FIRST EXPOSURE

JACK AND SUE DRAFAHL

OVER THE YEARS we have devel-oped what we thought was a good for-mula for reviewing software programs.We would describe the intended use ofthe program or new version, show howit works with images, and highlightsome of its newest features. That ap-proach seemed to work well until now.

With the introduction of Adobe Pho-toshop Creative Suite 2, we had to to-tally change the way we approach soft-ware reviews. We have closely followedAdobe's 15-year growth as we havebeen Beta testing Photoshop versionsfrom 2.5 though CS2. Although eachnew version featured innovativechanges worth the price of upgrading,none has offered improvements withsuch impact as this one.

The truth is that after Beta testing CS2

that with CS, if your computer crashed,and you restored it with Windows Re-store or a third-party program, you hadto re-register Photoshop with Adobe.This was a big problem if you were onlocation with limited Internet access.The new CS2 uses a better system thatkeeps the registration key on your com-puter even if it crashes. It even has a sys-tem where you can transfer the registra-tion from one computer to anotherwhen you upgrade computers. This fea-ture alone is worth an upgrade if youtravel with Photoshop.

When you first start CS2, you will no-tice that Photoshop uses a new type ofexternal file manager called Bridge thatcan interface with all new Adobe CS2programs like Illustrator, GoLive, InDe-sign and Image Ready. This new Bridge

Photoshop CS2for three months, we found so many reasonsfor the upgrade that it was hard to pick justone. As we prepared for this article, we com-pared our list with Adobe's and compiledmore than 30 reasons to upgrade.

With the introduction of CS, Adobe wentto a similar registration process as used byMiaosoft, where you must log onto the In-ternet and register with Adobe, or your pro-gram will not function. The problem was

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The new CS2 Bridge program works with all new CS2 products and reads a wide variety of file formats fromeach. The bridge program can be loaded by itself or accessed from inside each CS2 program. Folder directo-ries, upper left; expanded view in left middle; EXIF info in lower left, and thumbnail index at right.

program can be used to open the correct ed-iting program or you can just drag the filesto the appropriate program icons. Bridge is avery powerful program that allows you tobatch process RAW files, scale thumbnailpreviews, view images in slide shows, viewall CS2 file formats, search the Web forAdobe Stock photos, and flag or label imagesfor easy image searches.

A new very sophisticated image manipu-lation tool called Vanishing Point (see articleon page 8) can be found under the Filterpull-down menu. This feature allows you toselect sections of an image, and then pastethem onto defined planes in the image toprovide perspective. You can create new sid-ing for a house, re-pave your driveway, addlabels to the side of a 3D box, and move se-lected objects to provide perspective.

Under the Edit > Transform pull-downmenu you will find the new Warp com-mand. When you select Warp, a grid will ap-pear on the surface of the area you want towarp. You can select just a section or the en-tire image use node points or a Bezier-typehandle to tweak your adjustment. There isalso a set of preset warps and numerical datafields that can help you warp selected imagesaround a variety of 3D objects.

RANCEFINDER MAY 2005

Above left: The clone tool, healing brush, and spot healing brush was used to remove background images, while the highlight/shadow filter was used to correctexposure, contrast, and gamma.Above right: The spot healing brush was used to manicure the grass. Notice that the tool matches the surrounding texture and shading.

Whether you shoot filmor digital, you will reallylike the new Reduce Noisefound in Edit > Noise > Re-duce. When this menuopens, you have the optionof working on all channelsor individual channels toreduce digital noise or filmgrain structure. There is alsoa box at the bottom thatwill reduce the level of JPEGartifacts in the image. Addi-tional sliders allow you toadjust the sharpness of theimage and maintain differ-ent levels of fine image de-tail.

When Elements 3 wasfirst introduced, the spothealing brush was added tothe toolbox, and it is nowincluded in PhotoshopCS2. This tool only requiresthat you click once on thesmall artifact you want toremove, and then Photo-shop will replace the areawith new data carefullymatching lighting and tex-ture. This is a great tool fordigital SLR shooters whoend up with small blackparticles due to dust gather-ing on the camera sensor.Just set the brush size toslightly larger than the par-ticles, and they will bequickly retouched away.

Smart objects allows you to reduce and expand withthe transformation command without losing imagequality. Original object at top was reduced in sizewith transformation command. Vase in lower rightwas enlarged from a smart object version, while thevase in the lower left was enlarged from a normallayer version.

Same layer was reduced and enlarged using thetransformation command. The layer in the upperleft was converted to a smart object first, while theobject in the lower right was not.

The lens correction command can be used to straighten building that ap-pears to be falling over. The grid is used to help align straight lines alongthe edge of the building.

RANGEFINDER MAY 2005

I PEG reduction command was used to reduce jpeg artifacts from this high compression image.

If you are constantly finding yourself re-moving redeye, it just got a lot easier thanksto the new redeye tool. No more selecting orsetting colors. Just click on the eye, and in acouple of seconds the red area is gone. If youfind some of the red still showing, just clickon the second area and the red will be gone

for good.Another great reason to upgrade is the

new Filter > Distort > Lens Correction menu.This is the Swiss army knife of lens correc-tions tools. When you first open the menu,a grid will be placed over your image so youcan correct barrel distortion, pincushion,

and perspective distortion. If you also findthat your image has vignetting due to theuse of long or wide lenses, this menu canhelp smooth out the image from edge toedge. If your camera lens exhibits chromaticaberration, there are a couple of sliders totake care of that too.

One of the more difficult tools to use andunderstand is the unsharp mask. If you arehaving problems using it, you should tryyour hand at the new Filter > Sharpen >Smart Sharpen pull-down menu. When itopens, you are presented with sliders to ad-just the amount and radius of the imagesharpness. The advantage of this tool overthe unsharp mask is that you have addition-al controls to independently adjust both thehighlight and shadow sharpness. You canalso remove different types of blur—whetherfrom camera motion, lens blur or Gaussianblurring problems.

If you are an advanced image editor andare competent using layers, then you aregoing to love the new Layers > Smart Objectscommand. Previously, when you used thetransform selection command to size downa selection or layer, your selection was scaled

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down to match the new size. Now with CS2,if you convert your selection to a smart ob-ject, Photoshop keeps the object's originalsize, even though you scaled it down. If youdecided to scale it back up later, the full res-olution of that object is still available.

Another nice feature with layers is the useof the smart guides. If you have several lay-ers you want to align, just bring them nextto one of these smart guides, and the objectwill jump right next to it. It seems to antici-pate your every movement.

Digital camera shooters who use RAW filesare in for a real treat with the new RAW Fileinterface. It can do just about everythingwith a digital camera RAW file that you canimagine... and maybe even a few more. Thehistogram is at the top, and just below thatyou have a setting that includes custom,RAW file defaults and previous conversions.You then have your choice of all the whitebalance settings, color temperatures, tints,exposures, highlights, shadows, contrastand saturation controls. Additional tabsallow you to tweak sharpness, color noise,color fringing, vignetting, curve adjustmentand full color calibration.

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The RAW file menu gives you full control over your image. With this menu you can alter most of thesettings used to take the image. Image size, color mode, contrast, exposure, gamma, white balance,sharpness and lens attributes are just a few of the controls possible in this very powerful RAW fileeditor.

One interesting feature is the size box.With this pull-down you can take your 3-to 17-megapixel image and scale it up ashigh as a 25 megapixels. Many of these fea-

tures were available in CS, but in CS2 youcan open multiple RAW file images andapply the same settings to all the images.You can also save your settings and use

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Above: The vanishing point filter found under the filter pull-down can alignflat images on angled planes that have perspective. A grid is setup in ad-vance to tell each image how it will be applied to a surface selection.

Right: Top image is the original, and bottom is with a new brick texture.A grid was set to each wall before the brick selection was applied.

them later as a batch processor for groupsof RAW file images.

Also new to CS2 is the High DynamicRange (HDR) function. With this commandyou can open several exposure-bracketedimages and combine them into a singleimage with an extended dynamic range in8-bit, 16-bit or 32-bit colors. You have theoption of selecting images already loaded, orloading new images from the file manager. Ifyou did not use a tripod, you can check theregister box to realign the images in the se-quence. The preview screen shows the HDRimage and those images use to create it. Ifyou don't like the results, you can uncheck

one of the images to see if the HDR image isimproved by not including that specificimage.

As we said, there are so many new featuresin Creative Suite 2 that we just can't do it jus-tice in the space allotted. Several of the newitems we can't cover are the animationpalette, exposure controls, 32-bit channels,shape blur, surface blur, a half dozen newlayer controls, a new PDF interface and pre-sets, preview and export video, and more. Ifyou get a bit overwhelmed by the amount ofnew features, you can turn on a specialworkspace designed to highlight all the newor improved features in blue so you can lo-

Digital camera bracket set was imported into new HDR merge screen and blended into a single 32-bitextended range image. Image could then be converted to 16-bit or 8-bit image and still hold wider range ofimage detail than is found in the original images.

cate them easier.There are advantages to being a Beta tester

for Adobe, since you get to test some the lat-est, greatest software. The disadvantage isthat because we sign a non-disclosure docu-ment, we can't tell anyone. Boy is that hardto do! Finally, now we can shout it outloud—run quick and get your hands on Cre-ative Suite 2!

If you still have questions about this greatsoftware, log on to www.adobe.com to seefeatures and samples from the entire CS2products line.

Creative Suite 2 is compatible with MACOS X v. 10.2.8 through v. 10.3.8 and Win-dows 2000 with Service Pack 4 or XP withService Pack 1 or 2. The upgrade to Photo-shop CS2 is $149, and full price is $599. ThePremium version features all the new Cre-ative Suite 2 products and is available for$ 1199 and $549 for an upgrade. "^S^

lack and Sue Drafahl are freelance journalists/pho-tographers living in the Pacific Northwest. They haveowned and operated a custom lab and service bu-reau, Image Concepts, for many years. They can bereached at: digitalduo@jackandsuedrafahl.com. TheDrafahls new web site is: www.jackandsuedrafahl.com/.

^^m^^^^Further Information:

Adobe Photoshop CS2Adobe Systems Incorporated345 Park AvenueSan Jose, CA 95110-2704(800) 833-6687www.adobe.com

RANCEFINDER MAY 2005