worry about losing anything if you work across multiple devices.

Illustrator for iPad is included with a Creative Cloud subscription. It is also available standalone for $10 a month. Further, the company is also offering a 30-day trial. The company says its new app will work on any of Apple’s tablets that also support its Pencil stylus.

The post Adobe Illustrator for iPad is here appeared first on Pocketnow.

Adobe Photoshop can now be used to identify fake photos

As a part of its Content Authenticity Initiative, Adobe started working to cut down on the number of altered images that circulate online. In August, the company stated that upcoming technology would use metadata tagging and cryptography to help the public properly attribute and verify the authenticity of content including images and videos. Now, it has unveiled a new attribution tool for Photoshop that will help users understand the authenticity of images.

The new feature allows users to add their name, location, and edit history to photos, among other tags. Adobe says it will create a “tamper-evident” paper trail for an image that will allow users to identify authentic versus deepfake images. It would also enable them to see how these images were created. Moreover, images exported to Behance will show the same information, including the app used. You can use Adobe’s new website (verify.contentauthenticity.org), and see the original stock photo versus the final composite image in split-screen.

Using the attribution tool, Photoshop will be able to automatically tag it with the original photographer’s credit, the creator who produced the composite. Plus, it will show the exact editing activities used. However, if you don’t want your creation to be traced back, you can turn off the feature altogether. As of now, the tool only works with images. However, Adobe and its partners plan to eventually expand it for other types of media, including videos.

The new Adobe Photoshop feature is still in the testing phase. As Engadget notes, the tool would require wide adoption by publishers, artists, and even rivals to Photoshop before it could become useful. It will be available to select customers in Photoshop and Behance via a beta release in the coming weeks. The company is calling it a “huge leap forward” for the technology. 

The post Adobe Photoshop can now be used to identify fake photos appeared first on Pocketnow.

Adobe Lightroom iOS update had a major issue, and the users aren’t happy

The latest update to Adobe Lightroom’s iOS app had a serious problem. It deleted some iOS users’ photos and presets. The development was confirmed by an Adobe rep on the Photoshop feedback forums. It was first spotted by PetaPixel, but it was too late and the deed was already done.

Earlier this week, Adobe rolled out version 5.4 of Lightroom for the iPhone and iPad. Soon after, users started complaining on the Photoshop feedback forums that they have lost all of their pictures and presets. “All presets and most of my 8000+ pics are gone as of today-08/18/20. Please help!” wrote user Karen Floyd.

An Adobe rep named Rikk Flohr responded to the thread, saying Adobe is aware of the bug. Plus, the company rolled out a new update, 5.4.1 that corrected the issue. However, the customers were in for a major setback as Flohr wrote, “we know that some customers have photos and presets that are not recoverable.” He added, “we sincerely apologize to any customers who have been affected by this issue.”

The rep noted that the Lightroom cloud, Lightroom mobile on Android, Lightroom desktop on macOS and Windows, as well as Lightroom Classic weren’t affected. Hence, it is likely that the only pictures that weren’t backed up to Adobe’s Cloud were deleted. The company says, “affected customers using Lightroom mobile without a subscription to the Adobe cloud. It also affected Lightroom cloud customers with photos and presets that had not yet synced to the Adobe cloud.” 

The post Adobe Lightroom iOS update had a major issue, and the users aren’t happy appeared first on Pocketnow.

Adobe Photoshop could soon include the tool we need to spot fake photos online

Adobe started working to cut down on the number of altered images that circulate online with its Content Authenticity Initiative last year. The company stated that upcoming technology would use metadata tagging and cryptography to help the public properly attribute and verify the authenticity of content including images and videos.

Now, Adobe says that it will start shipping a preview version of Photoshop that includes the technology later this year. Further, it plans to integrate the software with Behance, which is a social media network for creative professionals.

Adobe Photoshop will add tags to images users create. These tags will provide insights about their origins and tell you who the original photographer of an image was, alongside its place and time of click. These details will be cryptographically signed to vouch for their authenticity.

According to Wired, the initiative could one day help the likes of Twitter and Facebook strengthen the automated systems they already use to flag misleading images. However, Engadget points out that the system will only be as effective as the number of companies and organizations that adopt it.

To bolster the fight against all the misleading images shared online software developers, camera manufacturers, social media networks and media outlets will need to adopt the standard. 

The post Adobe Photoshop could soon include the tool we need to spot fake photos online appeared first on Pocketnow.

Adobe introduces a host of ‘.new’ browser shortcuts to make working with PDFs easier

It's only fair to share...Share on RedditShare on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterPin on PinterestShare on Tumblr

Google’s “.new” shortcuts for Docs, Slides and Sheets are extremely convenient when it comes to creating new online files. Today, Adobe has announced that it has partnered with Google to launch new browser shortcuts to create, convert, compress, sign, and design documents in Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Spark.

Listed below are the new shortcuts introduced by Adobe:

  • PDF.new – To create a free Adobe Acrobat PDF from any Microsoft Office or image file.
  • Sign.new – to create a PDF form that you can fill, sign, save, and send.
  • JPGtoPDF.new – To convert a JPG into a PDF file.
  • CompressPDF.new – To reduce the file size of a PDF file to make it manageable.
  • Create.new – To create an Adobe Spark Post.

Additionally, the company is launching 20 free Acrobat online tools this year. These can be accessed from the Acrobat Online dashboard. All you have to do is sign in with an Adobe ID to access tools that let you quickly convert Microsoft Office and image files to PDF, or request electronic signatures from anyone, send a contract, permission slip, or any other document that needs to be signed.

The post Adobe introduces a host of ‘.new’ browser shortcuts to make working with PDFs easier appeared first on Pocketnow.

It's only fair to share...Share on RedditShare on FacebookShare on Google+Tweet about this on TwitterPin on PinterestShare on Tumblr

Adobe’s Photoshop app for iPad adds two extremely useful features

Adobe’s Photoshop app for iPad has introduced two new features that creative users and professionals will find extremely useful. The first one is the Refine Edge Brush that offers extremely precise image selection capabilities and finer controls for objects with complex edges, especially where one needs to handle fur and hair on canvas.

“This is required to achieve realistic, professional quality selections of objects with a mix of sharp and soft edges. Some examples include, lots of flyaway hair or removing subjects from complex backgrounds and many more everyday selection scenarios,” Adobe describes the Refine Edge Brush tool.

The other new addition to the Photoshop app for iPad is the Rotate Canvas tool, which offers more control over rotating the canvas via fluid gestures. For example, users can rotate and zoom in/out simultaneously using two fingers, reset the zoom levels with pinch gestures, and snap at 90-degree angle variables.

The post Adobe’s Photoshop app for iPad adds two extremely useful features appeared first on Pocketnow.

Adobe may give us Google Pixel quality pictures with a new ‘universal camera app’

We know that Google Pixel devices have some of the best cameras in the Android market today. However, they aren’t famous for having the best or the largest camera sensors around. These phones deliver great photos thanks to its image processing software, and it seems that Adobe has taken the first step to create a new camera app that could give us Pixel quality pictures in just about any smartphone.

Marc Levoy was the lead developer of the camera software found in Google Pixel phones, and now, four months after leaving Google, he has now joined Adobe as a Vice President and Fellow. He is supposed to work on the concept of a universal camera app for Adobe. He should also be working with Adobe’s Sensei Team, an AI-based software intended for image professionals. It also uses machine learning to improve the performance of specific photography tasks. We don’t know if this new universal camera app will be available for Android and iOS. Still, we can expect that it may be something similar to its recently launched Photoshop Camera app, which is found on both platforms.

Source Apple Insider

The post Adobe may give us Google Pixel quality pictures with a new ‘universal camera app’ appeared first on Pocketnow.

We are getting more Black Friday deals on Amazon

We have a new list of deals you can find on Amazon this very moment. They include iPhones, AirPods, MacBooks and more

The post We are getting more Black Friday deals on Amazon appeared first on Pocketnow.