Adobe Photoshop CS4 Comments

Cliff - The content aware scaling looks very clever, but can you say where something like this would be useful?

The example you show of the man jogging on the beach could be similarly achieved by cropping the image at the top. Admittedly, the new scaling feature has brought in some of the higher cloud detail that would be lost by a crop, but it has also introduced some strange loss of detail around the 'arrow-head' of the warning sign and the horizon. That would need some fixing using the clone brush and if you have to do that you might as well crop and clone in some of the clouds yourself.

I'm sure I'm missing something obvious, but it feels like cleverness for the sake of it.

Well one example is images in banner ads. Ads are awkward sizes eg 468x60 so its good to be able to stretch images.

PS: Yes i know most people hate banner ads, i am just giving the example ;-)

Content Aware Scaling is probably not the sort of thing I'd use often but is so useful for instance in resizing an image to fit a particular ratio.
Good little video here too http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KGheH1KkXy0

I recently used it on a photo of two band members on stage that were slightly too far apart to make a good composition. I was able to move them closer very easily. Finished pic here http://www.underexposed.org.uk/brothersmovement/bmovem5.htm The original had far too much space between them.