Editing images have become a common thing, and masking or cropping an object from a larger image is probably the most popular trick Adobe Photoshop has under its sleeves.

Photoshop as the de facto industry standard in raster graphics editing, is the most popular tool for graphic designers and alike. But still, the process of selecting an image out is probably the most low-tech feature it has, which making it daunting, difficult and time consuming.

Precious time can be wasted by continuously clicking the Pen Tool or perfecting a magic wand selection, for example.

This is where Adobe wants to make things easie by introducing an AI-powered feature it simply called 'Select Subject'.

To use the feature, users just need to choose the it from the main, or from the 'Select and Mask' workspaces. After that, they just need to click anywhere on an image, and Photoshop will automatically select the subject or subjects in the image.

From there, they are free to change the background or tweak the subject(s) separately.

The technology is available starting Photoshop 19.1 for its Creative Cloud users. It harnesses Adobe's AI platform called 'Sensei'. It aims to ease the use of the Pen Tool, or other selection methods, and speed up the initial process. Using AI, Machine Learning Technology can automatically select prominent subject(s) with just a single click.

The selection can then be refined using more traditional methods, such as removing parts of the Select Subject using Subtract From Selection tool. for example.

"Complicated details around the subject aren't an issue, because this feature is using machine learning to recognize the objects," Adobe Photoshop Product Manager Meredith Payne Stotzner said. During the demo, she uses it select a single person on the street, a group of volleyball players, a couple on the beach and a red panda.

The feature was first teased back in November 2017. At the time, it was one of the most wanted tool for graphic designers.

While the the tool's selecting capabilities aren't perfect, the process of selecting subjects (like selecting someone's curly hair), can become more bearable. It will at least give designers a head start that could amount to legit time savings. It pretty much eliminates the tedious hand-drawn or tweaked masking process, letting them focus on the finer details.

Since it uses machine learning technology, one should expect that the feature will get better over time.

Windows High-Density Support

In addition to speeding up the cropping workflow, Photoshop is also improving its High DPI support so its UI will scale reasonably with users' own Windows settings. This is another feature users have been waiting for quite a long time.

Previously, Photoshop has managed to take advantage of Apple’s pixel doubling technology to support a 200% scale factor on Retina displays starting 2012, but Windows users have had to be patient.

Here, Adobe finally brings that capability to Windows. What this means, Photoshop on Windows 10 Creator’s Edition offers a full range of choices for UI scale factors from 100% through 400%, in 25% increments. It will also automatically adjust itself based on the Windows settings, making it simple to set up and easy to switch between high-definition laptops and more basic desktop monitors, for example.

Meanwhile, the tool also includes support for Microsoft’s Dial so users can adjust their brush properties while drawing - something that people have been waiting for since Photoshop first introduced Dial feature.