If you're a regular reader of the WBB or the Cyber Aspect archive then you'll remember the rave review that Adobe Photoshop CS2 received from us. CS2 even earned our Editor's Award for 2005, so you can imagine the trepidation of reviewing this latest version from Adobe, the first major release since the Macromedia merger.

The GUI?
Experienced Photoshop users are going to pick up straight away on the "square-ness" of everything in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended ... the GUI has changed and for those who have just got comfortable with Photoshop ... it's rather a big change ... but, for me, a pleasant one. The palettes all interlock now and at a click expand out from either the left or right of the screen, and, they sit nicely in their own area of the GUI leaving more room for the design pane. As I mentioned, a pleasant change but a big move away from the usual Photoshop appearance.

Extended?
So, what's this Extended business all about? Well, Photoshop in 2007 has split into two different products with Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended being the big heavily feature laden older brother and Photoshop CS3 the younger streamlined brother. They are basically the same application but some extra capabilities like video post-production and animation have been bundled into Extended. There's a price difference though, about $300.00 I think, so you'd need to be sure of just how much you would use or want those Extended features.

ImageReady?
It seems ImageReady is no more. Well, it is no longer a "stand-alone" entity as bits of it have ended up in Photoshop, some parts were dumped entirely, and the remaining left-overs wound their way into Photoshop Extended. While this appears to be an after-thought to some, I found it refreshing not to have to click that ImageReady icon at the bottom of the tools palette and go to a separate program just to put in some simple animation. Extended has frame-based animation inbuilt and raring to go. There is also a timeline view straight out of Adobe After-Effects, with key-framing for opacity, position and layer styles.

New Features
Apart from some of the ImageReady features what does Photoshop CS3 Extended have to offer in the way of new features? Let's take a look.

• Smart Filters
  This literally blew me away ... turn on Smart Filters, which turns a layer into a smart object, and from that point all filters are non-destructive and can be turned on and off by clicking the "eye" icon on the sub (smart object) layer.
• Quick Selection and Refining Edge Tools
  Another vital improvement to image editing ... use the elliptical marquee tool to select part of an image, click select, refine edge and make a few small adjustments and voila the selection has a faded edge. This is just one way to use this new fabbo tool.
• Movie Paint
  Open up video files directly in Photoshop Extended and paint and clone directly onto frames. A major step forward in video production productivity.
• 2d and 3d Measurement Tools
• Enhanced Vanishing Point with 3d support
• Advanced Compositing
• 3d Compositing and Texture Editing

The Icons?
Remember the outrage at the CS2 icons? Alot of users were disappointed by them ... Well, the CS3 icons seem to fare no better as there have been loads of comments and, unfortunately, all appear to be negative. I even discovered a sub-culture at work dedicated to coming up with better icons to replace the Adobe version. On a personal note, I'd just like to say I LOVE the square-ness of everything associated with CS3, and these icons look just great in my dock thank you very much.

I thought I'd end the review with a look at some of the user anti-icon comments and of course a look at the dreaded icons themselves ... see the image below but make sure their hidden from small children due to the horror factor.

 

User Comments on the new Icons:
My nightmare realized. Mystery meat two-letter icons with often slight variations in color. My workspace will be indecipherable.

As I feared, the whole range of Adobe products is going to be converted into a lifeless series of indecipherable colored squares.

While functional is nice, I don't want Alphabet soup in my Dock. If I wanted Alphabet soup I would heat up a can of Alphabet soup and eat it.

My call?
I'm blown away by the look and feel of Photoshop CS3 Extended and the new features are pretty exciting as well, so I'm prepared, at this early stage, to raise my thumb in the up direction and give the product a nod. What's my hesitance? I'm going to test-drive the product for a while and see if it lives up to the standards of CS2, which at this point is my all-time favourite verison of Photoshop. I also want to make sure the new features don't interfere with day to day graphic work. So, expect a re-review in a month or so.

One Month Later - July 2007
This is an upgrade with a few good new features.  The product earns a thumbs up from me.