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Photoshop for Enthusiasts: Adobe Photoshop CS3 -
Justified Upgrade? When Photoshop CS3 was
publicly released in its beta version, writers and reviewers around the world
rushed to be the first to describe its new features.
They rushed so quickly, in fact, that it was hard to believe that they
could, in days, review so rich and deep a program as Photoshop. And that even
before the final commercial product was released for sale.
After decades in high tech,
I’ve not yet encountered a perfect beta with fully working program elements.
So how, I questioned, could all these writers possibly make a
recommendation without first spending LOTS of time working with the commercial
release of this massively deep and rich software?
Still, attendees at my Photoshop classes and workshops were asking for
objective recommendations to guide them about upgrading to this newest version
and the vast majority of photography enthusiasts need stronger reasons than
saving two minutes in workflow to justify a significant upgrade investment.
So that I could offer them
objective feedback based on my personal experience with the newest version of
Photoshop, I chose to go “slow and steady” in developing my opinions.
I’m confident that, now, I’m finally ready to give my honest
appraisal to all those questioners who’ve waited patiently for my point of
view about whether or not it makes sense for them to invest in Adobe’s
Photoshop CS3 upgrade, given their dollars available for this versus other gear. Given that background and
perspective, my opinion is decidedly yes!
Although I’ve often been
reticent in reviews to give an unqualified “go ahead” because of program
imperfections and operational flaws, this is not the case with Photoshop CS3. Let’s look at the version
improvements behind my unqualified “go do it!” Here,
though, are the four Photoshop CS3 compelling features that, to me, do justify
the upgrade for enthusiasts. These are the “must haves,” the features that I
believe will be the differentiating advancements that can further unleash the
power of your “digital darkroom:” ·
Opening a Raw file in Photoshop CS3
triggers the latest iteration of Adobe RAW.
I liked Adobe’s previous Raw file handler, but not enough to change
from the ones that Nikon and Canon provided for use with their cameras’ RAW
file formats. But this latest Adobe RAW edition is nothing less than awesome.
It’s now my Raw file handler of choice; the Nikon and Canon plug-ins have been
removed from their folders and safely parked in a dark corner in the inactive
archival recesses of my computer. I love its more accurate histograms, not to
mention the full color histogram option. It lets me tweak my exposure, white
balance and color with full preview at the time when RAW images should be
tweaked, before they’re opened as Photoshop PSDs or another “developed”
picture file format. ·
Photoshop CS3’s Quick Selection
tool is, in most cases, much superior to and far faster than Photoshop’s other
selection tools. It reduces the toil of trying to achieve a smooth selection
because you can now roughly “paint” over the selection you want and
Photoshop CS3 will determine its edges. (This approach is used in many
third-party masking plug-ins which can also be used with older Photoshop CS
versions. These plug-ins can also usually be more delicately “tuned,” as
well. For the record, though, they typically cost as much as the Photoshop CS3
upgrade would.) Still, this tool is a huge advance for those users who don’t
have a third-party masking plug-in. Making
good selections has continued to be one of the most difficult tasks for all but
the most highly experienced Photoshop user to master.
This new tool will help the beginner and intermediate Photoshopper take a
big step forward. ·
If you only have one monitor with
which to work – the case with most enthusiasts – Photoshop CS3 allows you to
play hide-and-seek with its screen-consuming palettes, tucking them invisibly
away until you need and recall them. You can work at your full-screen size
without hiding half your picture. That, by itself, buries a major source of
frustration and justifies the upgrade for many, many users!
If you think that hiding the palettes at will is a minor thing on
today’s wide screens, consider that most digital cameras record a wider image
than film cameras did. You can usefully use that extra image room on your
screen. Icing on the cake is the ability to reconfigure the toolbar in a single
vertical column, consuming even less image-stealing space. ·
Black-and-white photography is back
with a vengeance and, if you’re caught in that wave, Photoshop CS3’s new
B&W conversion tools are very welcome and much improved. You can modify your
image using the digital equivalent of the primary color filters that made
B&W film photography such a wonderful medium of expression. You’ve got
presets and sliders to control Red, Blue, Green, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow for
individual control of filtering and tint. Watch those clouds pop, skin tones
mellow and greenery brighten. How
‘bout an infrared look? Sliders sound too complicated? You can always hit the
Auto option. Major requirements for
Photoshop CS3? A big, fast, memory-stuffed PC is a good place to start.
Photoshop CS3 really does seem to load and run faster than CS2 does on my
Microsoft Windows XP-based desktop (recently upgraded from 1.5GB to 2GB of DDR
memory. That extra half GB of DDR
seems to help everything run
noticeably faster with far fewer hard disk accesses. It should. Photoshop is a
memory-intensive graphics program. There is nothing better you can do to improve
a memory-intensive graphics program’s performance than adding more memory to
your PC. (Don’t blame Photoshop
for the software bloat that forces that RAM upgrade. The guilty culprit is
Microsoft with its myriad Windows XP patches that now practically cripple
computers with smaller amounts of installed memory. One GB doesn’t cut it
anymore for the digital darkroom. It barely makes it for the OS. Today’s XP
operating system consumes so much available memory that too little is left for a
smooth, fast-running memory intensive application like Photoshop without its
falling back on a less desirable alternative: constant read-writes to your hard
drive which works something like dragging Photoshop or any other graphics app
through digital molasses. Photoshop thrives on memory the same way that a
vegetable garden thrives on sunlight and water. Give it more and it is more
productive. (If you’re running What’s that? You’re using a new Intel-based Mac? Than a Photoshop upgrade is even more of a “no-brainer” buy for you. CS3 is the first version to run natively on these Macs. |