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Special Mentions
Adobe Photoshop Extended (CS3) -- Using Windows
XP Pro
Release Date: April 16, 2007
This is a review of the new additions to Photoshop; not a full
review of the whole application.
 The
first thing I noticed; the "feather" on my little Photoshop
icon is gone. I heard say the new icon represents the periodic table
elements and now matches icons of all the other Creative Suite products.
HOWEVER, for those of you who
have only dreamed about being able to tackle the
not-for-the-squeamish Adobe Photoshop, this 10th version of
Photoshop is your chance to
step up to the plate and give it a try. The new
Photoshop CS3 has been upgraded and improved, perhaps, with you in mind
too.
With the addition of live previews and more interactive tools, it
shouldn't be long before you can say to yourself -- "Ahhh I get it
now!!"
Faster Start-up
The most immediately noticeable difference in Photoshop CS3 is
the faster start-up time. That alone is worth the upgrade for me.
Photoshop performance preferences offer a suggestion on how much
RAM memory should ideally be allocated to Photoshop. (Edit
| Preferences | Performance). Scratch disk preferences
are also easier to set up.
New Interface
Once Photoshop is open, you'll immediately notice
the new interface design -- all the applications in
the CS3 creative suite now have a more unified look so this new
change actually makes a lot of sense. Although the
tools palette is a single column by default, a simple click on
the dark gray bar at the top of the palette reverts the palette
back to the old familiar double column. All
palettes can now be collapsed so that they are represented as
little graphic icons, each icon indicating the identity of each palette.
If the palettes are open, to collapse them to icons, click on the
dark gray title bar at the top of the dock. To expand them back
out, click the title bar again. You can also temporarily expand a
palette by clicking on the individual icon. If you need all your screen space, press the Tab key
to hide all the palettes and press Tab again to bring
them back. (Okay, that's an old feature, but it bears repeating).
Levels and
Curves
For photographic work, the only tonal correction
tools for powerful colour adjustments you ever really need are
Levels and Curves. The new Curves
image adjustment tool has finally had a significant upgrade with
the addition of an optional histogram overlay (you may never
need to open your Levels dialog box again) and clipping
warning. The curves palette
comes pre-stocked with some nice tweaks (click the down-arrow
beside the Preset: window to open the drop-down menu)
that will help Photoshop beginners understand a bit more about
the complicated process of curves and levels.
The new Curves dialog box now has the optional addition of the
very valuable histogram.
Black and white conversion
In the past, Photoshop's "convert to grayscale" has always
produced a not-very-satisfactory flat image.
Colour photo converted to Grayscale
Photoshop CS3 has
added a more controlled adjustment (use the Black and White
Adjustment Layer to preserve your original colour image) for
black and white conversion using a single dialog interface. The
Black and White adjustment gets better contrast and
tone by you specifying the colours to suppress
and/or increase. If you don't know exactly what colours
might need filtering, the conversion process can be made even
more simpler by just clicking on a point in the image that needs
adjustment (let's say; a green background) and then dragging within the
image (drag right to brighten, left to darken) to adjust the
green
tones. This targets the correct colour range and adjusts the
command's Green: slider. Lightroom-users will already be familiar with this extremely nifty tool.
This feature is easy to miss and you would have to know it's
there in order to take advantage of it.
Black and White conversion compared to Grayscale conversion
Also, once again, there
are Presets you can experiment with. You can also add a little coloured tint to your black and white image by checking the radio
box by the word Tint then dragging the Hue and
Saturation sliders.
Tinted to Sepia after Black and White conversion.
Brightness and Contrast
The Brightness | Contrast image adjustment has been
updated so that you can now use it safely on images without risk
of clipping the highlight or shadow detail. The legacy (if
you don't know what "legacy" means, it's a fancy word meaning
"revert to the old way")
operating mode is still there if you need the old behavior back,
but why would you?
Photomerge
Photoshop's ability to deal with panoramic images has up to now
been very basic. The new layout options in File
| Automate | Photomerge... provide a number of methods
for controlling how images are stitched together to create a
panorama. Without any trouble, CS3's
Photomerge flawlessly merges images with vastly improved image
alignment. When the Photomerge dialog box is open, browse to the
files you want to merge, select your layout choice, click the OK
button, then sit back and watch in awe as Photoshop goes to work.
This image consists of three photographs taken with a hand held Canon
EOS 5D
Auto-Align
and Auto-Blend
When you try to take photos of a group, there's
always one or two people in every picture who muck up the perfect
shot. Enter: the new
Auto-Align
Layers feature. If using two photos, as I did in
the illustrations below, drag them into
one file to
create two layers keeping the bad shot of the person you want to
eliminate from the picture at the top layer. With the Move Tool
selected, hold down your Shift key and
click on each layer to select them both, then click the
Auto-Align Layers button in the options bar (or Edit |
Auto-Align Layers...) to open the
Auto-Align Layers dialog box; select your
alignment choice (for this type of work, select the default
Auto) then once the images are aligned, select
Edit | Auto-Blend Layers
which puts a black layer mask over the top layer. Now
paint "out" the parts of the photo you don't want in the final
shot in order to bring "in" the better parts from the photo in
the bottom layer.
Family Reunion: This is an example of a photograph that had all
the parties co-operating except one.
Using Auto-Align and then Auto-Blend to apply a layer mask, it
was quick and simple to create a great image using the best parts
of both photos.
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Multi point source cloning
The new Clone Source Palette allows you to
define and recall up to five clone source points when working
with the clone stamp or standard healing brush tools. This is
such a time saver as you can select the clone source of one
texture once, do your cloning, then before you move on to a
different clone source point in the photo, click on the
second little clone source icon. If you wish to return to
the original clean-up area, simply click the first clone
source icon and off you go.
Here's a little tip. With the Clone Tool selected, on the menu
bar, under Sample:, use the drop down menu and
select All Layers. Now create a blank layer above
your original photograph and rather than doing your repair work
on the original image, do your cleanup on the blank layer. If
you're using adjustment layers, click the little icon (see
illustration below) to ignore adjustment layers when cloning.
Select All Layers
Click adjustment layer button to ignore
adjustment layers when cloning.
|
Five clone source points. |
|
An optional
overlay, a semi-transparent version of the image, lets you see your clone source and thus
you can position your cursor before you begin
cloning. No more guesswork. The overlay takes some getting used to though. |
New Smart Object features
We first saw the introduction of smart objects in Photoshop CS2
and now CS3 has made the process much simpler. On the menu bar,
click File | Open as Smart Object... (or if image is
already open, Layer | Smart
Objects | Convert to Smart Object) to
open a range of nondestructive edit options. As before, you can
apply free transform adjustments to smart object layers so that
you can scale an image layer up or down in size without
permanently resizing the layer pixels. But, the best part, Smart Objects will
now allow you to apply Smart Filters to a Smart Object.
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Quick Selections
If you've never been comfortable using the Quick Mask mode, the new quick selection tool
(grouped with
the Magic Wand Tool in the Tools palette) might be the
solution for you. Select the Quick Selection Tool,
select your brush size, click on any point in your photo, then drag your mouse to
paint a selection right on your image. Switch to a smaller brush
to select those small tricky areas. Use the little icons on
the menu bar to Add or Subtract from your selection as you paint. Photoshop will
calculate a rough selection of pixels but as with any "automatic"
selection tool, this one works best when there are fairly
significant differences in colour between edges.
 |
Select clearly defined areas of your photo using the new
Quick Select tool. |
|
Refine Edge...
You can further modify
and smooth away any ragged selection edges by clicking on the
Refine
Edge... button found below the Photoshop Menu items
(or
on the Menu bar; Select | Refine Edge...)
to open the Refine Edge palette where you can fine-tune
and adjust your selection. (By the way, this is the new home of the
Feather command with its expand and contract options).
Don't miss experimenting with each of those five little preview
buttons at
the bottom of the palette -- all offer different preview modes so
select the one that works best for you under your specific
circumstances.
Press the F key to toggle through all the preview
modes. These upgrades to selection processes just make selecting
easier and easier. |
Refine Edge palette previewing the image with a black background. |
Vanishing Point
I'm more into photography than illustration or designing so the
new Vanishing Point is difficult for me to comment
on first hand but I 'hear' it has been updated in CS3 to include some extra new
features such as when you import image data you can wrap images
around multiple pre-defined plane surfaces. And there is an angle
control that can be used for positioning linked planes at angles
other than 90º. This means you can define complex geometric
surfaces, import an image and paste the image data across more
than one plane surface at a time. Plus you can also use the
transform tool to rotate a pasted selection before placing it.
Zoomify
If you ever wished you could "politely" display large,
high-resolution images on the Internet, CS3 has introduced the
new Zoomify (File | Export | Zoomify...) which
generates a very simple Webpage containing the HTML code needed
to display the image along with the panning and zooming controls.
You are then able to fancy up your Web page to your liking.
This is just too interesting a feature not to include it in this
review.
Zoomify your large, high resolution images for quick loading on the
Internet.
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Device Central
|
|
(click
thumbnail
to view larger
image) |
CS3 has added Device Central (File
| Device
Central) which lets you preview how an image looks when
displayed on a huge variety of mobile devices. This needs a
little bit of explanation as it's so new. Select your own mobile
device in Device Central; click on the New
Document tab; then click the Create button
to open a blank file in Photoshop with pre-set parameters based
on the device you selected. Paste whatever photo/content you want
into the blank file then File/Save For Web & Devices.
Click on the Device Central... button at the bottom
right of the dialog box; and a temporary file showing your
phone with your photo is displayed in the
Device Central Emulator. Go back to Photoshop's
Save For Web & Devices dialog box if you need to make
any changes. Once satisfied, click the Save button.
Now simply export your perfectly sized image to your mobile
device (File | Export
| Send Video Preview to Device).
OH!! Don't forget to connect your device to your computer. |
Print
The Print dialog now uses the Print with Preview interface and
has more print options all on the same screen (along with
helpful tool tips for each). Colour management is clear and
straightforward and by holding down the Option key (PC) and Alt
(Mac) you can
turn the Done button into a Remember
button that saves your choices for future use
Bridge 2.0
You won't recognize the new Bridge. If you're not happy
about the dark grey theme (it does take some getting used to), you can
change it; on the Menu bar, click
(Edit |
Preferences |
General |
Image Backdrop:) but at least
give it a chance before you make
the change. There are
some nice refinements in the way the metadata information is
displayed and the Preview panel now provides a properly colour-managed
preview of selected images. The thumbnail previewing is MUCH
faster and smoother. You can now compare multiple photos in the
Preview panel. The new Filter panel provides extensive
image filtering options and file search times have improved,
allowing you to filter images with a single mouse-click using
criteria such as file type, keywords, image rating and
orientation. The Slideshow view mode has also been updated
offering a choice of slide transitions but with less confusing
controls. Click on a Preview image and the little built-in
virtual Loupe
tool appears allowing close inspection of specific areas; drag it
around the preview image using your cursor, press the + and -
keys to zoom in or out and click on the upper-left corner to
close it. Also new to Bridge;
is the File Stacking feature which will group
photos of your choice together under a single thumbnail. Select
files
that you want kept together as a group, then press Ctrl +
G to create a stack.
Camera RAW
 There's no doubt about it; Adobe's Camera
RAW with its extensive supported camera types is top dog as far as raw processing software goes
and the updates are pretty significant. A
major new feature is the ability to use Camera Raw to
edit JPGs (JPEG's) and TIFFs. One way to work with a JPG or TIFF file, in
Adobe Bridge click on the .jpg or .tif you want to open and edit in Camera
Raw,
select File | Open in Camera Raw... to access all the wild and wonderful adjustments
available. The five tabs in earlier versions of Camera Raw have
been replaced with buttons and panels. Among the main improvements is a
Fill Light slider as well as a slider named
Recovery, which lets you pull back some of the highlights
without having to lower the exposure. The new Parametric Curve adjustment
makes it much simpler to make adjustments to your image with the
use of sliders for Highlights, Lights, Darks and Shadows. The new
HSL/Grayscale gives you complete and masterful
control over grayscale conversions. Check the Convert to
Grayscale box and go to work on the colour channels using
this powerful new feature. The
Vibrance slider does a much better job of
increasing the saturation of any under-saturated areas in your
photo without overly-affecting colours that are already
well-saturated. It also has a built-in skin tone protector to
prevent skin tones from becoming too red. The
new Clarity control, allows for just about the best
image quality you can hope for (View your image at 100% in
order to see clearer results of any changes that you make). The
new Split Toning can be used to colour a grayscale
image by tinting the highlight pixels with one shade and the
shadow values with a different shade. But get creative and see
what effects you can come up with using a colour image. The Camera Raw window has a
new Retouching tool for cloning and healing those
inevitable dust-spots that appear with digital images. This means
you don't need to go into Photoshop to do your cleanup. If you're pleased with the results of any of your
selections, then make use of the ability to save to your custom
presets for future use. As a nice little extra, the colour-coded bars help you determine
which way to move the sliders in order to achieve the colour or
brightness you're needing.
ImageReady - R.I.P.
I discovered Adobe ImageReady
for creating rollover states for Website work when it was a
nifty little stand-alone program back in 1998. When it came
bundled with Photoshop 5.5, that convenience was a bonus I got
used to because then I could simply bop back and forth between
Photoshop and ImageReady -- all three of us working together as a
team within one application. But
alas, with the new release of CS3, ImageReady has been
discontinued. This probably has something to do with Adobe now
owning Fireworks, a much superior application to be sure. But
still. Old habits do truly die hard. To be fair though, except
for the missing rollover-creation capability, CS3 has retained
most of what ImageReady originally offered. On the positive side,
the creation of GIF animations has been taken to a more exciting
level with the inclusion of the option to use a timeline
animation versus a frame animation. If you
haven't used timelines before now, this will be another learning
curve as you try to wrap your head around a new concept and new
terms such as keyframes, fps (frames per second),
durations, etc. But if you were able to take on most of what
Adobe Photoshop has offered over the years -- and won -- you will
have no problem grasping timelines.
Before we get too huffy about the discontinuation of ImageReady,
it follows a long line of other discontinued Adobe applications
which were ultimately replaced with bigger and better. I guess
this means I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get Adobe
Fireworks.
Such is progress.
Written by Cheryl Smith; co-author and illustrator of the
Really, Really, Really Easy Step-by-Step Computer Books
series.
Copyrighted 2007 by Neat Net Tricks
Reproduction in any form without express written consent is
prohibited.
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