PS 2015.5 - Refine Edge tool? Missing?

[EG-Design]

Hi,

With the new update of Photoshop it appears that the Refine Edge tool has been removed or changed into something else?
Anyone shed some light on this? Its a tool that I would always use to quickly adjust my selections when editing photography.

Closest tool I can see that looks the same and is in the same location as the Refine Edge tool is Select and Mask. This is under the right click of the selection.

Cheers,

Adam.

EG Design

[whamalamaboom]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who scratched my head after updating to the latest PS.

The only update Adobe ever made that completely destroyed my workflow was back when they changed AUTO-BLEND LAYER, which I used in my digital paintings. The change made ABL useless for my needs, adding hours to each painting. Worse was that the last version that had the original "algorithm" wasn't available through CC and when I finally found it on some (potentially sketchy) site, the function still defaulted to the newer process due to how everything was installed anyway.

That was a nightmare, so when I loaded up the latest PS and didn't see REFINE MASK, which I use in all of my work, I panicked because my first thought was, "They did it again...". I tried SELECT AND MASK figuring it must be the replacement and I haven't been able to get the same results I used to get with REFINE MASK. Not by a long shot.

I watched the videos and workflow examples posted here and they're great, but it doesn't matter that with a few extra steps and tweaks, I can get kinda sorta closeish to what I used to be able to do on the fly with REFINE MASK and REFINE EDGE. Something that used to give me what I wanted in one move now being something I have to fuss with means more time spent and more time spent is bad. When you have as many projects as I do, it adds up.

I don't think it needs to be removed and I'm not furious like I was with the change in ABL. It's just inconvenient when something went backwards in its usefulness to me even if it supposedly expanded its functionality for everyone. I also prefer not to keep different versions on my machine, so I guess I'm in the same boat as the rest who now have to do their clean up manually.

[whamalamaboom]

P.S. Is there a way to get SELECT AND MASK to "remember" the settings I choose (like the View Mode) so I don't have to keep changing it every single time I go into the tool?

[Egor Chistyakov]

I emailed Joel Baer at Adobe several cases of new S&M being failure compared with old Refine edge, with examples, as he asked to do so somewhere above.

He never replied me.

I can repost all of them here, but I think everybody here and elsewhere have tons of these examples.

_Chilexy's example is even more detailed as mine, Conrad's C example is ridiculously weak.

I repeat once more: S&M is failure, soft launch is crucial, feedback is must-be.

Nobody cancelled horses when automobiles were invented.

Bring back RE and stop spoiling working features.

[Alohayamuna]

I also can't find out how to use this tool. I need to select the edges of hair, and used toe brush tool once I was inside the Refine Edge dialog box. That allowed me to use the brush tool around the edges of hair, and select loose strands. Now, the tool selects larges swatches of color that is touched by the brush, and does not select the strands. So I'm left with a person's head and a 3-inch blobs of red background on either side of the head, because it acts like the magic wand tool instead. How do I make a quick selection with the lasso tool, then refine the edge and select hair? Doesn't make sense to make a pen tool selection each and every time you want to select hair - I make a selection of the person's entire body, and use just part of it to refine the edge. Totally lost on how to simply select strands of hair.

[cyberwasp]

Make sure once you enter the select and mask space that you choose the Refine brush. Sometime it reverts to the regular select tool. Also check the view setting. Adobe is currently working to refine the new Select and mask feature. I also have the older version of PS installed, "just in case."

[Alohayamuna]

Thanks, that works much better.

Still not as precise as the old version, the edges are choppier. But it's a middle ground

[cyberwasp]

Alohayamuna , If you have the time, go to Photoshop Family Customer Community and post your findings there as adobe techs monitor the site. This site were at now is mainly user run. Although a lot of them should work for adobe as they know their better than most of the techs do.

As for the choppy'ness I'm hoping adobe will patch it quickly.

[ceads]

You know Photoshop is becoming a constant learning challenge. For someone who uses it for work I don't have time to keep learning all these new changes it sucks! Refine edge was perfect you should have just added a different mode but kept the refine edge it was so simple and worked wonderfully. Sometimes Less is more..ADOBE

[Alohayamuna]

Exactly. At this point, I'm sending out my images to someone who has CS6 installed. That person selects the image for me, and emails it back to me. A huge waste of time, and I have to explain to people why I cannot isolate images anymore, a core part of the job. It's not just frustrating, but counterproductive. Sort of like a keyboard taking away all the punctuation keys or something.

[Benjamin Root]

Alohayamuna wrote:

Exactly. At this point, I'm sending out my images to someone who has CS6 installed. That person selects the image for me, and emails it back to me. A huge waste of time, and I have to explain to people why I cannot isolate images anymore, a core part of the job. It's not just frustrating, but counterproductive. Sort of like a keyboard taking away all the punctuation keys or something.

There's a reason Adobe gives CC subscribers access to previous versions back to CS6, free of charge. Going back to a previous version is fairly simple and should (hopefully) solve much of your frustration.

[Terri_Stevens]

just to reinforce what Benjamin has said you can have CS6 and the latest version of Photoshop on your system at the same time. When we talk about installing previous versions we mean in addition to what you already have.

[JodyHatton]

The new tool is total garbage. I had 5 minutes to do a quick extraction of curly hair from a background. I spent 10 times that watching videos to try and learn the new tool. It's horrible.

I can't believe after 20 years Adobe still hasn't figured out how to make a tool that extracts hair. I'd call "Select and Mask" an experiment, a hardly-working beta, not a production tool.

Installing a whole other version of Photoshop just to use an old (and way more useful) tool is also garbage. Can't we just have both? AND the "Extract" tool just for fun?!?

Thanks.

[razinfarzaan]

FOUND IT!  They won't remove it... They just can't...  Its there under the select menu!!!

[CarolynT46]

it is not retired...it is available under Select and Mask.

[postrophe]

Hi

Just in case some have missed this : Refine Edge has Returned

Pierre

[whamalamaboom]

I just wanted to write in thanking Adobe for hearing the community. The patch notes from the latest update for Photoshop (which I downloaded a week or two ago) mentioned improvements to Select and Mask. Sure enough, when I tried it after the upgrade, it worked fantastically!

I'm really glad because the tool as it was before was practically unusable for me in my work. Now, I'm fine with it. I hope they continue to listen and even better, I hope they engage the community more to see what the feedback may be before things are rolled out.

[Cristi Kerekes]

You can still access the old refine edge tool very easily in Photoshop CC. Here is how:

[markd48202431]

I love the way no one ever dose the Refine edge tool demo and then has a ago putting the image on a dark solid colour background...

[MinaaMagued]

Tip To get Refine Edge tool back again in Photoshop 2017 - YouTube 

Guys Follow this trick to get back to the old refine edge tool! it is so fuckin easy

[ericg57047570]

try this code, it changed a lot but you should be alright ctrl+alt+R/cmd+opt+R

[philipking]

Refine Edge is still there in latest versions, just hidden. Make your selection, then go to the Select menu, and hold the shift key while selecting Select and Mask. Bingo! Refine Edge panel opens.

[Klizzama]

Oh Thank you! thank you! thank you! I don't know how you knew but you saved my life! (well, a good portion of today's work day) I wish you could see how happy I am!!!

Something like this??? !!!

[philipking]

I'm pleased to have helped you and to see you're so happy!

[MSaladin]

Thanks for sharing! Finally!

[breiber]

Please.

PLease.

PLease.

Bring back refine edge.

I understand where you were going with this... but this has SERIOUSLY slowed down my workflow...
I took the time to learn all the new tools ... so that's not it. (Keep in mind... taking the time having to learn it is also time lost). Something that would normally take me ten minutes is taking an hour. The separate window is seriously bogging down my computer also.

I normally not someone to verbalize my complaints but this is ridiculous. I don't understand why you would change smoething that already works really well.