in the secret adobe labs
I came across this sneak peek video for some new technologies possibly slated for photoshop cs5, and it reaffirms that I never really understand where the adobe thought process is for new features in software, especially for their flagship products like photoshop and after effects. I have no idea how they can jump so late on hdri, 32bit colorspace and effects, gpu integration, and the ability to “work and turn” a page while painting, but keep adding new practically useless features like the red eye tool, and rearranging the way that we interact with the features that they already have.
Watching the video, I was a little in dismay about what they chose to show. Paint? seriously? Like we first noticed in painter eight versions ago, or more embarrassingly in $30 shareware applications five years ago? Ok, sure…wow.
puppet/shmuppet
Watching the section on the new “warping technology”, I instantly recognized it as the puppet feature from after effects. A feature I desperately wanted to use, a feature that I thought had some potential, and the feature that I ultimately was never able to use in production. I can count the number of times that I, as well as my colleagues in the studio have tried to integrate the puppet feature in our company’s projects, where after a few minutes and meagre attempts, the puppet tool was quickly abandoned in disappointment.
We looked, and we looked pretty hard for some good examples in documentation, or some tutorials displaying professional usable results, or someone somewhere who has implemented that feature in something. We found nothing. So what do you do with a feature that you have written and the industry does not seem to use? Apparently if you are adobe, you add it to photoshop!
It is clear that these technologies that they are showing in the video may not be integrated in any version of photoshop, and just lie as experimentation in the adobe labs, however, I think that realistically features like this are misguided and misplaced for anyone other than the casual user.
chime in
If you are someone with some success using the puppet tool in after effects beyond basic objects with simple deformations, I would love to hear from you, please comment and share!
