There is a brand spanking new version of Adobe Photoshop. It is Version CC 2015.5 (Yes, I know that is being released in 2016 but Adobe is calling it 2015.5)

This is a big software upgrade and as such it is a completely new install. This is great unless you use any plug-ins (which I do) because the fresh install will delete the old install by default. When you go to install the new Photoshop, click the advanced tab and then make sure that the Remove old version is unchecked.

This will mean that you have two versions of Photoshop on your computer, the older version with your plug-ins and the new version without the plug-ins. Now you can reinstall the plug-ins into he new version but at the same time you have access to the plug-ins by using the old version of Photoshop. The rumor is that this will be changed in future versions of Photoshop so that you won’t have to do this again… ever… which was the promise when Photoshop went to the CC version years ago.

I use the macphun plug-ins, especially Tonality and Intensify, but since I use all the products I have the Creative Kit 2016 which allows me to install all the software in one fell swoop. All you need is to download the applications from the macphun website, install the software and enter your activation code.

Now, if you have forgotten or misplaced your activation code (like I did) you can contact the macphun and they will be happy to help you out. The next step will be to install the plug-ins.

Once you restart Photoshop, the plug-ins will be available.

Since the NIK plug-ins are free, it’s easy to go get them and install them in the new version without having to worry about activation codes. You can get the full version of NIK right HERE

Want to know what is new in this version of Photoshop: go HERE but here are some highlights:

• Content-Aware Crop, which automatically fills in the gaps when you rotate or expand a canvas beyond the original image size
• Face-Aware Liquify, an easy way to create artistic effects with facial features using the Liquify Tool while keeping the face in proportion
• Match Font, an innovative font recognition technology that has the ability to recognize and identify licensed fonts and automatically suggest fonts available on your computer system or available through Adobe Typekit
• Productivity enhancements, including a four times performance improvement when working with the Font Menu and three times improvement for Content-Aware Fill.
• Open-In Photoshop from Adobe Stock: While previewing images on the Adobe Stock website, you can open them directly inside Photoshop (or InDesign or Illustrator)
  In-Photoshop Purchase: You can now license a stock image directly from the layers panel or on-canvas via a contextual menu.

More to come…..