Photoshop CS3 Extended

The one thing guaranteed to send sales of Intel-based Macs through the roof is the long-awaited release of the Universal Binary version of Photoshop. Designers and illustrators have been holding back on their purchases hoping that they’ll see a significant speed increase with CS3. Although Photoshop runs acceptably well under Rosetta, Apple’s translation software that allows applications compiled for PowerPC to run on the Intel platform, running the native version of Photoshop is like swapping a Morris Minor for a Ferrari.

But speed increases are only part of the story. The biggest obstacle Adobe has faced in upgrading Photoshop is deciding what to add to an application that many consider almost perfect. Incremental changes, such as Smart Objects, Vanishing Point and Lens Blur, have been well received, but pushed the application towards bloat, with many pro features remaining untouched.

The solution has been to split Photoshop into ‘regular’ and Extended editions. The latter, reviewed here, contains some of the most exciting additions in Photoshop’s history, solidifying its position as the central workhorse in any graphics workflow.

The first thing you’ll notice is the new interface. It’s sleeker and populated by new icons for all the windows that can be stashed to the side of the screen. It’s close enough to the previous version to be familiar, but is a definite improvement.

If you found Smart Objects and Adjustment Layers crucial to a non-destructive workflow, you’ll love Smart Filters. They allow you to adjust the blur, sharpness or most of Photoshop’s other filters on the fly without destroying the underlying pixel information.

Need to cut out an object? The Quick Selection tool is designed to help using automatic edge detection. You simply brush over an area, which becomes a selection. You can then use the new Refine Edge feature, which provides a dizzying array of options to fine-tune the edge: expanding or contracting, blurring or increasing contrast. Photoshop ships with improved curves for greater control over an image, expanded HDR functionality, refined Cloning and better black-and-white conversion. But 3D and motion professionals will salivate when they see what’s in the Extended edition.

It’s now possible to import 3D models (such as .u3d, .3ds, .obj, .kmz and Collada file formats), which are placed on a 3D layer. You can move it, adjust the scale and change the lighting and render mode. While the functions are basic, putting them in the hands of Photoshop users will see time savings and increased creativity.

If you have QuickTime 7.0 or higher installed, you can use Photoshop to edit video frames and image sequence files. You can use any tools to adjust video at pixel level or create animations from scratch. Videos can be saved as a PSD file, which can be played back in After Effects or Premiere Pro, or rendered out as a QuickTime movie or image sequence.