Paul’s Blog

Photoshop CS3 - What’s New

February 19th, 2007

The Photoshop CS3 pre-release software has been available for download from Adobe for several weeks now. I’ve had some time to experiment with it, and have been using it for day to day imaging tasks with no real problems. There are a few known bugs - for example, brush sizes don’t display properly on the Intel Mac, but no big deal. I’m going to use this post to describe some of the new features, changes to the interface and so on, and hopefully give you a feel for what to expect when the new version is released. I won’t cover every single new feature in detail, but will concentrate on the stuff I consider to be of importance for the majority of Photoshop users. I’ll no doubt be revising this as I discover new things, and I’ll also be asking our trainers to add their own comments (particularly with regards to the improved Camera Raw dialog), so stay tuned…

New Features

• Revamped toolbox and palettes
• Non-destructive filters
• Improved Vanishing Point Filter
• Black and White command
• Quick Selection tool
• Refine Selection command
• Improved Curves command

Revamped toolbox and palettes

The toolbox, fundamentally unchanged for years, gets a new single-column look, although you can easily expand it back to the classic two-column configuration if you prefer.

The palettes get a more radical makeover, which apparently will apply to all the Creative Suite applications. The palette well has gone, superceded by an overall ‘docking’ system. You can now create as many palette ‘docks’ as you like, and these can be collapsed/expanded and positioned to the right or left of the screen. Collapsed docks appear as icons (with or without labels). Clicking on an individual icon reveals the palette, which remains onscreen until another palette is selected. You can still separate palettes and have them floating if you like, thus ignoring the docking system.

Although it takes a little getting used to, I find the new interface to be reasonably intuitive, and certainly an improvement on the current interface, not to mention InDesign’s sidebar tabs, or Illustrator’s multitude of floating palettes.

There’s also a new screen mode called ‘Maximise Screen’, which I really like. It automatically resizes the image window to fit according to the width of your palettes.

Non-destructive ‘Smart’ filters

This will obviously be one of the big selling points of Photoshop CS3. Users have been asking for some kind of editable filter layer feature for years, and this pretty much does the trick. Before applying a ’smart’ filter, you must convert your layer to a Smart Object, but there’s a handy new command under the Filter menu for exactly that purpose. Having done this, filters can be applied, edited, switched off and on, or removed dynamically. Smart filter objects have their own masks, which work just like standard layer masks, and even have their own blending modes and opacity settings. Many processing tasks that previously would have required multiple duplicate layers and masks, can now be achieved with a single layer and a few Smart Filters. This will potentially transform the way people use the program.

Improved Vanishing Point filter

The Vanishing Point filter has been revamped in two ways: Firstly, new planes can now be extruded from existing ones at any angle. Previously, only right angles were possible. Secondly, the filter now allows for pasted images to be positioned across multiple planes simultaneously. This is pretty impressive. For example, you could position artwork across three sides of a package at once, with the artwork mapping correctly to the angles of the perspective planes. Here’s a vaguely surreal example:

The Black and White command

Initially this seems to overlap with the Channel Mixer, as the primary function of this command is to convert images to black and white. However, this works differently. Unlike the Color Mixer, where the RGB percentages must generally add up to 100%, this command provides access to all the primary colours (R,G,B,C,M,Y,K) and lets you do more or less whatever you want percentage wise for each primary. This allows for very specific conversions, with the ability to target particular colour ranges. Another nice feature is the Tint option, which works a little like the Colorize option in Hue/Saturation, but more usefully, allows you to specify colours accurately via the Color Picker. A useful addition.

The Quick Selection tool

At last, another tool alongside the Magic Wand. The Quick Selection tool selects areas of interest based on some pretty nifty analysis on Photoshop’s part. Exactly how Photoshop knows what an area of interest is, is another question, but it seems to do a pretty good job of figuring out what should or should not be included in a selection. This is a significant time saver, and although it’s unlikely to produce a perfect selection in complex situations, it can certainly be used in conjunction with say, Quick Mask, or the new Refine Edges command (see below) to produce accurate results.

The Refine Selection command

Basically what this does is to take the contents of the Select, Modify menu (i.e. Contract/Expand, Feather etc. plus a new option called Radius), and make these commands available in one dialog, with variable controls and continuous previewing. Cleverly, the preview can be set to a range of options which include amongst others Quick Mask mode (rubilith overlay), white or black background and alpha channel. The ability to dynamically improve selection edges is invaluable, and takes much of the guesswork out of making selections. Experienced users will still want to continue using Paths, density masks, and other tried and tested techniques, but this is a worthwhile addition to Photoshop’s masking features. Highly recommended.

Improved Curves command

Another classic Photoshop feature, but one that often seems less intuitive other methods of adjusting Contrast, the Curves dialog has been revamped, and now sports several additional features, including an optional Histogram display, channel overlays and a clipping preview. On a more basic level, the overall layout is now more visually intuitive, and there is a now a list of standard presets, to which you can add your own custom settings. Overall, Curves becomes easier to use, and may now lose it’s ‘experts only’ label.

In Summary

This is a significant new realese for Adobe, not least because of the new interface. As usual, there are new features that have the ‘wow’ factor, but there are also many small improvements like enhanced Cloning and Healing, that will generally make things easier, and speed up your workflow. Is this a crucial upgrade? Well, you can do fantastic work in any version of Photoshop, but there are certainly features here that are indispensible. I recommend that you download the Beta and make up your own mind. You’ll need an existing serial number by the way.

Download Photoshop CS3 Beta here.

Entry Filed under: Photoshop