Adobe Photoshop CS Review
by Theresa A. Husarik
Dateline: June 2004

Photoshop CS (AKA Photoshop 8, but with this release, the name officially changes to CS) is part of Adobe's Creative Suite of products and offers several new features that make it one you will definitely want to upgrade to. The new treatment of Camera RAW files, new filters and a few more goodies are a few.

Camera Raw

The ability to open files shot in RAW format used to be an additional (and not free) plug-in. CS now includes RAW support and it has some neat features that makes it a nice improvement. Most of Canon, Nikon and Minolta raw formats are included and new updates will be available for download (free to registered users) as they are added.

If you haven't tried the plug ins and don't yet understand the power of the RAW format, you don't know what you are missing. Once you start using this format you will never go back to shooting jpgs again. Working iwth the RAW format gives you so much more control over the details. It is kind of like a negative that gets processed in the raw conversion. (See a good explanation of how RAW works here.)

Open a raw file either by using the open command (but you won't see a thumbnail,) or by selecting it in the file browser (shows you a thumbnail of the image before you open it.) You can adjust the basics like color temperature, exposure, contrast and saturation and there are a few advanced features that let you fix things like noise and chromatic aberation. Working on the raw file retains much more detail and quality than if you were to do the same adjustments on a jpg (or "already-processed" file.)

Filter Gallery

With this new gallery, you can see the effects of multiple filter applications at the same time (without having to go back and forth to the filter menu,) and check how they interact with each other. And, you can re-arrange the sequence of the effect of the filters (by dragging) and turning the visibility on and off (just like what you can do with layers.) That makes it easier to play withthe various filters to get just the effect you are after.

To see it, simply choose a filter and instead of just that one filter's dialogue box popping up, you get something like the illustration below:

Histogram Palette

It is now possible to view the histogram of an image in one place (you used to have to go to Image -> Histogram and also look under the Levels tool to see the histogram, pretty inconvenient). And, besides goin to two places, those histograms were not updated as you changed the image. You could only see the effect on the histogram after you clicked "OK" and committed the changes.

The histogram pallette is now much more friendly and resides in Window -> Histogram. WHen you open it, it sits in a window that reflects the changes you make to the image. It shows a ghosted image of the "before" histogram, and updates the "after" histogram in real time.

Photo Filter

While this gives you effects of filters, the tool does not reside under the filters menu. Get to it by (Image -> Adjustments -> Photo Filter.) Use the density slider to change the intensity of the filter. I chose a black and white image to illustrate, but the filters can be used on color images as well.

Photomerge

Photomerge (Choose File > Automate >) will stitch together pictures taken in a series to make a panoramic image. It automatically finds matching edges and blends them for you. Included in Photoshop Elements (the stripped down version of Photoshop) for a long time, it is nice that Adobe decided to include it in the full version. It does a pretty great job, although you will still likely need to make some corrections to the final image.

Originals
After Photomerge does it's magic. There is still a bit of work to do at the edges, but a million times easier than merging by hand.

Shadow/Highlight Command

This can be an incredible time saver, but it doesn't work with all images. It's like getting the effect of a fill flash when you forgot to get it when you took the picture. Get there by Image -> Adjustments -> Shadow/Highlight.

This tool will analyze the lights and darks in the image and greatly bring them closer together (reducing contrast.) But sometimes, what you end up with is a bad looking halo effect around the contrast lines.

Original	After Shadow/Highlight adjustment

More Good Stuff

There are a ton of other smaller things, some you as a photographer will like some you won't use. Here are a couple of them:

• Improved File Browser:The file browser works sort of like a light table and is a great way to see those RAW file thumbnails. You can re-order (by dragging) the thumbnails
• Enhanced Text Tool: You can edit text on a path.
• Extended PDF support: The import and export to PDF is improved.
• Extended 16-bit support: Photoshop can preserve data from 16-bit files. In prior versions you had a lot of restrictions on what tools were available for 16-bit files. Now, you can do what you need to do without having to convert to 8-bit.
• Lense Blur: ( Filter -> Blur -> Lens Blur ) This is a new blur tool, but I didn't see the real value. Your mileage will undoubtedly vary.
• Metadata: New metadata enhancements help you keep better track of your images.
• Layer comps: ( Window -> Layer Comps ) For those who work with lots of layers, this tool will let you record the configurations (visibility, position, and blending options) of a document that you can recall from the palette and bring back everything that was set at that stage.
• Crop and Straighten: If you scan a lot of images at once with a flatbed scanner, you end up with a large file full of all of the photographs with white space in between. The File -> Automate -> Crop and Straighten command will automatically detect each photograph's boundaries, rotate it, crop away any white borders, and then open each image individually in a separate window.
• Match Color: ( Image -> Adjustments -> Match Color ) This tool is great when you are trying to color-correct multiple similar images (for instance, maybe you have one portrait image that was taken with a flash and another where sunlight was the light source.)
• Non-square pixel support.
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts.

One More Thing
You now have to "activate" Photoshop CS within a month of installation. The process is easy to do, and it is simply a measure to guard against piracy.