I was pleasantly surprised to find a copy of the new Adobe Creative Suite on my desk for review last month. I am a big Photoshop fan and hurriedly started to install the new suite which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Image Ready, Go Live and In Design. What happened was a couple of days of nightmare where half the products installed and I received errors trying to load the other half. Adobe have a great user forum on their site so I rushed over and started reading. I soon learned I wasn't the only one having problems installing but there didn't seem to be a solution ... so I went back to basics and re-read the official Adobe troubleshooting guide which stated the minimum requirements for the installation. I double checked every item on that list and found that I had not checked my version of the QuickTime player. Adobe wanted QuickTime 6.3 and I only had version 5 something. I headed off to the QuickTime site and downloaded the latest version. I uninstalled Adobe Creative Suite and reinstalled using the new QuickTime player and Voila!! Success!! This should not have been so hard ... I am concerned that a big Company like Adobe would send out a major release of their software without a simple check for a version number of a player.

Okay gripe over ... I would like to start by saying that in my opinion Adobe Photoshop is matchless in the image manipulation arena (I'm sorry Macromedia ... Fireworks is good but Photoshop is better) ... it is a tool I use everyday in my working life and one I feel I have almost grown up with ... so when I read a short note from Macnetic on the Adobe Forum site I felt I had to include it in my review. Mac has a problem with the fact that all the icons have changed with the release of the Creative Suite ... as Mac says "Where has the simple, tried and true designers school of thought gone? I identified with 'the eye'. I grew up with Venus. Now I can't seem to find my way between feathers and butterflies, stars and flowers. I feel like someone gave me some bad acid and threw me into a bowl of lucky charms." This still makes me chuckle as I miss 'the eye' too ... so lets take a look at some of the new features in Photoshop CS and ignore the fact that 'the eye' is gone.

Improved File Browser. This feature is new to me and it is wonderful as you can review thumbnails of images and sort them into any order you wish. An instant Web gallery can be created complete with html at the touch of a button. A great feature.

Match Color Command. This new feature allows you to adjust the color balance based on a complete or partially selected other layer or image.

 

Text on a Path. I've waited for this feature for a long time. You could always do it in Illustrator but now it is available in Photoshop and wow! its so easy.

 

Camera RAW. Camera RAW functionality, previously available only as a plug-in, has now been thoroughly integrated into the product. This lets you preview unprocessed camera data in the browser.

Photomerge. This command is the same as the utilities that come with a number of digital cameras these days, and it allows you to stitch together a series of photos taken from a particular vantage point in order to produce a larger panorama. As you know there are many dedicated tools which will do this and I reviewed a couple of them last year. It is hard to say which is better ... but I did like the idea of not having to exit Photoshop just to make a panorama image with another tool. If you are careful as you are taking the photos (a tripod would be most beneficial for this) then you should be able to make slick and professional panoramas right inside Photoshop.

There are loads of other features, far too many to list here, but just to highlight a couple more. You can use ImageReady CS to create Macromedia Flash animations, complete with vector artwork and variable text. You can customize and save keyboard shortcuts ... saving keystrokes is always a valuable accessory to any working Tool.

Okay Okay ... there must be something bad about Photoshop CS ... well yes there is ... Adobe have continued to make most of their commands "destructive" in that once applied and saved something like the match color command cannot be "undone". Anyone who uses Photoshop will know that all the filters are "destructive" ... this is one area where the new Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 outshines Photoshop as most of its commands are non-destructive and simple to undo. But as I expressed before, in my opinion, Photoshop does most things so much better it continues to be the ultimate in Image manipulation.

And is Photoshop CS worth the upgrade price? In my opinion ... a huge YES ... a definite thumbs up to Adobe for this feature packed version.