Photoshop CC: Adobe Announces 3D Enhancements & Tools, Exemplified by 3D Printed Artworks of Veraart & Stewart

While there is a bit of a learning curve to Photoshop, once you’ve got the hang of it most will agree it’s pretty addictive, allowing you to explore and control the vast world of images just waiting to be created and enhanced.

While we all know Photoshop is the industry standard—and most taught in design classes—for photo manipulation and editing, you can also use it to go all out for myriad creative projects from graphic design—including melding text—to digital artwork with brushes, and far more. Used by individuals in nearly every sector and discipline, from architecture to fine art to forensics the software is heavily relied on for its editing tools.

As all of the digital world seems to move into 3D, Adobe has just released an announcement during attendance at the 3D Printshow New York regarding new 3D features for the software. Clearly, the integration from 2D to 3D design and 3D printing is about to get a big boost as a future version of Photoshop CC will include:

• 3D mesh simplification for better processing and performance overall. Concerns leading to this improvement are the common issues of 3D models with complex geometries and overly high resolution being used in combination with low resolution 3D printers, 3D viewers that don’t load properly due to slow processors, and more. With the 3D mesh simplification, Adobe states that “a simple slider that allows users to quickly and easily reduce the number of polygons to enable faster processing and ability for others to view their 3D object regardless of device.”

• Creation and application of 3D bump maps adding texture to 3D objects from photos. The textures are converted to bump maps and allow versatility as well as flexibility for manipulating height and depth in customized 3D objects.

• Ability to edit colors in 3D scans due to a conversion program to Photoshop Texture, meant to solve the issue of incompatibility with vertex color, which is what most 3D scans contain.

Demonstrating what can be done with the new features, also at the 3D Printshow New York, were works by Photoshop fans and artists in their own rights James Stewart and Francois Veraart.

Stewart, a sculptor and visual artist who is also an accomplished photographer (therefore explaining his instinctual affinity for Photoshop), uses his artwork as his expression of the human spirit in varying forms.

“Making art helps me to understand the world,” says Stewart, who is helping us all to understand how the new Photoshop features will assist digital artists in navigating 3D in an improved way.

Headquartered in British Columbia, Stewart is famous for his work in Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia, and known for bringing images to life in his work, exemplified by the Jeri sculpture. Jeri is based on a capoeira (a form created by Brazilian slaves originally, combining dance and martial arts) dancer he met in Brazil, sculpting him in repose, in a crouching position.

He then went on to experiment creating the figure in 3D printing, with use of Photoshop to add graffiti, tattooing, and a variety of different aspects of art. The digital design involved millions of polygons which not every program could handle, employing the new mesh simplication feature in Photoshop CC.

“It’s a hand-printed sculpture that’s been 3D printed,” says Stewart. “The fact that Photoshop is able to do this better than other programs is a surprising aspect.”

This is a piece of fine art, and not an open-source design as Stewart points out, defining his reasons behind that.

“My hesitation, and I’m sure everybody’s hesitation with 3D printing is going to be the association with the cheaper art world,” says Stewart. “So, the way I’ve entered that world is that I’ve decided if I limit my editions of the prints and destroy the files, there’s no way to re-create that file again.”

“This is not a 3D-printed toy that you can get anywhere.”

Francois Veraart, who is a native of and still resides in the Netherlands, has decades of experience as both a designer and an illustrator, putting his talents to work over the years in international advertising. Veraart’s specialty is graphic design, and his portfolio and résumé list work with far too many famous brands even to list here, but several examples are: Adobe, Nokia, Hilfiger, and even Goodrich Tires.

To demonstrate uses for his artistic expression in Photoshop, Veraart created the 3D printed ‘American Football 5.0’ figure. Veraart is experienced and skilled in both the use of Photoshop CC as well as the art of 3D printing.

Are you a fan of Photoshop and will you be looking forward to employing the new features Adobe has announced, in your own work? How do you use Photoshop most in 3D and digital design? Share with us in the New 3D Enhancements & Tools for Photoshop CC forum thread over at 3DPB.com.