Adobe quietly added a depth map masking feature to Camera Raw in a recent Photoshop update, which lets you isolate specific depth layers in a photo. Unlike subject or background masks, this one lets you target a slice of depth in a scene, from foreground rocks to a hazy midground to a distant sky.
Photoshop 27.6 dropped with 14 new features, and some of them are genuinely useful while others expose real limitations in Adobe's AI tools. Knowing what works and what doesn't before you spend credits on generative fills can save you a lot of frustration.
Adobe just pushed a significant round of updates to Photoshop, and several of them are directly relevant to cleaning up photos and managing complex edits. If you use Photoshop as part of your workflow, at least three or four of these features will change how you approach specific tasks.
Photoshop has dozens of tools, but a handful of them do most of the heavy lifting in real editing work. Knowing how the brush, remove, and selection tools actually behave is the difference between fighting Photoshop and actually using it.
The Nik Collection of software tools goes way back to when Nik introduced some editing plug-ins for Photoshop in the 90s. Google bought the tools in 2013 and brought several of the tools together into a collection. But Google, as Google does, sold the collection off to DxO in 2017, and they began to rewrite everything with new code, and released a 7-app collection, adding an 8th shortly thereafter.
Removing reflections from glasses in portraits has always been a frustrating problem, and the existing tools in Lightroom and Camera Raw fall short when the window reflection isn't the dominant element in the frame.
Photoshop 2026 added a Clarity and Dehaze adjustment layer, and if you shoot landscapes or anything with atmospheric haze, it's worth knowing how to use it properly. The catch is that throwing dehaze on an entire image can look heavy-handed, so selecting only the hazy area before applying it makes a real difference.
If you're learning Photoshop, the tools panel is where everything starts. Get it wrong or ignore it, and you'll fight the software every time you open it. Get it right, and the whole thing clicks into place.
Texture overlays can completely change the mood of a photo, and Photoshop gives you precise control over how they blend, how strong they appear, and whether the effect is destructive to your original image. Knowing how to layer multiple textures and then tie them together with color grading is the kind of workflow that separates polished edits from flat ones.
Luminosity masks sound technical, but they’re built on a simple idea: selecting parts of your image based on brightness. If you want cleaner skies, richer highlights, and deeper shadows without muddy results, this approach changes how you edit.
If you've never opened Photoshop before, the interface can feel like a wall of buttons with no clear entry point. Knowing where to start, what to ignore, and how the core pieces fit together makes the difference between actually learning the software and giving up in the first ten minutes.
Changing clothing color in Photoshop sounds simple until you realize the color you're targeting also exists in your subject's skin. That overlap is where most attempts fall apart, and fixing it the right way requires a few specific steps that aren't obvious if you're just dragging hue sliders.
Photoshop has more color-grading tools than most people ever use, and picking the wrong one costs you time and control. Point Color, tucked inside Camera Raw, gives you precision that the standard Hue/Saturation adjustment simply can't match.
For detail-oriented creative work, the experience is just as important as the process itself. This new-generation pen display from Huion showcases refined features and capabilities.
Contrast and clarity can turn a flat image into something that actually holds attention. Used without control, they can just as easily make a photo look harsh and overprocessed.
Photoshop 27.3.1 introduces three new adjustment layers: Color and Vibrance, Clarity and Dehaze, and Grain. If you rely on selective edits and non-destructive control, these additions change how quickly and cleanly you can shape an image.
DxO PureRAW has been a go-to item in the workflow of photographers for years. PureRAW launched back in 2021, designed as a tool to preprocess Raw files before they go into an editor. The software de-noises your image, then corrects for defects in your optical path or the sensor. To do this, DxO maintains an extensive database of lenses and sensors so it can match your equipment to the corrections.
The new generative AI tools in Photoshop offer powerful features that can streamline your workflow and unlock new creative possibilities. In this article, I show you how to make the most of them.
Adobe now runs on subscriptions, and that monthly bill adds up fast. If you rely on Photoshop and Premiere Pro to get paid work done, the idea of switching feels risky, but staying put can feel just as uncomfortable.
Adobe has added a new generative model to Photoshop called Firefly Fill and Expand, and it directly affects how you create, replace, and extend images. If you rely on generative fill for background swaps or composite work, these changes are worth a look.
Adobe has introduced a powerful update to Photoshop 2026. The Generative Fill feature now supports reference images, allowing users to use a specific visual source to guide AI-generated edits. This allows photographers and retouchers to swap out or add objects, such as jewelry and accessories, to create new iterations of their images without reshooting. It can significantly reduce time spent on complex compositing and detailed Photoshop work that would have previously required manual editing. And this is only the beginning of what this new feature makes possible.
Photoshop just updated Generative Fill with the new Firefly Fill and Expand model, and yes, it changes what you can realistically create. If you rely on AI inside Photoshop, this affects how large you can generate, how real people look, and whether hands and cars still fall apart.
Photoshop’s generative credits determine how freely you can use newer AI tools, and most people don’t know where to see their balance. That uncertainty turns routine edits into guesswork, especially when premium models are involved.
The new Photoshop update adds adjustment layers that feel tailor-made for real estate edits, especially when a scene is flat and hazy. If you shoot homes, rentals, or interiors, the difference between “fine” and “booked” often comes down to controlled, believable separation in the sky, water, and key surfaces.
You can get a striking, modern poster look in Photoshop without fancy plug-ins, but only if you stop guessing and start building the effect in a logical order. The video focuses on a specific recipe: a clean silhouette, controlled motion blur, and color that behaves like light instead of paint.
Dark under-eye bags can wreck an otherwise strong portrait, and heavy-handed fixes usually leave that telltale “plastic” skin. In this video, the focus is removing extreme eye bags in Photoshop while keeping texture believable at 100%.
Photoshop just added two adjustment layers that used to force a detour through Camera Raw: “Clarity and Dehaze” and “Grain.” If you edit photos and rely on selective control, the shift is that these effects now live where masks, stacking, and quick revisions are already part of your daily flow.
Photoshop 27.3.0 just dropped, and it targets the exact spots where edits bog down: local contrast tweaks, expansion quality, and cleanup around faces. If you do any real retouching work, this update changes what you can trust inside one PSD without detouring into other dialogs.
Aperty, professional portrait retouching software, has released a new update designed to integrate more seamlessly into photographers’ existing workflows. Here are the details from Aperty.
The Adobe Camera Raw Adjustment Brush is one of the fastest ways to shape attention inside a frame without wrecking the rest of the tones. If local light, texture, or color keeps slipping away during edits, this tool is often the missing piece.
AI in Photoshop and Lightroom now comes with a meter running in the background, and it is easy to burn through credits without realizing which button did it. If you shoot and edit photos for clients or personal work, that uncertainty can change how you plan edits, what you try first, and what you avoid touching at all.
Using Adobe Photoshop inside ChatGPT changes the math on quick edits, especially when the job is small but time is tight. The catch is that the results can look polished one minute and sloppy the next, so knowing what it can and cannot do saves missed deadlines and rework.
Tiny marks in your Adobe Photoshop document tab can quietly signal problems that cost time, color accuracy, or even a full edit. If you have ever seen an asterisk or a hash and ignored it, there is a good chance you have chased the same confusion later when a file suddenly looks off.
Restoring color in a black-and-white photo can go sideways fast when the tool nudges details, shifts edges, or invents texture that was never there. The video breaks down how to add believable color while keeping the original photo’s shapes, pixels, and fine features untouched.
AI dust removal just became a one-click step inside the Adobe apps you already use, and it changes how you handle every sky, studio backdrop, and clean wall. If you’ve ever exported a “finished” set and then spotted sensor grime in the exact same place across 30 files, you know how quickly that turns into a late-night repair session.
Sharpening is where a solid edit can quietly fall apart, especially once you export for the web and everything gets resized. If you want crisp detail without crunchy edges or noisy skies, you need a method that matches the way you actually share images online.
You must overcome two fundamental challenges before you can produce a work of art. First, you need a vision of what you want to create. Next, you must have the skill to manipulate the tools necessary for the manifestation of that vision. If your vision involves using retouching software like Photoshop, it has long been understood that you will spend hours studying tutorials to master the program.
AI masking in Lightroom has quietly turned into one of the fastest ways photographers change the mood and focus of an image without touching every slider by hand. If you shoot portraits and landscapes and want your edits to look polished but still natural, this walkthrough shows how to let the software do the heavy lifting while you keep control over the final look.
Photoshop’s new Harmonize and Generative Upscale tools directly affect how you blend subjects into new scenes and how large you can push older or low-resolution images. If you spend time cutting people out of one shot and dropping them into another, or you wish those small files could actually be printed, the way you work in Photoshop is about to shift.
Generative Fill is no longer just about erasing small distractions or extending a background. With new partner models like Gemini 2.5 Nano Banana and FLUX Kontext Pro built directly into Photoshop, you can describe an entire scene change in plain language and watch the software rebuild your image around your idea.
AI selections in Photoshop are past the point of being a novelty, and they now help you move from idea to finished image. When Select Subject works well, you stop fighting clumsy masks and start focusing on color, light, and style instead.
For decades, I have struggled with retouching my headshot images. I deal with a variety of problems, ranging from fixing crooked neckties to removing flyaways. The biggest problem for me, however, is evening out skin tones, or more specifically, reducing redness in the skin. A new Color Variance slider in Lightroom may help anyone dealing with this issue.
AI models in Photoshop are starting to do something that used to take hours of careful cloning and healing: bring cracked, faded family photos back to life while still looking real. Those images are often the only visual record of parents, grandparents, and whole branches of a family, and AI is starting to emerge as a legitimate option.
AI masking gives you a fast way to separate subjects, backgrounds, skies, and landscapes without fighting with manual selections. If you care about controlled lighting, clean focus on a subject, and efficient editing inside Photoshop, this is one of the tools that changes how you work.
Distracting stuff sneaks into almost every frame, whether it is strangers in the background, power lines, or weird signs behind your subject. Learning to remove those problems cleanly in Photoshop lets you keep the shots you like instead of tossing them out over small details.
Generative Expand in Photoshop lets you fix tight framing, rework aspect ratios, and build layouts you never captured in camera. If you often wish you had backed up, shot horizontal instead of vertical, or left more headroom, this tool gives you a practical way to rebuild that space with believable detail.
AI editing is no longer a side feature you occasionally test and forget. It is now a core part of how you clean, build, and style images in Photoshop, and it changes how much time you spend behind the computer.
Black Friday is fast approaching, and hopefully your hearts and wallets are ready. A lot of sales are already ongoing, so let’s talk about some of our favorites.
The clone stamp tool in Photoshop can quietly save hours of cleanup work on problem areas in your images while keeping results under your control. It also lets photographers avoid AI artifacts and credit limits when all you really want is a clean wall, a fixed texture, or a distraction removed.
Adobe just made Photoshop’s AI tools more powerful and more expensive, and if you shoot real estate, these changes hit your workflow, your margins, and your client expectations. The mix of free tools, standard generative credits, and new premium credits now forces you to choose where speed and polish justify extra cost instead of treating AI as unlimited magic.