Reviews
The most comprehensive update to Photoshop yet,
and native RAW file format for digital images.HEARTHTROBHEARTBURN
Recognition of rotated image data can get whacky.
It’s still a pricey piece of software.
$650 (full), $170 (upgrade), http://www.adobe.comMAXIMUMPC VERDICT 9
Adobe Photoshop CS
The biggest Photoshop update to date
76 MAXIMUMPC MARCH 2004
Photoshop CS lets you control the focus by specifying how many
aperture blades you want in your faux lens filter.W
hen you own a monopoly
on desktop image edit-
ing software, innovate
leaps tend to be few and far
between. While some of
Adobe’s upgrades to its flag-
ship Photoshop app have
seemed to go no further
than the splash screen,
the company must have
threatened to off-shore its
programmers this time around,
because the app is drastically
improved. Photoshop #3 receives
more than a new name; it also gets
a healthy dose of additional fea-
tures that would normally take two
or three years to be released.
Digital photographers will feel
like this version of Photoshop was
made just for them. To start with,
you no longer need to purchase
RAW format support as a separate
$99 package. It’s now built in, and
the list of supported cameras is
longer than ever. Photoshop #3 also
recognizes EXIF metadata, such
as the orientation instructions
embedded in digital cameras, so
you won’t have to flip your vertical
images anymore.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Dig deeper, and you’ll find that
Photoshop #3 features the best tool
to date for controlling depth-of-
field: Lens Blur. This neat filter
allows you to mimic the out-of-
focus effect generated by a real
lens. You even get to customize the
characteristic of the lens by defin-
ing the number of aperture blades,
the aperture size, the depth of
focus, etc.
Less technical in nature, but just
as useful, are two new features
known as Match Color and
Highlight/Shadow Correction. As
their names suggests, these allow
you to match the color of two imag-
es and correct for tonal imbalance,
respectively. If that’s not enough,
you’ll find Adobe has added a col-
lection of 18 photographic filters to
the Adjustments menu.
Sparkling new photo-editing
tools aside, Photoshop #3 also intro-duces a number of noteworthy—
and let’s face it, belated—practical
enhancements. The program now
supports comprehensive 16-bit
per-channel (48-bit color) image
editing, rather than limiting users
to a few filters and practically no
tools. Moreover, non-square pixel
support is now available, and
users can finally place text on any
defined path.
The latter feature, in our opin-
ion, is way overdue. Traditionally,
Photoshop could only place text
horizontally, vertically, or along
a few preset curvatures, and this
kind of archaic rigidity has grown
into a huge annoyance.
Photoshop #3 can also automati-
cally crop and straighten photos
with clearly defined borders. This
feature is frequently included in
rudimentary scanning applications
and TWAIN drivers but has been
strangely missing from past ver-
sions of Photoshop.
Computing hardware has pro-
gressed to the point where just
about any decent system built in
the last several years is able to run
Photoshop without seriously testing
the user’s patience. However, the
speed freak within us feels obliged
to point out some bad news (or
good news, depending on whether
you sell CPUs). In our tests, we
found Photoshop #3 to run a bit
slower than Photoshop on home
brew action script. On both ourAthlon 64 FX reference box and
a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, the
new version of Photoshop had a
run time that was about 20 percent
longer than its predecessor’s. We’re
investigating this issue further
with Adobe and will present the
results in our In The Lab section in
a future issue.
Without a doubt, this new ver-
sion of Photoshop puts forward
more new features than Adobe has
ever crammed into a single
release. Even if you’re the owner
of a recent version of Photoshop ,
the $169 upgrade fee is worth
your money. While the changes
may not be revolutionary, they
represent a great leap forward on
the evolutionary ladder. If noth-
ing else, it’s a bargain compared
with earlier similarly priced
updates. Granted, Photoshop #3 is
still largely the Photoshop we
already know. It’s deep, complex,
and priced for those who plan to
make a living using it.
—DWIGHT LOOI