As most of you are no doubt aware, Adobe has released a sneak peak of their new Content-Aware Fill feature. This is one of the key features they are taunting us with for CS5, not unlike they did with Content-Aware Scaling for CS4. This is a tool I have yet to touch and things will likely be the same with this new fill tool. Let me start by saying that I am a HUGE fan of Adobe and have been since Photoshop 4. I have the CS4 master collection and use it for all my photo and video work. I also use Lightroom for my RAW conversions. Unfortunately though, I am not at all a fan of these new auto everything tools and certainly not a pixel creation tool such as this. I am more of an auto nothing kind of guy. I drive a manual transmission car and I want to shoot and edit manually as well. I’m not looking for a car to choose my gears, a camera to choose my exposure or a program to create my pictures. Here is a video of the tool at work.
I think this new Content-Aware Fill tool is the perfect companion for the photographer who’s Photoshop skills are as poor as their photography skills. You know the shooters I am referring to – “What are you shooting at?” Well, I have 3 strobes setup with gels and light mods and you are shooting on a different body with no strobes, do you really think the answer to that question is going to help you? Don’t get me wrong, some seriously skilled individuals will use this tool seamlessly in their workflow but I fear that for the most part this will be used by hacks. This will be used in conjunction with Content-Aware Scaling, the liquify tool, and senseless HDR to create even more Harry Potter like images. Personally I like the parody videos such as this one much more.
Content-Aware Fill is just not something I really want to use or see used. This is something that to a large extent, like with Content-Aware Scaling, was possible prior to the tools existence. It was a bit more work but I think this ensured it was used in a responsible fashion. Below is an image I shot last week. I lost the good light and had to shoot in overcast conditions. You can read the story here if you’re interested.
And here is a version with a blue sky drooped in the old-school way.
As you can see from the fact that I posted the non-Photoshopped image in my original post, I am not in the habit of posting altered images such as this. In fact, 99.9 percent of the images you will find here and in my portfolio have never even been opened in PS. The exception of course is my fashion work which is Photoshopped beyond belief. Yeah, it’s a bit hypocritical but it’s fashion and an ethics discussion on that is a blog on it’s own. I would only drop-in a sky like this if a client requested me to do so. For my personal work, I would go back and re-shoot it when the light is right.
I know it’s all about sales, market share and the all mighty dollar but I would rather see R&D cycles spent on improving the reliability, stability and accuracy of programs instead of coming up with trinkets like this. Let’s hope Adobe has some more upgrade-worthy features to show us leading up to CS5.
Filmmaker/photographer 
