Photoshop CS3: a first look

27 Mar 2007 07:36

With its streamlined tools, enhanced non-destructive editing capabilities and better performance, Adobe's Photoshop CS3 will look very attractive to almost any user.

To upgrade or not to upgrade — that's generally the question when confronted with a new version of Photoshop such as the £485 (ex. VAT) Photoshop CS3 (upgrade from £139 ex. VAT). And, at least for 2007, the answer is an emphatic 'yes', if only because of several extremely useful new enhancements that should benefit most users, as well as potential improvements in performance that would benefit all. Furthermore, if you traditionally use Photoshop for video post-production tasks, 3D texture-map editing or scientific image analysis, there's a whole new — and pricier (£755 ex. VAT, upgrade from £329 ex. VAT) — version of Photoshop for you, dubbed Photoshop CS3 Extended.

From loading to saving, even the beta version I've been using for a couple of months generally operates faster than Photoshop CS2, and the recent post-public-beta version has been quite stable. There are a few areas where I've noticed a performance hit, but I'll reserve judgment until after we get the final release.

Although there's little in Photoshop CS3 that you couldn't do before, enhancements to existing tools really streamline production work. These include Smart Filters, which apply the traditional Filters at render, rather than on the bitmap, resulting in non-destructive, re-editable effects; Refine Edge, which groups selection-edge-tweaking options in a single dialogue with various types of previews; and a Quick Selection tool that speeds up masking against certain types of backgrounds such as patterns. In addition, enhancements to Bridge CS3, which Adobe bundles with both the standalone applications and suites, finally provide Photoshop with a decent media browser.

Photoshop's tool panels now collapse and fly out; the interface can take up as much or as little of the screen as you want. It didn't take us long to get used to this hide-and-seek style of user interface.

There are, of course, a few new capabilities, though they'll probably be handy for only a limited group of users. You can export images for Zoomify, which deconstructs images into smaller tiles and creates a small Flash movie that you can embed into a Web page, effectively allowing you to zoom in on larger images. And the automatic Photomerge will probably be a hit with panorama constructors.

For users new to image editing, Photoshop's rather monolithic learning curve remains, and you're better off starting with an inexpensive application such as Adobe's Photoshop Elements 5 or Corel's Paint Shop Pro XI. Either of those may be all you need. But if you've been waiting to take the plunge, Adobe Photoshop CS3 is a good version to dive into, and if you're a pro considering the upgrade, it's probably worth the £139 (ex. VAT) or so it will cost you. As for enthusiasts, that difficult decision remains between you and your wallet. We'll be back with a complete review after the program ships this spring.