Adobe Photoshop CS (Part 1)
A Software Review
by Sharon Rump
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
Adobe has always produced top rated software that is used by professionals in the photography and image editing industry. Their latest release of Adobe Photoshop CS continues to provide new and exciting features that are easily integrated with other Adobe products. The new Creative Suite package is designed to offer tools that work well together to create and publish material for print or the web in a much more efficient manner.
Included in the box is a user manual that Adobe continues to include with their software while many vendors have gone to manuals included on the CD or online. I find it much easier to have a reference manual handy while learning new software. I like to be able to work with the manual open for step by step instructions on how to use some of the more advanced features.
Also included is a Video Workshop training CD which is full of tips and tricks. It was easy for me to follow along, running the CD on my laptop as I worked with the program on my desktop computer. This is a "sample" CD, included to entice you to buy the entire training set which is well worth the asking price.
The software installs easily and I was anxious to get started. The Welcome Screen, which is loaded by default, lists some included tutorials, tips and tricks, color management setup and a section showing all of the new features in this release. You can choose to disable this after you are familiar with all of its contents.
The first feature of note was the improved File Browser that allows for more customization than I will probably ever use. Each window in the browser can be sized to your preference which will allow you to see a preview of an image at a size that you set.
The metadata includes file properties, IPTC and EXIF information, camera raw data and edit history. There is also a keyword option that will allow you to imbed keywords in the file to facilitate searches for individual images at a later time. The file browser has many of its own menus that allow you to select options directly from the browser. You can also change the order of the previews in the right hand file preview.
Also included in the browser are menu options that allow you to accomplish a variety of tasks without even opening the individual images. You can choose to do batch processing of selected images, set up a contact sheet or picture package or create a pdf slide show, all from the file browser without even opening the images.
Once you finally choose the image that you want and open it, the fun really begins! To start, there are many automatic adjustments that will improve the image without you doing any more than clicking on the option. Photoshop will analyze the image and make the corrections/improvements that it determines are needed. If you want to do any further adjustments you can still individually tweak the image levels, contrast, brightness, hue, saturation or any of the multitude of options available.
One of the favorite and most useful features of this program continues to be the ability to create a multitude of layers in each image and individually work "magic" with each layer. I would compare it to working with a stack of transparencies and adding something different to each sheet. It is my favorite feature of the program to experiment and easily trash anything that didn't work exactly as I had hoped. Trying to explain what you can accomplish with these layers would take much more space than is allotted here and much more expertise than I have. Each time I use the program I continue to learn new tricks. I doubt that even the most experienced user "knows it all". In addition to adding things to layers, you can also create adjustment layers that allow you to experiment with color and tones without really changing the original. These layers also do not increase the size of the image as other layers do.
The filter capabilities of Photoshop continue to be improved with each new version. The filters offer the ability to create something as artistic as a watercolor or fresco or as simple as a sketch. Added to this version is the filter gallery which gives you complete access to all of the filters and will allow you to use more than one filter at a time and preview the results immediately in a large preview area. You also have complete control of the settings for each filter within the gallery.
Due to the complexity of this program I will continue next month in Part 2 with more features of Photoshop CS and Image Ready. :
Copyright 2004. This article is from the February 2004 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/
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