Ben Long
Ben Long
Safari: What were your goals in writing Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta First Look?
Long: Photoshop CS3 was Adobe's first public beta of any version of Photoshop, and it was an especially important beta for Mac users, as it was their first Intel build of Photoshop. Mac users who'd already upgraded to Intel machines were itching for a Photoshop that would run at full speed, and of course everyone likes cool new features. So, it was easy to assume that a lot of people would be trying out this beta, and since it didn't include any documentation or help files, it seemed like a lot of people would be left wondering how to use the new features. And, in the case of some of the more obscure changes, they'd be wondering what had changed. I found out about the public beta a couple of weeks before it shipped, and I had already been in the CS3 beta program for a while, and so had been using the program. So, I pitched Peachpit on the idea of a book that would cover the new features that would be in the public beta.
Safari: What distinguishes your book from the other Photoshop CS3 books out there?
Long: This book is for experienced Photoshop users. It really only covers the new features and the things that have changed. One of the nice things that Adobe has done with the CS3 upgrade is that they've not only added really cool new tools, but they've also made significant changes to some features that have been in the program since version 1. Curves and Brightness/Contrast have been significantly revamped. So, between the new features, the interface changes, and the re-do of some old features, there's a lot to learn for even experienced Photoshop users. If you're new to the program, this book will be a bad choice for you, as it assumes an understanding of some fundamental Photoshop features.
Safari: You are a very experienced author and you were able to get out one of the first Photoshop CS3 books on the market and in Safari. What was the biggest challenge in writing Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta First Look so quickly? Was it harder or easier than you expected?
Long: Probably the biggest challenge with this book was that I was already writing another book, Real World Capture NX. Peachpit decided to put that on hold to do the CS3 book, but that meant that I needed to work very quickly, as I didn't want the NX book to fall too far behind schedule for the simple fact that the sooner it was on the shelves, the better. I wrote the CS3 book in about two weeks, but we did it in two parts, each of which was released as separate PDFs. When Peachpit decided to do a print version, we tweaked the PDFs for redundancy and references, and then combined them to produce the book.
Actually, this whole process underscores the power of the Adobe suite. Peachpit was able to very easily move from PDFs into a print version. I was a little skeptical of what the final print quality would be, since I had submitted RGB images. Normally, for a print book, the author must perform CMYK conversions, so the fact that they were able to get excellent print quality out of an all PDF workflow really impressed me.
Safari: Photoshop is such a massive program, it must be challenging to try to cover it in a book. How did you decide what areas to focus on?
Long: Because I was in the engineering beta program, I had already been using the program for several months, so I was fortunate in that I didn't have to learn the new stuff while I was writing the book. Since you had to be a registered user of CS2 to use the public beta, we knew that our audience was experienced with Photoshop, so deciding what to include was simply a matter of identifying what had changed.
Safari: What are your favorite new features or improvements in Photoshop CS3? Do you think the addition of Camera Raw features are going to be a big deal?
Long: Photoshop is used for so many different things - digital photography, color prepress, web design, feature film special effects, etc. - that everyone will find at least one or two things in this version that will make it worth the upgrade. As a photographer, my favorite feature is definitely the new grayscale conversion tools, which make grayscale conversion easier than it ever has been in ANY program. I also love the new auto align and blending tools, which do an exceptional job of assisting with tough composites. These tools also mean that Photoshop's panoramic stitching is now good enough that I no longer need an external stitching program! The interface redesign is great if you have a small screen, and the new Quick Selection brush is very handy for masking. Actually, it's hard to pick a favorite feature, because you can easily imagine a time where you'll need, say, the new Clone Stamp options, or the Refine Edge improvements. And then there's the Extended version, which provides a bunch of features that I don't really need for everyday photography work, but I could play with that 3D stuff all day long.
You're right to ask about Camera Raw, though. For many high-volume shooters, Camera Raw has become a more significant "application" than Photoshop. Adobe has chosen their Camera Raw additions very carefully, with the upshot being that most of the things that you used to have to put off and do in Photoshop, you can now do in Camera Raw. I think the adaptive shadows adjustment is the most significant addition in this regard (I'm talking about the Fill Light slider in the Camera Raw dialog box), though I also really like the addition of the Recovery slider.
Photoshop Lightroom users will feel right at home in the new Camera Raw, as the raw conversion tools are identical.
Safari: It's always tough to mess around with interface elements of a program that has been widely used for as long as Photoshop has. How do you feel about the interface changes in Photoshop CS3?
Long: The nice thing about the interface changes is that they won't interrupt your workflow if you're an experienced Photoshop user. Unlike some upgrades long ago, Adobe has not changed keyboard shortcuts, so you won't find yourself accidentally doing the wrong things as you learn the program. The interface changes are really confined to just the things that will maximize screen space, and you can deactivate most of these changes, to return to something that you might think of as more "normal."
One of the Photoshop features that I'm always surprised to find people unaware of is workspaces. I didn't cover workspaces in the book, because they're not new, but you'll be well-served by looking up Workspaces in the Photoshop help file. Workspaces make it very simple to customize your interface, and get it tweaked just the way you want it. People often feel that they don't have time to learn and use these types of features, but in a program like Photoshop, it's worth giving up a half-hour or so to get your interface adjusted, especially with the new version. After that, you can get back to work.
Safari: Tell us a little about the new Adobe Bridge that is getting a lot of attention.
Long: Bridge is, of course, the file browser that Adobe released with CS2. With it, you can easily view large previews of images in a folder and easily launch them into Photoshop. Bridge is also the mechanism that facilitates much of the batch processing and other automation chores that you can perform in Photoshop, as well as in the rest of the creative suite.
With CS3, Adobe has improved the interface, making it much easier to switch and customize layouts, and they've provided a VERY cool EXIF viewer that's much improved over the previous versions. With the new version, you can now view multiple images side by side, like you can in Lightroom or Apple's Aperture, and they've provided a limited stacking ability, which is a nice addition, but fairly simple at this point.
My favorite new feature in Bridge is kind of no frills, and that's the ability to create metadata templates within Bridge. In CS2, you had to make these within Photoshop, using a dialog box with a location that no one could ever remember. With this capability in Bridge, it's now very easy to throw together a metadata template that you can quickly apply to a bunch of images. For adding your copyright to a batch of images, or a group of keywords, this is a great timesaver.
Safari: How does CS3's performance compare to CS2?
Long: Intel Mac users will definitely notice a difference with CS3, since it's now Intel native. But all users will notice speedups here and there. It can always be difficult to judge if a progress bar is going faster in a new version of an application. Do you really KNOW how many seconds it used to take to perform an unsharp mask on a 100 mb image? But there are some tactile improvements that you might notice in Photoshop. Scrolling seems faster, screen redraw is peppier - that sort of thing.
Safari: You mentioned the Extended version, with extra features that seem geared mostly towards video and academic uses. Are there goodies in there for non-video creative professionals as well, or can they safely avoid paying the hefty extended price?
Long: I think Adobe has done a good job of organizing the feature differences between the regular and extended versions. If you're not a video pro, 3D artist, scientist, or engineer, you probably don't need anything that's in the Extended version. That said, if you have an extra few hundred dollars that you were just gonna throw away, and you don't have my mailing address handy, then the Extended version has some really cool additions. The ability to import a 3D model and paint directly on it is really fun, and while the Animation palette is no substitute for the power of a program like After Effects, for simple rotoscoping jobs and small animations, it's a nice addition.
I think one of the places where we're going to start seeing a LOT of tips and really new tricks is the new Stack Mode, which is included in the basic version of Photoshop. This is a very deep feature that's fairly complex, and I think with a little time, the end-user community will come up with lots of innovative uses for this feature. But you can really follow Adobe's lead on the Extended version. If you're not part of their target market, then you can safely stick with the basic version.
Safari: Was there anything you were surprised wasn't included in this latest upgrade cycle?
Long: Whew, I'm glad you asked. It was starting to sound like I'm on the Adobe payroll. No program is ever perfect, and as I already mentioned, Adobe has shown that they're really paying attention to their end-users by offering tweaks to very old features. That said, they missed a couple of things I would have like to have seen. The program still doesn't have a good straighten tool. I'd love to see something like the Lightroom straighten feature, which allows for straightening and cropping at the same time.
While the printing architecture has been streamlined, it's still spread over too many dialog boxes, and simple things like Contact Sheet printing are still relegated to the Automate menu (and does anyone outside of the engineering team really understand - or need to understand - the difference between the things in the Automate and Scripts menu?) Outside of Smart Objects, there's still no way to non-destructively apply sharpening, noise, and other critical filters. I was really hoping for a tone-mapping feature in the program's High Dynamic Range merging option.
Fortunately, these are all minor issues, and none of them are deal-breakers in terms of upgrading.
Safari: The final version of Photoshop CS3 has just recently been released. Were there any surprises, or significant differences from the public beta that has been available since last December?
Long: Actually there were, the most significant being the new Retouch and Red-eye Removal tools that were added to Camera Raw. The aforementioned metadata template feature in Bridge is also a new addition. Fortunately, while these are powerful additions, they're also simple to learn, so any user should be able to get up to speed with them right away. And, of course, the release version includes full on-line documentation, so you can very easily find out exactly what these new tools are about.
