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Photoshop CS3 represents on the most significant overhauls of Adobe's flagship product in some time. The new version, which ships [DATE], features a significantly improved interface, greatly streamlined menus, more live preview tools and
"For this release we've focused on polishing and streamlining the features that Photoshop has long been known for," says Photoshop senior product manager John Nack. According to Nack, Photoshop CS3 "is about taking the Photoshop you know and love and making it more flexible and faster."
Photoshop CS3 is the first Intel native version of the app to run on the Macintosh platform and performance improvements are dramatic. Startup times are greatly reduced and complex rendering tasks such as applying filters are now much faster.
[I'm getting confirmation from Adobe on this, but it would seem that the app is not a universal binary, users have choose either intel or powerpc versions when purchasing the app. If that's true I'd like to add this sentence:
Unfortunately Adobe has opted to release two version of the app which means customers will have to choose between Intel or PowerPC version of Photoshop.]
In addition to speed and performance gains, many of the new features in Photoshop CS3 address some of the concerns of those who have previously found the complexity of the app overwhelming.
The entire palette system has been streamlined and shrunk down, palettes are now collapsable which leaves a much larger workspace for image files.
Many of the design changes reflect Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia. Nack says Adobe was already in the process of redesigning Photoshop's palettes when the company bought Macromedia.
"We liked what the Macromedia Studio apps were doing with palettes," he says, "so when the companies got together, it worked out beautifully."
Additionally, many things that once required a separate dialogue window have been reworked and now feature edit-in-place functionality.
For instance complex selections are now much easier thanks to the Quick Select tool, which allows users selection parts of an image by simply painting over them.
The selection tools also include a new button called Refine Selection which allows you to see your selection matted against various solid backgrounds, as well as expand or contract the selection visually and control the softness of the edges.
Like many of Photoshop CS3's improvements these features were previously available but required multiple, complex steps. "We've taken a lot of the core things Photoshop has done for a long time and made them smarter and more interactive with live previews and better behind-the-scenes image processing," says Nack.
Other examples of ease-of-use improvements include a new and improved clone tool that now features the ability to overlay the clone source as you retouch. Instead of guessing, the clone source can be viewed right on top of an image. There are also now options for changing the scale, rotation, and offset of the clone target.
Adobe has continued to improve the non-destructive editing capabilities in Photoshop CS3. Filters, for instance, have become non-destructive, easily applied as layer add-ons and then removed if you change your mind. Each smart filter layer gets the traditional Photoshop "eyeball" icon in the layers palette and can be toggle on and off to see the effects of the applied filter.
Smart filters can also be applied as layer masks which makes it easy to target specific areas of your image.
"You always want to have the ability to go back and change your mind," says Nack, "and now you always have that flexibility."
CS3 also brings some changes to the apps that have traditionally shipped with Photoshop -- ImageReady and Bridge. ImageReady is no longer a standalone program, but most its functionality has been incorporated into Photoshop's Save For Web command.
Bridge, the standalone file browser tool that ships with Photoshop has also seen numerous improvements, including a magnifying loupe for inspecting image details and new side-by-side image comparison tools.
Camera RAW support is also greatly improved in the new release. The Healing Brush, a stable for retouching images in Photoshop, has made its way to the Camera Raw tool, which means that it's now possible to make batch corrections to dust and scratches in your images.
It's now possible to use many of the tools in Camera Raw to not just RAW images, but JPEG and other formats as well.
While the functionality and features of the final version Photoshop will not radically differ from the public beta, Nack suggested that Camera Raw may see further upgrades before the final release, including support for new camera models.
Adobe has also recognized that there is growing market of scientific and medical uses for Photoshop and CS3 sees the introduction of a new, Extended version of Photoshop that includes an analysis menu packed with tools designed to help researchers analyze images.
The Extended version also features a number of tools for users working with video and 3D rendering tools.
As you would expect, Photoshop CS3 also features numerous integration improvements with many of the apps Adobe acquired from Macromedia. A new export option utilizes Flash to create a movie file capable of displaying high resolution images on the web. There's also now roundtrip editing functionality in Dreamweaver as well as pixel based cut and paste and an Edit in Photoshop command within Dreamweaver.
Post processing is where Photoshop has always shined and the new version is no exception. Standout new features include sophisticated new selection tools, photo stitching abilities that work to adjust exposure discrepancies and a new black and white conversion tool with live previews.
While probably not the direct inspiration for the increased non-destructive editing tools, photo sharing sites certainly encourage experimentation and revision based on public feedback. The new filters-as-layers workflow makes it easier to go back and correct images when your fellow Flickr users reject your late night inspiration.
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