RECOMMENDED

VERDICT: Non destructive image processing and creative filters lead the feature list in a comprehensive upgrade to the market leader.

Photoshop entirely dominates the world of professional photo-editing which makes it the must-have tool for designers and gives it a central role as the flagship for Adobe’s new CS3 releases...

With no real competition Adobe could have taken its foot off the pedal, but this latest version again pushes forwards on all fronts.
To begin with, it sports the new interface shared by all the main CS3 applications – and this time Adobe has got it absolutely right. What makes the new working environment so successful is that Adobe has taken the existing system of floating palettes and incorporated them into a system of docker windows that can be neatly docked to either side of the screen and collapsed or expanded as needed. This dual approach means that all power is easily accessible while the interface remains streamlined and focused. Advanced features, which Photoshop CS3 takes full advantage of, include the ability to swap the toolbar between one and two-column layouts, to set up multiple dockers side-by-side, the option to indicate those palettes available in collapsed dockers as either icons or text, and the ability to quickly open and re-shut individual palettes. The new system is a massive improvement but immediately familiar - excellent.
As well as benefiting from the new shared CS3 interface, Photoshop CS3 also takes full advantage of the new shared media management provided by Bridge CS3. Alongside acting as a front end for finding and opening images, Bridge CS3 also provides access to a range of Photoshop features such as the ability to merge multiple bracketed exposures into a single 32-bit high dynamic range image – a capability enhanced in this latest release with automatic image alignment and richer results. Most importantly, Bridge CS3 acts as a natural portal to the latest version of the Adobe Camera Raw Photoshop plug-in designed for non-destructively processing the raw sensor data captured by high-end cameras.

CS3's Camera Raw plug-in can now be used with JPEGs and TIFFs

With wider support for a wider range of native camera formats (over 150) as well as for Adobe’s own open and universal DNG (Digital Negative) standard, the new Camera Raw will be of interest to more people than ever. In fact it’s now relevant to all users as you can now open TIFF or JPEG images and optionally save them to DNG. Obviously this doesn’t magically turn the JPEG into a real raw file but it does mean that any initial colour corrections you make are non-destructive. More importantly, it lets you take advantage of the excellent Camera Raw environment for dedicated image enhancement. This provides a whole host of centralized power now including adjustment sliders for Highlight Recovery, Fill Light and Colour Vibrance, options for Split Toning where highlights and shadows are handled separately, integrated clipping preview and even hands-on red-eye removal, spot healing and cloning retouch tools. Adobe’s new Lightroom offers even more power but Camera Raw shares the same processing engine and isn’t far behind.
After making use of the Camera Raw environment, Photoshop’s own colour correction capabilities seem old-fashioned, underpowered and over-fussy but they remain central. A noticeable advance here is the core Curves dialog which now offers access to presets, a larger display with integrated histogram and the simultaneous display of multiple color channels. There’s also a new Black and White adjustment that lets you control the strength of individual colours during the conversion to grayscale and which also provides an option to add an overall tint to produce sepia-style effects.
For hands-on retouching new functionality arrives in the form of the new Clone Source palette which lets you set up, and quickly swap between, up to five clone sources for the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush tools. You can control size and angle settings to transform the source as you paint, while the Screen Overlay option displays a semi-transparent version onscreen so that the whole process is more controlled and predictable. Core cloning and healing capabilities are also available in Photoshop CS3’d dedicated Vanishing Point dialog which has been updated and no longer requires that defined planes should be at 90 degrees to each other.
When isolating individual elements in an image, the new Quick Selection tool lets you simply drag within an object to select it. It’s asking a lot for Photoshop CS3 to somehow identify which pixels are part of your intended selection, but more often than not it works like magic - and where results aren’t perfect you can always turn to Photoshop’s other selection tools. The system’s apparent weakness is that the results aren’t anti-aliased so if you cut and paste your selection the edge looks too hard. However Photoshop CS3 offers the solution for this with its new Refine Edge command which lets you retrospectively manage no less than five parameters including radius and feathering so that you can get just the edge effect that you want.

Automatic Layer alignment and blending greatly aid image compositing

Photoshop isn’t just about enhancing individual images, it’s also about combining multiple images into photomontages and here there are two new layer-based capabilities that really stand out. As anyone knows who’s tried taking group photos, you never get everyone looking their best in a single shot. Well now you can simply overlay your two best photos and use the new Auto-Align Layers command to transform the layers so that they overlap as precisely as possible – using layer masks you can then manually combine the best elements from each image. Even more impressive is the ability to use the same command, with its Perspective option, to automatically combine multiple shots to produce a single panorama. Using the new Auto-Blend Layers command you can then set Photoshop to analyze the overlaps and to generate layer masks to remove obvious joins to make the panorama as seamless as possible. Previously producing panoramas used to be one of Photoshop’s few weaknesses but now, especially in the revamped PhotoMerge command which takes full advantage of both auto-aligning and auto-blending, it’s become yet another strength.
Photoshop CS3 adds another layer-based capability which is even more striking – the ability to non-destructively apply filter effects. This is done by selecting a layer and then the Convert for Smart Filters command which automatically turns the layer into a Smart Object to which you can then apply a filter or multiple filters. Applied filters appear listed in the Layers palette where you can temporarily hide their effects, reorder them by dragging or add a layer mask to control where and how strongly they are applied. More importantly, each listed Smart Filter is live so you can simply double-click on it to change parameters or double-click on the smart object itself to edit the underlying pixels to which the filter effect will then automatically be re-applied. There are clear limitations to the system as it stands, in particular you can’t apply effects as lenses to underlying layers and adjustment effects (apart from shadows/highlights and variations), existing third-party filters and layer comps aren’t supported (at least in the late press beta under review). Even so, non-destructive smart filters greatly increase options and control when producing creative compositions.

Smart Filters can retrospectively be fine-tuned

When you’ve enhanced your image or finished your montage you’re ready to output. Photoshop CS3 adds a range of new features here starting with the ability to add text, such as filenames and notes, to images output as PDF Presentations. If your image is destined for online viewing the Save for Web and Devices command now automatically converts your image’s colour space to sRGB while the new Export to Zoomify command outputs full resolution images in a tiled format ready for efficient viewing even over low-speed connections – so long as the end user has the Flash player installed. Paper hasn’t been forgotten either with a reworked and rationalized Print dialog which is more visual, friendly and efficient.
With significant advances in image handling, photo enhancement, creative compositing and final output, Photoshop CS3 is a comprehensive upgrade that most professional photographers and designers will want to get their hands on. That just leaves the question: do you also need the additional capabilities in the new Photoshop Extended?

EASE OF USE 5/6
FEATURES 6/6
VALUE FOR MONEY 4/6
OVERALL 5/6