PS 2015.5 - Refine Edge tool? Missing?

Report · Jun 21, 2016

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

Report · Aug 17, 2016

katielinville547 wrote:
Terri, I don't have any previous versions of Photoshop available for download via my Creative Cloud application on my Mac.

The wording in the Creative Cloud application is tricky. The "Previous Versions" top-level heading doesn't list previous versions you can install, it lists previous versions you have already installed. So "Previous Versions" is empty if you haven't installed any previous versions.

To install earlier versions, click Find Additional Apps, then click All Apps, then click View Previous Versions. Once you do that, it will show you a list of applications such as Photoshop and a menu for all available earlier versions you can install.

Report · Aug 17, 2016

Thank you so much ConradC! I am currently installing the most recent previous version.

Report · Aug 17, 2016

sorry Katie, I quite forgot about the option Conrad pointed out. Sorry to have wasted 24 hours of your time. It shows that these forums with many minds at work are far more more powerful than the thoughts of the individual.

Report · Jul 01, 2016

That's helpful, but still limits you to the selection that is not easily altered without anchor points.

Still feel that the pen tool needs to be added in this new menu.

Report · Aug 14, 2016

yes, it's very frustrating. Anyone know how to adjust a selection when you chose color range selection?

Report · Aug 14, 2016

Thanks Adobe for removing Refine Edge which was a really useful for refining masks for product retouching and was a regular part of my workflow.

Refine edge was a really useful for finely tweaking existing masks. I don't really care if what adobe has replaced it with has better edge detection for finding individual strands of flyaway hair! I never was a fan of all the automated features that adobe introduces to make photoshop easier for laypeople.

When I press the keyboard short cut Command + Opt+ R refine edge no longer comes up.

Adobe, please bring back Refine Edge for those users who find it useful.

Report · Aug 14, 2016

I've played around with using select and mask, watched the videos linked to in this thread and read the info on it put out by adobe in their help "how to use" section. On a large complicated file with many layers in groups that was created in the previous version of cc15 before 'select and mask' was introduced, select and mask is greyed out and is not even available for me to use.

I have tried initiating it by clicking on a layer that has an existing mask, clicking on a layer that doesn't have an existing mask, pressing com + opt + R, having a marching ants selection active , not having a marching ants selection..... You get the idea.

Report · Aug 24, 2016

I am a professional real estate photographer and use refine edge all the time in order to change blue sky. My work flow for this has been very simple: Select Color range (white sky) -> Invert -> Refine Edge. I almost fell off my chair when I saw this new feature which really does not work with replacing sky. No matter how good the original selection is the Select and mask messes it up really bad. If someone has figured out how to do sky replacement with Select and mask, please make a tutorial and post it. I think that it will be needed!

Report · Aug 24, 2016

I've been sitting back watching the conversation...and then I needed Refine Edge again. Ugh. Sure, it's amazing for me when it's a nice, clean edge with lots of contrast. Struggled again last night. Sorry to whine and also be unwilling to put multiple versions on my computer. This morning with fresh eyes I realized I'm working from home and could have switched to my personal laptop with an older version. Not worth it now. I sort of did this weird effect in Photoshop and then another weird effect in PowerPoint to do a mash-up that should work for the presentation I needed to make for a colleague. Whew.

Report · Sep 02, 2016

It would be very helpful to add back in the side panel palette - the POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL... not all selections are random, for instance selecting a product (bottle or box) or linear object (hard edges) from a background...the polygon tool was priceless for this

Report · Oct 06, 2016

I'm the same! Why do they have to remove tools and change their places - it has really slowed me down at a busy time. I'm properly annoyed - I don't have 25mins now to work out how to use it - I need to get this job done and out. SO annoyed.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

Use the link below to install 'previous versions of apps'. CS6, CC2014 up to CC2015.1.2 all have 'Refine Edge' and they will happily co-exist on the same machine with CC2015.5.1. A tip for the future is to use the 'advanced' install option and un-check 'remove previous version'. This will allow you to keep the old version while learning the new one.

Download and install Creative Cloud apps

Report · Oct 06, 2016

Hooray!

Let's all install 10 different versions of Photoshop and litter our hard drives and operating systems so we can still have access to tools that were deprecated even though they're still useful.

While we're at it, let's also install a couple different versions of After Effects so we can still directly export MP4 files, which was removed 2 versions ago.

Sorry, thumbs down.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

Hard disk space costs pennies these days. I would have thought anything that helps your work flow would be considered useful? You only need one other version of Photoshop for refine edge to be available. As I said to Olivia it is always best to keep your existing version of Photoshop when a major update comes out, that way you are not inconvenienced with having to learn new features when on a deadline.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

The decision to remove the perfectly-good Extract tool was a bad call when Refine Edge came out, and the decision to remove Refine Edge for an even worse tool is ... even worse.

If you want to ADD new features, that's GREAT. But please stop removing things that people use every single day.

Select and Mask kept automatically undoing any careful manual painting I was doing. In the end I just went with the 1999 trick of using a mask and manually painting all the hairs because I didn't have time to download/install an older version.

If Adobe hasn't already gotten into machine learning like everybody else, they really should, before someone creates an AI that can instantly tell the difference between hair and a wall, and extract a photo better than a human can. I suppose that was my expectation ... oh, a new tool. It must be better, faster, and more accurate. Definitely not my experience.

Wasting hard drive space just because it's cheap ... is just lazy, bad programming. SSDs are unfortunately not free or unlimited. Multiple versions of Adobe apps (certainly some of the biggest apps in the world) with different plugins installed and all the resulting licensing issues means nothing but inconvenience for the customer regardless of how you look at it.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

Hello,

your preaching to the wrong person. I don't work for Adobe and am just a forum ACP. Engineers and techs do look at this forum sometimes though and have 'staff' under their avatar, but if you want to catch the eye of someone from the company there is a better comments forum to use .

Photoshop Family Customer Community

I do appreciate your frustration and know from innumerable threads here that you are not alone. I imagine hearing other people have select and mask working is very annoying , but in fact they do. I suspect it's here to stay now so you really have little choice but to install earlier versions of Photoshop until all the glitches are ironed out of Select and Mask.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

Ah! I removed something from my reply at the last minute...

"I don't know what an ACP is -- I don't know if you work for Adobe -- if you're volunteering your own personal time to be helpful in this thread, that's awesome!"

But, that's useful to know. I'll quit barkin' up this tree.

Thanks, Terri.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

That's OK. MVP and ACP's here are just end users like you with a fairly in depth knowledge of the programs . Adobe just look at our track record answering questions and give us a badge.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

Terri Stevens wrote:

Hard disk space costs pennies these days. I would have thought anything that helps your work flow would be considered useful? You only need one other version of Photoshop for refine edge to be available. As I said to Olivia it is always best to keep your existing version of Photoshop when a major update comes out, that way you are not inconvenienced with having to learn new features when on a deadline.

Terri, you are right, HDD's do cost pennies. But I'll bet some of the people complaining have made the switch to SSD's which come in sizes of 256g, 500, and 1tb. Usually if you buy a system with one it's only 256g which leave little breathing room. Am just saying that the people complaining, "not me," may only have the 256g SSD. Either that or they have full HDD's, time for spring cleaning!!

Report · Oct 06, 2016

I suppose it was a slightly glib comment to make. SSD's do cost more than pennies/MB , but currently a second copy of Photoshop is the only solution for people desperate for Refine Edge again. I only suggest it as a disrupted workflow can be expensive for people and rather assumed that people will take a performance hit by using a standard hard disk -hope your problems with S&M have settled down.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

Terri Stevens wrote:
I suppose it was a slightly glib comment to make. SSD's do cost more than pennies/MB , but currently a second copy of Photoshop is the only solution for people desperate for Refine Edge again. I only suggest it as a disrupted workflow can be expensive for people and rather assumed that people will take a performance hit by using a standard hard disk -hope your problems with S&M have settled down.

I was just agreeing. As far as my experience I'm used to Select and Mask and hope the next patch is even more stable. I do need to update my video card even though adobe says it meets the requirements. just waiting for adobe to update their list of cards. And winning the lotto would help too;)

Report · Oct 06, 2016

Brilliant - Thanks Terri - I am doing this now - but it's still mega annoying and as Xdude says - hooray - lets just have 10 versions running on our computer at the same time. I am really interested to know who makes these decisions because they're doing a horrible job.

Report · Oct 06, 2016

I think Select and Mask would be described by Adobe as progress in masking as it does do a lot more than Refine Edge , but the trouble is it is much more demanding on hardware even on fast machines. It differs from Refine edge in using GPU acceleration and that requires very well written drivers that manage parallel processing or errors occur. Nvidia seem to be on top of this, but AMD are not which is probably why we find here some people like the new tool and others don't. Also Select and Mask is less than 6 months old and will improve when new tools are added , which is in the pipeline. Whether they will bring back refine edge as a legacy option I don't know, but it would please a lot of people for sure.

Having said that no semi automated tool is going to rival the techniques used by advanced retouchers-there still is no real alternative to using channel pulling techniques, calculation commands and Apply Image for very difficult images. I even paint hair on sometimes with custom brushes

Theresa who is an ACP here posted this video which is a good introduction to Select and Mask using a real world subject

Photoshop Select and Mask - YouTube