Adobe announces Photoshop CS5 with new Lens Correction Tool

Adobe formally announced their Creative Suite 5 yesterday, which of course includes a new version of Photoshop.  I already touched on the new "Content Aware Fill" feature in a previous blog post.  Other new features include an improved selection tool, the ability to better remove noise (or add grain) to photos, a new warping tool called "Puppet Warp" that just sounds weird, some HDR crap for those who care about HDR, and finally, a much improved Lens Correction Tool.

It's the last item that I'm most excited about.  Up until now, Photoshop has had limited features for correcting complicated lens distortion.  Sure, you could correct barrel and pincushion distortion, but many zoom lenses exhibit BOTH barrel and pincushion distortion AT THE SAME TIME.  Photoshop has never really been able to deal with that.  This new version will be able to read your EXIF data and correct distortion specific to the camera and lens you were using.  It's a great idea, and frankly one that's long overdue.  DXO labs Optics Pro has had this exact functionality for some time now, and I've used that program with some success.  The only downside is that it's a standalone program, so using it screws up my workflow (it essentially replaces Camera Raw).  If I can get the same results out of Photoshop, that would be a better solution.

For more information about the new version of Photoshop and the other programs in Creative Suite 5, I suggest you check out the Adobe official launch web site.  Once there, you can watch an hour long video of some over caffeinated Adobe employees explaining all the new features.  It's actually rather entertaining.