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PhotoShop CS3 Public Beta Drops |
I know what you’re thinking, “that’s so 6 hours ago.” But nevertheless, Adobe has just released a public beta of the new version of PhotoShop. It offers a load of improvements to non-destructive editing, a redesigned UI, and support for new Macs and Vista.
Taking a back seat to PhotoShop is the somewhat less glamourous release of JSEclipse, a plug-in for the Eclipse tool (upon which Flex Builder is also built). Also, a new update to the Spry framework. Both could be very interesting. I’ll probably end up using the JSEclipse plug-in to write WPF/E code. LOL
See the full review after the jump
I’ve only played with this app for a few minutes so far but I’ve already found some very exciting new features. I’ll list my favorite first impressions here. [I should note that the last version of PS I used regularly was CS1 so please forgive me if I accidentally get excited about something that's not new.]
Smart Objects & Smart Filters
The coolest thing by far is Smart Objects and Smart Filters. This is essentially your method for doing non-destructive edits. Converting a layer to a smart object recreates it as a dynamic photoshop file that you can edit as its own composition. It allows you to apply smart filters which are like adjustment layers but include the entire set of filters, yes, even gaussian blur.
Quick Selection Tool
This tool is filed with the magic wand tool. It allows you to draw over the shape of an object to magically select exactly what you want. It’s like a marriage of the magnetic lasso and the magic wand tools. It’s incredibly useful and intuitive.
Refine Edge
PS CS3 wraps up several of the selection refinement tools into a new dialog called Refine Edge. This let’s you play around with the selection’s edges with much more control than before. A preview window shows you what you’re doing and there are matting options so you can choose the best background to work from.
Surface Blur
One neat addition is the surface blur which blurs out the textures of an image selectively while keeping the general shape of the image intact. Depending on how you adjust it, it kinda makes the subject look like it was drawn in illustrator but in a much less tacky way than posterize.
Compatibility
It’s been about a 20 months since CS2 launched but it feels like it’s only been about a million years. Time flies when you’re running PPC apps on a macbook! The new version (supposedly) works great on PPC, Intel, Win XP and Vista. My experience on a MacBook Core Duo have been very smooth so far. There are no significant lags even when working with RAW files. Adding lots of SmartFilters and layering causes some slowdown but that’s nothing new.
Toolbars & Workspaces
CS3 has a brand new look that I’m not sure whether I like yet. The toolbar on the left is compacted into a single column. The panels on the right have been organized so that they group themselves together into little expandable icons. They’ve also added a workspace dropdown that lets you switch workspaces easily although this seemed to be broken or unimpressive. The menus are also enhanced with highlighted words based on what workspace you’re in. It’s a little jarring but it might be useful in the long run. Time will tell.
Image Processor
Finallly, a much needed feature the Image Processor script allows you to batch process images into another format and apply actions at the same time. The old way of doing this was to either write an AppleScript or JavaScript or use Actions to process the images. I’m sure I’ll use this quite a lot when preparing assets for the intarwebs.
These are just my initial reactions. I hope to write some more after I’ve had a chance to play with it some more. Prognosis: w00t!