It is hard to choose which will be the biggest treat for graphic designers in Adobe’s blockbuster CS3 announcement. But Photoshop CS3 Extended has got to be high on the list. Look at some of the features:
Camera Raw Processing goes to a new level:
Now many may say that the Camera Raw seems to have borrowed a lot from Adobe Lightroom, and they would be spot on. I have just reviewed Lightroom and its Develop capabilities are top notch for jpg, tiff as well as raw files. Most of these winning features are carried forward into PS3.
Adobe appears to be taking Vanishing Points to surface filling:
One of the big gaps in 2D design is the ability to apply 2D drawing to 3D surfaces. Photoshop CS3 Extended addresses that issue in a couple of ways. The Vanishing Point tool is now able to create any angle planar surfaces and allow users to then map to those. In addition Extended has other surface mapping capabilities. Its still not yet the ability to map to any surface (say NURBS or other 3D non-planar APIs) but this is definitely a move in the right direction. This feature is available in Photoshop CS3 Standard.
But the new Movie Paint capability is not. Again, its is not clear how much of the Photoshop features set extends to Movie Paint; but this reviewer is absolutely intrigued.
Photoshop does animations!!???
Okay all you gals and guys who suffered the demise of Adobe Live Motion and its superior animation design interface. Its back and with power and functional features to spare. Now the only question is how does this integrate with Flash CS3 and Flex 2 – more details as soon as I can find them.
But Photoshop CS3 Extended also improves with the new standard features. Photofinishers are going to love the new enhanced Selector tool combined with the Refine Edges dialog. This is another example of Adobe taking a weakness, their masking tools, and coming up with a powerhouse refinement and improvement. Also take at the new enhancement to compositing images and panoramas and the improved HDR support. Even Photoshop standard is playing on its own competitive field.
(c)JBSurveyer 2007 – If you liked this, let others know:
