By Richard Harrington
, February 14, 2007
In case you missed it, things are running a little differently these days at Adobe. The company has bought into the whole "testing lab" thing-offering up notable programs for public beta, such as Lightroom for organizing digital photos, Soundbooth for audio editing, and now Photoshop CS3.
Typically, software companies limit a beta test to a small group of users, but Adobe is welcoming all to come and kick the tires. The goal is twofold:
- to generate interest in the new version of tools, and
- to let loyal customers harness the power of new tools in exchange for tracking down any remaining bugs. What does this mean to a video or motion graphics pro?
Does beta mean buggy?
Many users have valid concerns about using beta software on their systems. Will it interfere with other apps? Will it crash all the time? No one wants their curiosity to cut into their productivity.
Fortunately, the Photoshop CS3 public beta seems rock solid. There are a few things that still appear to be under development (like Device Central, a companion program for building cell phone graphics), as well as a few omissions (like the Web Photo Gallery). The only bug of note is that brush cursors don't always display correctly (okay, at all) on Intel-based Macs; this can make painting and masking more difficult.
The best way to stay informed about bugs and such is to visit the Photoshop CS3 page at Adobe Labs (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/photoshopcs3/). You'll find a few complaints about the application, but be sure to read the FAQ posts to see what the known issues are. For most users, the forum will give you a clear idea about the risks associated with running the beta. From my initial observations, however, the application seems quite stable and the new features and enhancements make this pre-release software very appealing.
Who can run it?
Photoshop CS3 isn't for everyone. If you aren't already a Photoshop CS2 owner with a valid serial number, the beta runs for only two days. That hardly makes it worth the download time (the file weighs in at 337 MB for Windows and 685 MB for Macintosh). If you are a Photoshop CS2 owner, you can enter your old serial number at www.adobe.com/go/photoshopcs3beta_serialnumber to get a new temporary serial number for CS3. Adobe has stated that the new serial number will work for a few weeks beyond the product ship date, which it hasn't set yet (though it's targeting early spring).
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If you aren't already a Photoshop CS2 owner with a valid serial number, the CS3 beta will run on your computer for only 2 days.
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What else do you need to run the Photoshop CS3 beta? The computer requirements have gone up a bit (see "System Requirements" table below).
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What's in it for you? Adobe has made a major upgrade to the Photoshop application in CS3, adding a slew of features that video pros will find useful.
New user interface
Adobe first introduced Photoshop CS3's interface in its video products (most notably After Effects and Premiere Pro). The interface relies more on panels than on palettes, and users can collapse lesser-used windows into accessible buttons, making it much easier to organize the workspace. It will take a little getting used to, but the change in interface makes the application feel more polished. If you're used to Adobe video applications, you'll feel much more at home.
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With Photoshop's new interface, users can collapse lesser-used windows into accessible buttons, making it much easier to organize the workspace.
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Smart Filters
Motion graphics pros and editors have long enjoyed the ability to filter and endlessly modify projects. Adobe historically has not supported nondestructive filtering in Photoshop, reasoning that users would lose too much time if they had to constantly render filters on high-resolution print files.
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CS3's nondestructive Smart Filters enable users to undo image modifications.
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The increased processing capacity of modern computers has made nondestructive filtering practical. Sure, when you tweak a filter, Photoshop has to reprocess all of the effects in the chain, but processing time is dramatically lower than it was in the past. The new Photoshop does not set Smart Filters as a default; if you simply run a filter on an image, it behaves destructively as it always has. To behave as a Smart Filter, the filter must be applied to a Smart Object. First introduced in Photoshop CS2, the Smart Object is an embedded copy of the original image that's added into the active Photoshop PSD file. You can continuously modify, scale, or transform the embedded image copy, and the original image data is read back in. In a practical sense, this means you could scale a layer to be very small, change your mind, and scale it back to its original size. The image then redraws clearly. You can scale vector-based images (such as Adobe Illustrator or vector EPS files) infinitely.
To create a Smart Object, choose File>Place to add the image to the Photoshop file you're working on. You also can select multiple layers and choose Layer>Convert to Smart Object to combine one or more layers into a new Smart Object. Once you have a Smart Object, you can apply a filter to the image. You can change the parameters of the resultant Smart Filter with a double-click or blend the filter with the Fade command. Lastly (and quite handily), the Smart Filter has a mask attached, which can be painted on to obscure the filter's results. On paper, this may all sound a little obtuse, but in practice it's a very quick learn.
Quick Selection tool
It's not uncommon to find yourself needing to extract an object, so you can composite or key it over another source. The source could be a logo, a photo of an object, or anything that's part of your global design. While earlier Photoshop versions offer several extraction and selection tools, Photoshop CS3 includes a new tool that's great for making accurate selections quickly.
The Quick Selection tool feels like the Magic Wand tool with an extra dose of artificial intelligence. You can quickly click and drag to create an intelligent selection that is formed from both color and shading information. The tool combines edge detection and resampling to make gentle and natural selections.
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The new Quick Selection tool combines edge detection and resampling to make gentle and natural selections.
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Refine Edge command
Whether you make a selection with the new Quick Selection tool or use any previous technique at your disposal, you can improve the edge of that selection. In earlier versions, you would do this using a Quick Mask or menu commands such as Grow, Similar, or Feather. While these techniques remain practical, the Refine Edge command allows you to quickly make decisions about transparency and edges in an intuitive manner that's much like live chroma keying.
You can refine an active selection (also called marching ants) by accessing the Refine Edge command in either of two ways: by locating it in the Options bar for all selection tools, or by choosing Select>Refine Edge from the menus. The sliders of this command provide quick feedback as you refine an active selection.
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The Refine Edge command allows users to quickly make decisions about transparency and edges in an intuitive manner that's much like live chroma keying.
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First, make an initial selection using a tool of your choice (the Quick Selection tool works well). Then click the Refine Edge button in the Options bar. Next, click the triangle next to the word Description to see a more detailed description of the options for selection refinement. Adjust the different sliders to tweak the selection: Radius refines the selection edge, Contrast increases the contrast of a selection's edge, Smooth removes any jagged edges, Feather softens the edge of the selection, and Contract/Expand will grow or shrink a selection. Click one of the preview icons to change how the selection is displayed. There are five options to choose from; experiment with the different choices to see which one you prefer. To create the selection, click OK.
Imaging in 32-bit
The use of 32-bit-per-channel imaging-also known as high dynamic range imaging (HDRI)-is on the rise. Users will find the color fidelity and the ability to capture a wide range of exposures enormously helpful. While these practices are beginning to garner attention in the world of digital photography, they're quietly emerging in film and animation (especially the visual effects arena).
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Users will find the color fidelity of CS3's 32-bit imaging and the ability to merge a wide range of exposures enormously helpful.
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Photoshop CS3 offers several improvements in 32-bit imaging. You can, of course, open a 32-bit image created using 3D software to tweak or enhance it. But Photoshop now makes it significantly easier to create new 32-bit images out of multiple exposures from a single camera.
By choosing File>Automate>Merge to HDR, you can combine several bracketed exposures. In a practical sense, let's say you shoot a static scene from a tripod (or stabilized camera). You've captured the scene with at least three exposures, which you can then combine into a single image. Photoshop CS2 offered this process, but the new auto-align features in Photoshop CS3 make it extremely easy to align and combine multiple images. The process is also significantly faster and easier now.
Since Photoshop CS3 offers more commands to process 32-bit images, you can more easily make adjustments to images you've created. Working in Photoshop will allow you to harness HDR and will help prepare you for its emergence in the film and video worlds.
Up to 500 frames of a QuickTime movie can be converted into layers in Photoshop CS3.
Auto-Align Layers and Photomerge
While the true art of panoramic photography requires the use of specialized tripods and lenses, Photoshop has come a long way in improving the creation of panoramic photos. Photoshop CS3 users will find the software's Photomerge tool (designed primarily for photographers) quite useful for chroma key and motion graphics work.
It's now significantly easier to shoot a few photos on location and simply pan your body to get wider area coverage. As long as you ensure just a little bit of overlap, Photoshop can automatically assemble multiple images together. (In fact, I was able to quickly assemble 20+ images in 5 minutes to create a panoramic photo/backdrop.) With the proliferation of affordable greenscreen solutions, the need for backgrounds is only increasing.
Import video to layers
If you ever crossed over to Adobe ImageReady (a companion program for Web graphics that used to ship with Photoshop), you discovered that you could open QuickTime files. Photoshop CS3 does not feature ImageReady, but QuickTime files still can be imported and exported. In the Photoshop CS3 beta you can choose to open a QuickTime movie and convert each frame to a layer. CS3 limits you to 500 frames, but you can still process video in Photoshop-for example, you can use the healing and paint tools for frame touch-up. As users (myself included) continue to explore the evolving role of video in Photoshop, new techniques and design options will emerge.
Conclusions
If you own Photoshop CS2, you should strongly consider making the upgrade to CS3. If you're running Photoshop CS2 on an Intel-based Mac, you absolutely should upgrade. The speed change of Photoshop CS3 makes upgrading a no-brainer. At the least, the public beta-which is very stable-offers a glimpse of what's to come. It should be in your download queue.
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To find out more about Photoshop CS3, check out preview videos as well as the Photoshop for Video forum on DV.com. You can also drop over and subscribe to my blog, www.PhotoshopforVideo.com.
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| COMMENTS (1) | | 07/01/2009 | | Great bit of information shared through the post. Thanks.
Regards,
http://www.sblgraphics.com/photo-masking_service.aspx
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