I hated Adobe CS4 with a passion. There, I’ve said it. I tried it for several days before pulling out my hair by the handful, uninstalling it and running back screaming to CS3. It was slow, annoying and nearly impossible to work with. Even with a new dual core pc. CS4 was a really bad move on Adobe’s part, but they made up for it.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from CS5 and dreaded the install—the CS4 experience scarred me for life. But wow, CS5 healed me. Hallelujah! It’s everything I ever wanted in a photo editing program and then some. It’s incredibly fast and professional. It also has a new feature that is quite amazing: Content Aware Fill.

What is it?

Basically, it’s a tool that removes annoying details or objects you don’t want in your photo and magically fills in the space left. It’s no miracle tool, not by a long shot, and it won’t always work flawlessly but it’s very helpful in some ways and can possibly save you hours of editing time. Let me show you what I mean.

Here’s a shot I took during our trip to De Efteling. It’s a pretty decent shot for a point and shoot, but there’s a head in there. And it ain’t Long Neck’s. I’m sure it’s a lovely little boy, but his head kinda bugged me and I wanted it out.

Editing out the head would have taken some time in CS3. In CS5, not so much, it takes me all of 10 seconds.

 
I selected the lasso tool. CS5 also has a magnetic lasso too that detects and snaps to the edge of your object as you to trace along its outline, but I didn’t use it here.

Draw around the head to select it.

Press the delete button. That will make fill box pop up.

Press ok, and presto… gone is the head.

Amazing, isn’t it? Like I said, it doesn’t always work flawlessly but for touch ups like these it’s amazing. Just think of the endless possibilities. Now you won’t have to cut your ex out of all your vacation photos anymore and ritually burn them! You can simply photoshop him/her out on the go and reprint the shots. Saves you lots of time!

You can download a copy of CS5 on the Adobe website and give it a spin for a good 30 days before the trial period ends.

P.S This posting is not endorsed by Adobe!