If you’re a member of Creative Cloud, you know (or you’re about to know) that Adobe has released a whole new Photoshop (called CC 2014) which actually replaces earlier versions of your Adobe apps rather than just pushes out interesting updated features.

(I wouldn’t attempt to explain how or why it’s working this way, but I can leave you in the care of Adobe Goddess and Friend-of-dekeLand Julieanne Kost for that part of the mystery.) 

But I can explain, with the capable help of Deke and his new lynda.com course, what is new and interesting about Photoshop CC (2104): 

If you’re not a member of lynda.com and you’d like to check it out, you can sign up a free week’s trial at lynda.com/deke. If you’d rather just get some quick, interesting insights from Deke, check out these links to free movies about a couple of interesting new features below. 

Free Movie: "Selecting In-Focus Areas of a Photo"
A new feature under the Select menu, the Focus Area command, allows you to select areas of your image that are in focus and leave the blurry stuff behind. For instance, you can liberate the gentleman below from his out-of-focus partner using this new feature (plus some refinement with the trusty Refine Edge command as Deke demonstrates in the movie.)

Free Video: The Color Adaptation Option to Content-Aware Fill
Now when you use Content-Aware Fill to fill in a blank area (or a patch, or anything else that uses the Content-Aware magic calculation to replace pixels), you have the option of choosing a Color Adaptation modification. This feature can help ensure that the fill better blends with its surroundings. Note below how the old-school Content-Aware Fill leaves a grey opaque splotchiness when I attempt to fill in extra canvas. If I turn on the Color Adaption checkbox in the Fill dialog box, the background on the bottom image looks much smoother. 

Check out Photoshop: 2014 Creative Cloud Updates to see more interesting stuff in this latest offering. Or head over to the rest of Deke’s collection of courses and remember any movie that’s listed in blue in a lynda.com Table of Contents is unlocked and ready to be watched by all.