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Photoshop now comes in two flavours: Standard and Extended. The Standard version includes many enhancements, largely geared towards greater productivity. Smart Filters provide the ability to apply multiple filters to a layer non-destructively. The filters can be edited or removed at any point, just like Adjustment layers. The process works by converting layers to Smart Objects, which means you can combine multiple layers in a single Smart Object, allowing one or more filters to be applied to several layers at once. Like Adjustment layers, Smart Objects are automatically created with a Layer Mask, so it's now possible to paint out the effect of a set of filters where you don't want it applied. By lowering the brightness of the whole mask, you can apply the effects of the filters at a lower opacity. As with all Smart Objects, it's necessary to double-click the icon to open them as a separate file in order to edit the contents. And while filters' parameters can be modified individually, the effects of other filters in the mix aren't visible during the editing process.
Cloning The Clone tool, that old match 'n' patch standby, has undergone a massive rethink. As well as sampling just the current layers and all layers, you can now set it to sample just the current layer and those beneath it. More spectacular, though, is the ability to turn on an Overlay mode, which shows a ghosted version of the clone source, permitting you to see exactly what you're going to be cloning and where. This can optionally be set to hide when you start painting, reappearing when cloning stops. With the overlay on view, the new Clone palette lets you rotate and scale the clone source, allowing perspective cloning for the first time. Best of all, you can set up to five separate clone sourcesacross multiple documents if you wish, which are remembered and retrieved by clicking their button. Quick Selection There's a wholly new selection method in the Quick Selection tool. This allows you to isolate complex objects by dragging the tool over them: Photoshop automatically recognises edges, snapping the selection border to them. Dragging again with the tool will add to the selection, while holding down option as you drag subtracts from it. An optional Auto Enhance button produces smoother results, but at the cost of speed. It's also possible to use the tool to sample all the layers in a document at once. It's not a perfect solution - it never could be - but it works beautifully under the right conditions. Once a selection is made, the new Refine Edge dialog shows the object cut out against a white, black or transparent background, as a QuickMask view or as an alpha channel. Here, you can adjust the feathering, expand and contract the selection, and apply a variety of smoothing and refining methods. The dialog works with all selections, not just those made with the Quick Selection tool: it's a tremendous enhancement for any kind of selection. And the rest... The Photomerge automation, which seamlessly joins landscape shots, has now been revised as an Auto Align dialog. Unlike Photomerge, this operates within the main Photoshop interface. Auto Align compares multiple images for common reference points, and then scales, rotates and aligns them for a near perfect fit. Auto Align is complemented by an Auto Blend feature, which matches the lighting and exposure to blend layers together. This means multiple bracketed exposures of the same scene can be combined to get the best results from the combination of images. Adobe has also updated the Vanishing Point filter, allowing placed images to be wrapped around several surfaces at once. In addition, there's now support for 'walls' at other than 90 alignment, and the angle can be specified numerically or dragged by hand. CS3 introduces an intuitive method for converting images to black and white. Opening the Black & White dialog presents a window showing six colour sliders, which at first glance appears confusing. However, instead of moving the sliders, you can click and drag left and right within the image: the selected range of colours will be brightened or darkened accordingly, with a real-time preview. Camera Raw moves to the next generation with CS3, with new editing tools such as the Retouch tool - the equivalent of Photoshop's main Healing tool. It's also now possible to open both Tiff and Jpeg images in Camera Raw mode, enabling non-destructive, reversible editing on these documents for the first time. If this is your chosen work method, you can set Bridge to open images of these types in Raw mode by default. Among the many other enhancements are an updated Curves dialog that shows multiple channels at once, the ability to export scalable Zoomify images for web delivery, and an enhanced Print dialog. Photoshop CS3 Extended The news that Adobe would be splitting Photoshop into two applications, with many features available only in a separate Extended edition, initially caused consternation in some quarters. However, it's the Extended version that will be included in all the application bundles, so only those users who buy Photoshop on its own will have to consider whether to fork out for the additional functionality. The features that make up the Extended edition are a very mixed bag, the only unifying factor being that they each cater for a relatively small sector of the market. Some, though, are less esoteric than others and will be worth the extra price on their own merits. Working in 3D One of the most impressive features is the introduction of 3D layers. For the first time, Photoshop can import, rotate, scale and light 3D objects. The file formats include DXF and 3DS and, interestingly, the .dmz files created by the free Google Sketchup, which means that 3D newbies are able to create and place basic models, or use the ever-increasing range made freely available on the Google Earth website.
Although there have been third-party plug-ins to import 3D models into Photoshop before, they remain editable with the new 3D layers technology. Double-clicking an object in the Layers palette will change to 3D Edit mode, which allows you to manipulate the object in 3D space, either manually or numerically. The main manual control is Rotate, which spins the object in all three dimensions. It's tricky to use; there are many better methods that could have been implemented. There's no allowance for custom lighting, unfortunately, although there is a range of preset lighting conditions that can be applied to the models. More significantly, there's no direct focal length control, so although an object can be zoomed in and out, there's minimal perspective control. Models can be displayed in a variety of ways, including solid, fully rendered, outline and several wireframe methods. The rendering is somewhat crude, with a tendency to produce some jagged edges at the outlines. However, it's likely that third-party developers will bring plug-in renderers to make up the shortcomings. You can't edit 3D models themselves, although you can alter mapped artwork and textures. So if you have a model of a bottle with a label, for instance, it's possible to change the label, but not reshape the bottle. One interesting addition is the ability to slice through a model, at any angle. So it would be possible to
Image Stacks Photoshop Extended introduces Image Stacks - which, confusingly, have the same name as the completely different technology in Bridge. Stacks are used to compare similar images, highlighting their differences in a variety of ways. The process is designed for radiologists and the like, who want to compare multiple X-rays to see what's changed between them. However, there's also a hidden, more mainstream application for Image Stacks. Take several photographs of the same scene, without a tripod; then align the images, and combine them into a Stack. Varying the Stack modes can produce a single image that's crisper and sharper than any of its constituent parts, and can be fully edited. The Stack process can be taken one step further. Take a number of photographs of, say, a tourist attraction: each picture will, more than likely, have people walking in front of it. However, if enough images are taken and combined into a Stack, the Median mode will remove all picture elements not common to the stack as a whole - which means taking out all the people, leaving just the background on view. Measurement technology The ability to measure objects has been greatly enhanced in the Extended edition. A new Measurement palette tracks and stores custom measurements within a document, whether it's walls measured by an architect or cysts measured by a doctor - Photoshop will automatically calculate the area, perimeter, height and width of any selection, whether made using the Lasso, Magic Wand, Quick Selection tool or any other method. Custom units and scales will, of course, determine the values displayed in the palette.
The measurement technology has been extended to the Vanishing Point filter, where it really comes into its own. Take a photograph of a house, and draw a line along a known distance - the height of a wall, for instance. Enter that height (say, 3.5 metres) as the value, and the perspective grid will be divided into 3.5m squares over the height of the wall. Any further measurements taken on the photograph will automatically be displayed according to the perspective grid, using the scale set in the first measurement: this allows an architect to measure lengths accurately, directly from the image. 3D grids created in Vanishing Point can also be exported as DXF or 3DS models - which can be imported back into 3D layers - and as VSE files to be imported into After Effects. A new Count tool lets you click repeatedly within an image, adding numbered marker points with each click. It's designed for doctors counting cells, but could also be used for counting the number of people in a crowd, for example. Separate numbers of counts can be stored in the Measurement palette as discrete values. Movies In the past, video editors could edit movies in Photoshop only by exporting them as individual frames first. Now the Extended edition can open movies directly, allowing each frame to be edited directly. Additional layers can be added to the movie, and their position and opacity automatically 'tweened' between keyframes. As such, an element added in one position can move smoothly over several frames to a new position by specifying the start and end points. Although you can't change the size and rotation between keyframes, you can animate both opacity and Layer Effects over time.
Text layers, intriguingly, can be warped to different degrees at separate keyframes in the movie, and the warp will be successively altered on each frame. This brings much of the advanced functionality of dedicated video editing applications directly into Photoshop. You can also use the Clone tool within animations; a process called Movie Paint allows whole sequences to be cloned selectively from one point in the movie to another. Because all cloning and painting can be set on separate layers, Photoshop can take on much of the functionality of, say, After Effects. Movie editing is controlled via the Animation palette, which shows a Timeline similar to that seen in After Effects. An optional Onion Skin mode shows the previous frame ghosted as an overlay, allowing the creation of animations to a far easier degree. Since Photoshop can create new empty movies, as well as opening existing ones, it's now possible to build entire animations by combining the Onion Skin mode with the ability to move layers over time. There are a couple of shortcomings: soundtracks don't play when movies are run, and while layers can tween smoothly between keyframes, it's a linear transition only - there isn't (yet) any facility to make objects move along curved paths, or to vary the rate of motion. HDR images Photoshop Extended can now merge multiple files into a single 32-bit High Dynamic Range (HDR) image, which allows a number of bracketed exposures to be combined to produce the best merged results. You can also use brushes, filters, layers and adjustments directly on HDR images. Photoshop can now work with DICOM images (produced by CAT and MRI scanners and Ultrasound machines), as well as MATLAB images. Adobe Bridge The Adobe interchange application, Bridge, has undergone more than a cosmetic update (the new dark grey interface is restful on the eye, allowing you to concentrate on your images more easily): it now sports a magnifier within its image preview window, showing a 1:1 view. It's a small preview, but good for checking that an image is in focus. If several images are taken of a single subject, you can group thsm together in a single stack. This will show the thumbnail of your choice and the number of images in that stack; click on the number to expand to show all images or click on the stack to show all the images in the Preview pane. Metadata is now easier to sort, and can additionally be viewed on a small 'placard' that simulates the LCD panel on the back of cameras - providing instant, easily recognisable feedback on the settings with which each image was captured. You can now filter views by type, showing only Tiff images, for instance, or those captured on a particular date, and so on. Buttons to change the focus of the interface between standard, filmstrip mode and metadata cater for most users' requirements. However, you still can't print directly from Bridge, which is the only major omission in an otherwise solid update. In summary Photoshop CS3 is a significant upgrade, offering an excellent range of new tools and working methods. The new Clone and Quick Selection tools are great enhancements, the Refine Edge feature is now an automatic step for many users, and Smart Filters brings a flexibility and ability to experiment with effects that wasn't present before. The Extended edition includes several features, most notably video editing, 3D layers and Stacks, which will appeal to a far broader base than, say, DICOM support or the Measurement tools; users will have to decide for themselves whether the extra functionality is worth the additional cost. Read reviews of the other applications in Creative Suite 3
By Steve Caplin Sponsored Links
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