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In the miscellaneous category, there's now a full-time floating Histogram palette, which can be docked with your other palettes and called up when needed, or simply left open for you to examine any changes that occur when applying edits to your images. (While you're in the midst of an edit, incidentally, it also displays a before and after histogram, seen below while in the preview stage of a Gaussian Blur.)
[an error occurred while processing this directive]For production management, it also includes the ability to export a History Log, either attached to the image you're working on or as a separate file, for tracking your work. (No, this is not the same as having the ability to save your actual History to resume where you left off.) And it includes metadata customization, including the ability to create new metadata templates. You can save templates from the FIle Info window and then edit them easily within a text editor. And you can append metadata temples automatically to multiple files through the File Browser.Finally, Photoshop CS also includes improved integration with other Adobe applications--such as Illustrator CS, as discussed previously--and through Version Cue, for those of you who plan to purchase the complete Adobe Creative Suite. It provides, essentially, centralized management of projects, files and file versions and also incorporates version notes and the ability to rank files as final version, current version, draft and the like. It's designed, of course, for environments where multiple users will be working with the same files and modifying them and provides easy, automated naming conventions to help avoid the confusion that can occur in these situations. (I'll be bringing you a separate look at Version Cue in the near future.)
Disappointments
All right, so I've just spent the last billion or so pages praising the new features of Photoshop CS. Are there any areas where the software falls short? Well, I'll say this: There's nothing that any previous version of Photoshop that Photoshop CS can't do at least equally well. In other words, it won't be a step backward for anybody in any way. I mention this because there have been recent versions of applications from other developers that actually have been a step backward, and so I think it's important to mention that this is not the case with Photoshop.
Nevertheless, there are some things about Photoshop that I've wanted to see improved for quite some time but that still haven't been addressed by the latest release. Chief among these is performance. All things being exactly equal (memory, hard disk, dual G4 processors, etc.), Photoshop CS ran at virtually the same speed as Photoshop 7. In several batteries of tests involving both application-level functions and plugins, Photoshop 7 came in at 970 seconds, while Photoshop CS came in at 912 seconds, a difference accounted for mostly by arbitrary rotation and flipping of very large canvases. SO despite the overall 6 percent speed gain, for most common functions Photoshop CS is no faster than its predecessor, which wasn't that fast in many ways to begin with. I still think that Adobe needs to focus on tuning its software to take better advantage of dual processors on the Mac. (That said, I should note that Photoshop can't be touched by most other applications in a number of areas, such as real-time Gaussian Blurs on even huge canvases.)
And there are other areas where I still sense that Adobe is holding back, especially in the area of animation. I'd like to see a frame manager built into Photoshop (maybe in a special edition of the program) for rotoscoping and animation; I'd like to see the ability to import image sequences for the same reason, especially now that it can export layers as individual images; I'd like the ability to export History (not just a History Log) with a document; I'd like to see faster text on Mac OS X, since there's still the occasional slowdown when working with text; and I want to see all plugins updated as soon as possible to support 16-bit color depth.
But compared with what the new version offers, my disappointments seem fairly minor.
The bottom line
So about 5,000 words and 41 screen shots later, you can tell I have a lot to say about Photoshop CS. And you know what? I didn't even touch on the new Web features in the form of ImageReady CS, which I plan to cover in a future review. Photoshop CS is just a massive upgrade. The 16-bit features alone will cinch it for professional digital photographers. And for designers, there are the new and incredible workflow features, text enhancements, effects and image manipulation tools. Without a doubt, Photoshop in its latest incarnation retains its previous Must Buy status. And, as an upgrade--especially at the modest price of $169 from any previous version--I can't help but give it yet another Must Buy recommendation, which, I remind you, is the highest recommendation we give, and we give it only to core tools that stand out as being by far the best in their category. It is not a recommendation given lightly. In the 200-plus reviews I've written, only eight pieces of software have earned this rating. It is well deserved.
Adobe Photoshop CS is available for Mac OS X and Windows for $649 for the full version, $169 for upgrades. Upgrades to the entire Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Version Cue) from a previous version of Photoshop run $549 (standard) to $749 (Premium Edition). The full Premium Edition of the Creative Suite, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLIve, Acrobat 6 Pro and Version Cue, sells for $1,229. For more information, visit http://www.adobe.com.
Contact the author: Dave Nagel is the editor and producer of Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; host of several World Wide User Groups, including Synthetik Studio Artist, Adobe Photoshop, Apple DVD Studio Pro, Mac OS, Adobe InDesign, Adobe LiveMotion, Creative Mac and Digital Media Designer; and executive producer of the Digital Media Net family of publications. You can reach him at dnagel@digitalmedianet.com.
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