Photoshop CC New Features: The 8 Best Additions

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The Photoshop CC new features from the June 2013 release are eight tools, and six of them are still in Photoshop today.

They are the Shake Reduction filter, Camera Raw as a filter with Upright, the Radial Filter and Spot Removal brush strokes. Then come live shapes in the Properties panel, Isolate Layers, Intelligent Upsampling and 3D Live Paint.

Each section below shows what the tool does, how to use it step by step, and where it lives in Photoshop now.

Photoshop CC, version 14.0, was the first release sold only by subscription. Photoshop CS6 was the last version sold as a perpetual license.

The video was recorded in Photoshop CC 14.0. Six of the eight tools still work the same way in the latest version of Photoshop, and the two that are gone are marked with a warning.

What You Will Learn

• How the Shake Reduction filter rebuilt a blurry photo from its blur trace
• How to run Camera Raw as a filter and fix perspective with Upright
• How to brighten a subject or darken the edges with the Radial Filter
• How to paint away distractions with Spot Removal brush strokes
• How to round corners, resize shapes and isolate layers without touching a mask
• How to enlarge an image with Preserve Details and keep it sharp

Requirements

Keyboard Shortcuts

The Shake Reduction Filter in Photoshop CC

One of the most talked about Photoshop CC new features was the Shake Reduction filter. It analyzes the trajectory of a camera shake and restores sharpness to otherwise unusable images.

The video uses a photo of a waterfall in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur, California. The camera shook when the picture was taken, and the whole image is soft.

Right-click the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object. You do not have to use a Smart Object for this filter, but it keeps the work non-destructive, and the video recommends it.

Go to Filter > Sharpen > Shake Reduction. In the dialog, check Advanced on the right so you see the same panel the video shows.

The first setting under Blur Trace Settings is Blur Trace Bounds, which sets the size of the blur trace boundaries. The video finds 30 pixels works well. Leave Source Noise on Auto.

Smoothing is a balance. All the way left, the image gets much sharper but noisier. All the way right, it gets smoother but loses detail. Around 30 percent works for this image.

Artifact Suppression works the same way. Push it too far and the image turns blurry again, so find the point where the artifacts fade and stop there.

Press P (Windows) or P (macOS) to turn the preview off and on. That is the same as clicking the Preview checkbox, and it is the fastest way to see the before and after.

Click OK. Because it is a Smart Filter, you can double-click the words Shake Reduction in the Layers panel to reopen the settings. Double-click the small icon next to it to change the filter’s opacity and blending mode.

Blur Traces and Estimation Regions

The box on the image is the estimation region. Click and drag it onto the point of interest, the waterfall in this case, and make it bigger if you want. That is where Photoshop gathers the data it uses to fix the blur.

If the picture has two faces, click and drag on another part of the image to create a second region. You can add more, and each one tells Photoshop which areas matter most.

The small thumbnails in the Advanced panel are the blur traces. Each one is a map of how the hand moved while the shutter was open. Click the expand icon on a trace to see the motion up close.

The video’s waterfall photo only needs one trace, so the extra region gets deleted. The feature is there for photos where different parts of the frame blurred differently.

There is also a Blur Direction Tool in the top left of the dialog. Click and drag on the image to set the angle of the blur trace, and drag toward the other end to change its length.

The video does not recommend it. You would need to know the exact angle and length of your shake, which almost nobody does. Automatic detection does a better job, so the video cancels out of the manual tool without saving.

Shake Reduction Is Gone From Photoshop

Nothing in Photoshop today reads a blur trace the way this filter did. If your shake was a straight line, Filter > Sharpen > Smart Sharpen still has a Motion Blur option under Remove, with an angle setting.

For anything more complex, the honest answer is to reshoot. The filter was impressive in 2013, and it is worth knowing that it existed, but it is not coming back.

Camera Raw Filter and Upright in Photoshop CC

One of the most exciting Photoshop CC new features is the ability to use Camera Raw as a filter. Camera Raw is a powerful image processing engine that is very popular among photographers.

It gives you photographic controls like Temperature, Highlights, Shadows and Clarity. In Photoshop CC you can apply all of that to any layer, including video.

The video opens a photo of buildings in downtown Oakland, California. Right-click the layer and choose Convert to Smart Object, then go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter.

If you have used Camera Raw before, the filter looks identical. Drag Temperature to make the image warmer or cooler, and Tint to shift it. Hold Alt (Windows) or Option (macOS) and click Reset to get the original settings back.

The video’s favorite feature here is Lens Corrections, and specifically Upright. Open the Lens Corrections tab and click Manual. Yours may open on Color, so check.

The Upright buttons apply different perspective corrections. Level straightens the image. Vertical fixes vertical perspective. Full corrects vertical, horizontal and level at once.

Auto works best in most cases, so click that.

Press P (Windows) or P (macOS) to compare. The buildings stand straight, and the image looks much better than the original.

For more control, drag the Transform sliders below the buttons to straighten a stubborn line. You can also Rotate the image and Scale it up so there are no blank areas at the bottom. Click OK.

The Radial Filter in Camera Raw

The Radial Filter applies Camera Raw adjustments inside or outside an ellipse. The video uses it on a portrait taken outside the Cliff House in San Francisco, with the sun behind the subject.

Right-click the layer, choose Convert to Smart Object, and go to Filter > Camera Raw Filter. Click the Radial Filter tool in the toolbar at the top.

Click and drag to draw an ellipse around the subject. The tool always draws from the center, so keep that in mind. Once it is drawn, you can drag it to move it.

Scroll down the panel and look at Effect. The adjustments can go Outside the ellipse or Inside it. The dashed line on the image tells you which: a red dashed line means inside, a green dashed line means outside.

For this photo, choose Inside. Camera Raw remembers the settings from the last filter you used, so the sliders may not start at zero. Reset them before you start.

Raise Exposure to brighten the sun behind her. Add a little Contrast, and pull Highlights down slightly so the sun is not blown out. The other sliders can stay where they are.

Click OK. Turn the Smart Filter off and on in the Layers panel to see the before and after. Only the area inside the ellipse changed.

Because it is a Smart Filter, double-click Camera Raw Filter in the Layers panel to reopen it. Select the Radial Filter tool, click the pin in the center of the ellipse, and every slider is back for editing.

Create a Vignette With the Radial Filter

The same tool makes a non-destructive vignette. Double-click the pin in the center of the ellipse and Camera Raw expands the ellipse to surround the entire image.

This time set Effect to Outside, then lower Exposure to darken the edges. Play with the other sliders until the falloff looks right.

On the video’s photo the vignette fights the bright sun in the top left corner, so it is not a great look there. On most photos it is a two-click vignette you can edit at any time.

Spot Removal Brush Strokes in Camera Raw

Camera Raw’s retouching tools improved in Photoshop CC. The Spot Removal tool can now paint over an area instead of only clicking single spots.

The video uses a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. Right-click the layer, choose Convert to Smart Object, and open Filter > Camera Raw Filter.

Select the Spot Removal tool by clicking its icon or pressing B (Windows) or B (macOS). The circle on the image is your brush.

Click a distraction, like the red ball in the video, and Camera Raw finds a source to copy from and removes it. Press V (Windows) or V (macOS) to hide the overlays so you can judge the result.

Press P (Windows) or P (macOS) to see the before, and press it again for the after. Press V (Windows) or V (macOS) once more to bring the overlays back.

You could do this in Photoshop with the Healing Brush Tool or the Clone Stamp Tool on a couple of layers. The advantage of Camera Raw is that nothing is applied to the pixels. The changes are saved separately, which is a more extreme way of working non-destructively.

Brush Strokes, New in Photoshop CC

Now the new part. Click and drag to paint over something larger, and Camera Raw treats the whole stroke as one removal. If the source it picks is not right, drag the source area to a better spot.

Make the brush smaller with [ (Windows) or [ (macOS) and larger with ] (Windows) or ] (macOS), just like any other brush. You can also drag the Size slider. The video makes the brush smaller and paints out a few more elements so the bridge is the only focus.

Every stroke stays editable. Click a pin to move it or sample from a different area. Click a pin and press Delete (Windows) or Delete (macOS) to remove that adjustment.

Click OK. Like any Smart Filter, you can paint on the filter mask to hide part of the result. Or double-click Camera Raw Filter, pick the Spot Removal tool, and adjust the pins again.

Live Shapes in Photoshop CC

Photoshop CC added live shape properties to the Properties panel. You can round the corners of a rectangle, resize it and change its stroke after you draw it.

The video’s composition has three text layers, four shape layers and a regular pixel layer. Select the Path Selection Tool by pressing A (Windows) or A (macOS), then click the blue shape.

Open the Properties panel. If you do not see it, go to Window > Properties.

The panel now shows corner radius fields. Drag the value to the right and the corners round off. Push it far enough and a rectangle becomes a perfect circle.

Click the link icon to unlink the four corner values. Now each corner is independent. One can be very round, another slightly round, and another a sharp corner.

Another improvement is resizing. Drag the height or width value in the Properties panel and the shape gets taller or wider without distorting its corners.

To undo those changes, the video presses CtrlAltZ (Windows) or CommandOptionZ (macOS) a few times.

To give the other shapes the same corners, copy the numbers from the first shape. Hold Shift (Windows) or Shift (macOS) and click the other two shapes to select them, paste the values, and press Enter (Windows) or Return (macOS). All three now match.

Strokes work on several shapes at once too. Select all the shape layers, open Stroke in the Properties panel, and pick a color. Every selected path gets the stroke.

Isolate a Shape Layer in Photoshop CC

Selecting one path in a crowded layout is hard. You click near the edge of a shape and grab the one behind it instead.

In Photoshop CC, double-click any shape layer with the Path Selection Tool and Photoshop solos it. The other layers are hidden, and clicking anywhere else does nothing. Only that shape responds.

To bring the other layers back, click the red toggle at the top of the Layers panel. To isolate a different shape, double-click it, and click the toggle again when you are done.

Isolate Layers in Photoshop CC

That double-click trick is part of a bigger addition. Isolate Layers lets you solo any layer or group of layers in a document, not just shapes.

The video opens the layered file from the transparent alien egg tutorial. It has a lot of layers, and they get distracting when you only want to work on one.

Select the layer you care about, then go to Select > Isolate Layers. The Layers panel now shows only that layer, and the canvas shows only what is on it.

To see everything again, click the red toggle at the top of the Layers panel. It is the same switch the shape layers use.

It works with more than one layer. Select several, click the toggle, and the filter drop-down at the top of the panel reads Selected. Only those layers stay visible, and you can work on them without touching anything else.

The video calls it a nice little enhancement, and that is exactly what it is. On a composite with fifty layers, it saves a lot of scrolling and a lot of accidental clicks.

Intelligent Upsampling in Photoshop CC

Intelligent Upsampling helps maintain detail when you enlarge an image. It is a new Resample option in the Image Size dialog called Preserve Details.

The video uses a photo of part of a mural, opened twice so the old method and the new one can be compared side by side.

For the first copy, go to Image > Image Size. Change the width to 200 percent and set Resample to Bicubic Smoother, which is what earlier versions of Photoshop offered for enlargement. Click OK.

For the second copy, go to Image > Image Size again, set 200 percent, and choose Preserve Details from the Resample menu. A Reduce Noise slider appears under it.

You can zoom in on the preview window to see what the slider does. Drag it right and the image smooths out but loses detail. The video keeps it low, around 5 or 6 percent, then clicks OK.

Photoshop labels what each Resample option is best for, so you can read down the list instead of guessing.

Both images are now the same size. Press V (Windows) or V (macOS) for the Move Tool and drag one image onto the other document’s tab. Hold Shift (Windows) or Shift (macOS) as you drop it so it lands in the center.

Zoom in and toggle the top layer. The Preserve Details version has more detail around the edges and highlights and looks less blurry. It is not a huge difference, but it is enough that you lose less sharpness every time you enlarge.

3D Live Paint in Photoshop CC

Photoshop CC also improved 3D, and the video’s favorite change was Live Paint. Here is how it worked.

The video creates a new mesh from a preset and picks the wine bottle. Photoshop builds the bottle on its own. Clicking the infinite light and dragging it moves the lighting, and moving the camera gives a better view.

Click the wine bottle mesh, then click the Label material. Under Diffuse, choose Edit Texture. A new tab opens with the flat texture of the label.

Paint on that label with blue and switch back to the bottle, and the paint shows up wrapped around it. That is how it worked in Photoshop CS6: paint, switch tabs, look.

In Photoshop CC, go to Window > Arrange > 2-up Vertical so the texture and the bottle sit side by side. Now anything you paint on the texture appears on the bottle as you paint it.

It works both ways. Paint directly on the bottle and the stroke appears on the flat texture. Rotate the bottle with the Move Tool, pick up the Brush Tool again, and keep painting.

The Unlit Texture Style

The second 3D enhancement was the Unlit Texture style. It lets an object ignore properties that can be distracting while you paint, such as bump maps and lights.

With the Move Tool active, click Scene in the 3D panel. Under Surface, set Style to Unlit Texture.

The bottle now shows its flat texture with no lighting at all. Any bump map or other texture map on it is ignored too. The video calls it a small improvement, but a helpful one when you are painting a texture and the lighting keeps getting in the way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Photoshop CC New Features, Looking Back

Those are the eight Photoshop CC new features that earned a spot in the video, and six of them are still doing their job in Photoshop today.

Camera Raw as a filter turned out to be the big one. Upright, the Radial Filter and Spot Removal all grew into the Geometry, Masking and Remove tools you use now, and they still start with the same Smart Object.

Watch the full tutorial above to see each feature in action, and if you have a question, comment on the video.

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Previous Photoshop Updates

This post is the Photoshop CC entry in the series of Photoshop version write-ups. Here are the others.

• Photoshop 2025
• Photoshop 2024
• Photoshop 2023
• Photoshop 2022
• Photoshop 2021
• Photoshop 2020
• Photoshop 2019
• Photoshop CC 2018
• Photoshop CC 2017
• Photoshop CC 2015.5
• Photoshop CC 2015
• Photoshop CC 2014
• Photoshop CC, this post
• Photoshop CS6

Related Links

• Fix Perspective Distortions With The Automatic Upright Filter in Photoshop
• The Photoshop Remove Tool: The Future of Image Editing
• Photoshop CS6 New Features: The 5 Best Additions
• How To Create a Transparent Alien Egg in Photoshop