Short critical review - DIGIT (April 07)

THE LAUNCH OF PHOTOSHOP CS3

QUICK WRITE - UP:

Adobe has just launched its latest creative suite with an amazing twelve programs even with the almost unnoticeable absence of Image Ready. The launch for the their latest invention in April was the biggest yet which consisted of the entire range of Adobes flagship products the most anticipated being Photoshop CS3. As i have said the absence of Image Ready goes unnoticed as it is now embedded within Photoshop itself (although I found this to be a useful tool it almost seemed unnecessary as it shared most of Photoshops features anyway). One of the most noticeable things about CS3 is its speed and how it consistently runs smoothly when rendering graphics, unlike CS2 which at times can be sluggish and quite slow you can also now enable GPU support when rendering graphics when working on Windows Vista or a Mac OS X. The palletes are now even easier to expand or collapse as your needs dictate even though the layout is the same and another big bonus as you don't have to learn any new tricks because the interface affects usability a bit more subtly than you would think. The tab key now auto hides the palletes and it is as simple as moving the mouse over them to bring them back into view - this give you plenty of space to work in and stops things getting confusing.

With this new program comes the introduction of the new Quick Selection tool which is a crazy mix of the Magic Wand and the Magnetic Lasso. This lets you paint onto selected areas with the same colour but the difference is that it automatically stops at the edges, this does tend to get a little over enthusiastic at times and a 'tolerance' parameter would certainly solve this minor problem however this is still a vast improvement to the selection tools.

THE REVIEW:

This review is very brief and not very informative especially if I were to never have used any of photoshops programs before. Some of the words used are quite confusing and are so called industry lingo which even I (as a so called Graphic Designer) struggle to understand. The review only seems to talk about the obvious advantages of this new program and does not make much comparison to Photoshop CS2. The authors intentions were probably focused on informing an audience who were familiar with this kind of thing and the audience most probably were at least involved with the design industry or had some form of interest in it as this article is in a digital magazine (DIGIT). The section titled 'The flavours of Photoshop' give an insite into what comes with the package. This is very informative and helpfull for the designer as it describes which package would be most suitable for individuals (either CS3 standard or CS3 extended as well as Photoshop Lightroom or Elements) it is clear and easy to read with none of the 'lingo' it is straight to the point and directs the reader in the suitable direction without confusion.