Their favorite new features include Camera Raw support, Lens Correction Filter, Vanishing Point and Adobe Bridge.
Two graphic artists serving as beta testers for Adobe Systems Inc.'s Photoshop CS2 told Publish.com they are very impressed with this latest version.
"I've been using Photoshop for many years, and this is the most significant upgrade yet," said Steve Caplin, a London-based graphic artist who has written several books on Photoshop.
Frank Hatcher, an American graphic artist living in Okinawa, Japan, and a co-partner of WZ2K—Digital Illusions Explained, a Web site that offers video and PDF training in graphic arts and Web design, said, "This is the best version of Photoshop I have ever used."
The new version is part of Adobe's Creative Suite 2, which is scheduled to ship in May and also includes new versions of Illustrator, InDesign and GoLive as well as Version 7 of Adobe Acrobat.
So what does Photoshop CS2 offer that has caused these two artists to sound as if they had been cued by Adobe's PR department?
According to Jupiter Research Senior Analyst Joe Wilcox, Adobe has succeeded in improving Photoshop's features with every single release, partly because the company stays in tune with the innovations within its space.
"We're reaching an interesting inflection point with digital cameras. Slightly more than 50 percent of Americans have digital cameras, and the declining price of digital SLR cameras means that a photographer working for a small or medium-sized business can buy a Canon digital SLR for as little as $800 or $700 for just the body, and take the lenses from his or her old camera to the digital world," Wilcox explained.
Photoshop CS2's native support for the camera Raw format, what Adobe calls the Raw Dialog feature, should greatly appeal to these users, Wilcox continued.
Hatcher seconded Wilcox's analysis. "Camera Raw files are the only way to go in my opinion. I have salvaged more photos that were taken in Raw than I would have ever dreamed. The new [Raw] Dialog allows up to 400 Raw files to be manipulated at a time. You can crop, straighten, [use vignette controls], upscale, downsize, convert to 16-bit image—and much more," said Hatcher, who has been using Photoshop since Version 4.0.
"I tend to underexpose my photos, maybe by one f-stop. [However,] you can increase the exposure in Raw, and the results are outstanding. And Adobe added a wonderful white balance tool," Hatcher said.
Adobe Camera Raw generates images that are nearly print-ready. Click here to read Edmund Ronald's column.
Going further, Adobe has added filters "that have made a huge difference to my work," Caplin said. "They allow me to do things that literally weren't possible before.
"The Lens Correction Filter deals with the distortion caused by wide-angle lenses, particularly the cheap ones found on most digital cameras. Fixing barreling [where the image appears bloated] was a major difficulty before, achievable only by using expensive and awkward third-party plug-ins," Caplin explained.
Hatcher explained that the Lens Correction filter comes with a set of tools, including a straighten tool that allows users to straighten the horizon in a photo without having to rotate the image arbitrarily; a scale tool that allows users to zoom in and out without changing the photo's dimensions or cause pixilation; and sliders to fix chromatic aberrations and pin cushion distortions, as well as the barrel distortions Caplin had mentioned.
Caplin, who runs Photoshop on a 2.5GHz dual-processor Power Mac running OS X, also has made use of the Warp Transformation filter for his satirical photomontages, which have run in several British national newspapers, along with such magazines as Men's Health and Reader's Digest.
Warp Transformation "allows you to bend photographs to fit any shape—such as making a flat image of a flag look like it's rippling, or montaging a company logo onto a ball. Previously, this would have involved complex use of multiple filters that really weren't designed to do the job, with a lot of hit-and-miss. This sort of thing used to be a really clumsy, frustrating process; now, it's a joy," Caplin said.
Photoshop's new Vanishing Point filter is yet another feature both testers agreed has improved their respective workflows. Hatcher, who uses a 2.4GHz PC running Windows XP Pro, said this feature alone is worth the upgrade to Photoshop CS2.
"For example, [imagine] you have a photo of two people standing in a park and there is a tree shadow in the photo. The shadow needs to be removed, but the challenge is [that] it fades off in the distance—stretching out as shadows can do," said Hatcher.
"With Vanishing Point, you are able to establish the perspective plane of the grass and how it fades in the distance. You can then use the clone tool to select a sample of fresh grass. You begin to clone in the grid area, and the further you move away from the shadow, the grass is resized to match the perspective plane," Hatcher explained.
Photoshop CS2's filters take sharpening to a new level. Click here to read Edmund Ronald's review.
Both testers noted several other improvements to Photoshop. Adobe has improved automation functionality, and has included both a 300-page scripting guide and sample scripts for Java, AppleScript and Visual Basic. Photoshop's Spot Healing Brush Tool no longer requires users to set a sample area. And the new Adobe Bridge is "the new file browser on steroids," said Hatcher.
"You will now be able to buy stock photos from Adobe and import them directly into Photoshop without ever leaving the program. The thumbnails now have a slider, which you can zoom in and out to view your thumbs much easier. You [can] batch photos and create Web galleries within Bridge. You can view your images in different modes, [such as] filmstrip, details or even a slideshow. [And] Bridge loads very fast," Hatcher said.
Finally, both beta testers said the bugs were very minor. "Nothing would stop me from upgrading. I think anyone using a legitimate copy of CS will want to get the new version, as it offers so much more," Caplin said.
