Adobe Photoshop CS2
This is the 15th Birthday of Photoshop and I would like to introduce you to Version 9 dubbed Photoshop CS2. Adobe has (Today) announced the release of Adobe Photoshop CS2, part of the CS2 suite of Programs which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign amd Golive.
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Adobe Photoshop CS 2 Review
PhotoshopCAFE.com is right on the ball and I’m pleased to present this review of Adobe’ latest release. This is the 15th Birthday of Photoshop and I would like to introduce you to Version 9 dubbed Photoshop CS2. Adobe has (Today) announced the release of Adobe Photoshop CS2, part of the CS2 suite of Programs which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign amd Golive.
I am please to bring you this review as well as a couple of tutorials including a video Demo of Vanishing Point from My upcoming video release “Photoshop Secrets: CS2 For Digital Photographers.” (Colin Smith – PhotoshopCAFE). And an Excerpt for my book “How To Do Everything with Photoshop CS2” (Colin Smith – McGraw-Hill/Osborne).
Adobe Bridge
The first thing you will notice with Photoshop CS2 is that the File Browser has gone. This has been replaced by a new app called Bridge. Bridge improves on File Browser for many reasons.
Scalable thumbnails: Slide the slider on the bottom of the screen to change the size of the thumbnails in real time. This works just like the slider in Apple’s I Photo.
Enhanced Metadata: There are more user customizable fields than before
Different Workspaces. Choose from Filmstrip, Thumbnails, details and Variations. All the workspaces can be saved and loaded. Make custom workspaces and load them instantly with a keyboard shortcut.
Image Ranking: Another feature “influenced” by iphoto. This feature allows you to quickly rank any image from zero to 5 stars. Makes for quick sorting and management. There is also a feature where you can assign different colors to the images for sorting. The filter feature allows you to view images based on ranking and color code assignment.
Adobe Bridge allows you to work with many image types and see previews. including InDesign and Illustrator files, quicktime movies and multiple page PDF’s. You will see a little arrow that will allow you to view all the pages right in the Thumbnail. Other features of Bridge include the ability to open multiple Bridge windows, browse and purchase stock photography right within Bridge. You can also manage and work with RAW files without launching Photoshop.
Photoshop CS2
There are tons of exciting features for everyone. This release offers more for the digital photographer and the designer. There are also features for video people including firewire previews. Not much has changed for the Web designer except for the appearance of the Animation Palette in Photoshop CS2. Let’s jump into the new features:
Enhanced Camera Raw: Now you have the ability to work with multiple raw images and copy any settings between them. You can save any RAW file back to RAW by using the DNG (Digital Negative) Format. Camera Raw now features some auto settings that can be turned on or off that actually do a pretty good job. Camera RAW finally allows you to adjust the image curves. The Curves window is similar to Photoshop’s Curves dialog box but lacks some of the functionality such as adding sampled points by Ctrl/Cmd + clicking on the image. The Curve overlays a live histogram which is very cool. Camera Raw now allows non destructive straightening and cropping. When you have finished you can save the image back to RAW, save the adjustment and close out or open the 16 bit raw images in Photoshop.
The Layers Palette: has also been updated. We can now select multiple layers. Hold down shift to select all the contiguous layers or hold Cmd/Ctrl to select individual layers. To transform or move several layers, select them and transform them together without the need to link. Alignment can also be accomplished without the need to link layers. You can still link the layers by using the link button at the bottom of the Palette, this is more cumbersome than the old link well in my opinion but Adobe tells me that you don’t need to link as often as you used to because you can select multiple layers for many tasks. It will take a little getting used to this new way of working, which I can say I do enjoy, except when it comes to linking non contiguous layers. Linking will remember the relationship of layers while selecting will not. Multiple layers can be selected right in the workspace by Shift clicking or dragging with the move tool. I prefer using the Cmd/Ctrl key to select a layer over the “Auto select”. Auto select layers can be turned off from the tool options bar. Multiple layer selection will be comfortable for users coming over from Illustrator, but can get an experienced Photoshop user into a little trouble at first.
Smart Objects: I love this feature! You can now place Vector objects into Photoshop CS2 and resize them as often as you like without losing any quality. Illustrator files retain their native format and are not rasterized until (if) you choose to rasterize them. You can switch back to Illustrator and make modifications to the file. RAW images can also be placed as smart objects, allowing you to double click on them at any time to adjust them in Adobe Camera Raw. You can also group layers together as Smart Objects which can be manipulated without loss of quality. The Smart objects can be edited or exported as separate documents. You can Duplicate Smart Objects to make instances. When you update one of the smart objects, all it’s instances will be automatically updated.
WYSIWYG Font Preview: The feature that every designer has been begging for is here. You can now get a real sample of each font in the font menu. Preferences allow you to change the size of the preview or to turn it off.
New tools: There is now a redeye reduction brush that does a quick job or removing “demonic” red eye as well as a spot healing tool. The Spot healing tool works just like the healing tool except you don’t need to take a sample. See my tutorial on these 2 features in the CS2 Supplemental guide that ships with the latest Photoshop User Magazine.
Image Warping: This works just like Text Warp except it works on images. Choose a preset as a starting point and them click and drag your image to pinch and bulge it. This is a non destructive filter which allows you to restore the image to its original shape at any time. Now you can shape that label to fit a surface exactly. Used with Vanishing point, this feature is a lot of fun.
Vanishing point: Perhaps the most WOW feature in CS2 is Vanishing point. This filter allows you to create 3D planes on your images and them paste, clone, paint and move objects around the image. These objects will snap to the planes and take on their perspective. This is an amazing and very fun filter to use. Please see the Video demo I have created to appreciate Vanishing point. (From my upcoming video: Photoshop Secrets: CS2 for Digital Photographers – “www.photoshopCD.com”)
Lens Correction: This cool filter allows you to correct many perspective distortions caused by lenses. Remove barreling, keystoning, and fisheye effects easily. Check out an excerpt from my New book. How to Do Everything with Photoshop CS2 for a tutorial on the Lens Correction Filter. This filter can also be used to create some whacky special effects. Read the tutorial here.
Smart Sharpen: Sharpen your images and fade out the effects on the shadows and highlights. This method of sharpening allows you to sharpen tonal ranges of images, thus avoiding halos such as you see in unsharp mask. You can sharpen the image without increasing the noise in the shadows. This Feature builds on the technology from Shadow/Highlight introduced in Photoshop CS.
Noise Reduction: Allows you to remove grain and color noise for each channel or over the entire image. Does a fairly decent job without blurring the image too much. Also has a nice little JPEG artifact removal feature.
Blurs: Photoshop CS2 Sports several new Blur filters including shape and box blurs.
Customizable menu: This is great for educators. You can hide certain items from the menu or color code any series of commands. The sets can be saved and loaded to instantly emulate various workspaces.
HDR Support: Photoshop CS2 has some limited HDR (High Dynamic Range) support. These are 32 bit floating point images. The range goes brighter than white and darker than black. Floating point means that you can preview anywhere across the range (because your monitor can’t show brighter than white or darker than black). Exposure Merge allows you to take photos at various bracketing and merge them into a HDR image. These images are good for texture and lighting maps for 3d and video.
ImageReady remains exactly the same except for a few features such as Animation and Conditions actions have now made their way across to Photoshop. However Web designers will be happy to know that very good Flash Web Photo galleries can now be created with a few clicks of the mouse. Combine that with the Image Management features or Bridge and it may be worth an upgrade.
Hot: Photoshop CS2 is a solid upgrade and offers many fantastic new features for almost everyone. Anyone working with images, be it Photographers, designers or forensic scientists will definitely want to look into this version. Bridge, Image Warp, WYSIWYG Fonts, Smart Objects and Vanishing Point will appeal to Designers. Photographers will be happy with the enhanced Camera Raw, Smart Sharpen, Bridge, Lens Correction, Red eye and Noise Reduction Features. Video and 3D designers will enjoy the Firewire Preview and HDR support.
Not: I’m not a big fan of the Links well being removed from the Layers Palette, it’s a bit more clumsy to link layers and you have also lost the layer/Mask Indicator, you will have to look at the status bar now to see if you are painting on the mask or image. Product Activation is now here for Mac Users as well as Windows, yes it helps against piracy, but should we all suffer for the sake of the dishonest?
Verdict: I personally think this is a very worthwhile upgrade, if you have been holding out for a “worthwhile” upgrade, this is it! The King of Image editing programs has just got better with several revolutionary new tools. The gap between the competition (If there is any) has just been widened even more.
I award 4.5 out of 5 cups of Coffee to Adobe PhotoshopCS2. (If they had left the links well in the layers palette, it would have been 5 out of 5.)
Availability from May 05
Read about it at Adobe
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Colin Smith - PhotoshopCAFE.com
Colin Smith has Authored more than a dozen books on Photoshop, runs the World's most popular Photoshop Site, PhotoshopCAFE.com, and has won 4 international Awards for his design work. Colin has been nominated for the Photoshop Hall of Fame and and is in high demand as a Photoshop Instructor around the USA. He is featured on series of training videos from PhotoshopCD.com. Colin is a regular columist for Photoshop User Magazine.
