Digital Home Thoughts: Adobe's Creative Suite 2 Premium Reviewed

The Infamous (and Famous) Photoshop
If you've spent any amount of time on the Internet, you've probably stumbled across a 'photoshopped' image (you can find some interesting examples here. Hardly a day goes by, in the technological rumor world, without some user accusing another poster that the image they have provided was faked. Not to say that the term photoshopping is all bad. And while Adobe doesn't care for the term (as it could potentially limit the trademark); it is because of Adobe that the term exists.

Photoshop (Figure 12) is, however, more than just a photo editing application. It has a variety of tools (Figure 13) that work well with any sort of graphical project. And with its inclusion in CS2 (and the interoperability between), the value increases exponentially.


Figure 12: The famous Photoshop is more that just a photo editing application.


Figure 13: The default toolset for Adobe Photoshop.

Some things in this version Photoshop have changed, such as the new single-click redeye removal tool (Figure 14), which does a remarkably good job, even on animal shots. Other updates include advanced noise reduction (which makes life a lot simpler and does a pretty decent job), an improved font menu (with samples), customizable workspaces, 32-bit High Dynamic Range support, and even high-capacity RAM support (the full list can be found here).


Figure 14: A side by side example of the new single-click redeye tool.

One particularly useful tool (for small edits) that is new to this version is the Spot Healing Brush. In the following example (Figure 15), I've used the Spot Healing Brush to hide a mole on the boy's face. For larger areas, the Spot Healing Brush doesn't do quite as well, but you still have the Healing and Patch tools available for that.


Figure 15: An example of the Spot Healing Brush, used to remove a mole.

Ever pasted a vector image into Photoshop? Once you've placed the graphic, if you resize it later, you begin to lose image quality. With the addition of Smart Objects (Figure 16), Adobe has given the users the ability to dynamically place, then resize, place again, etc., without losing the scalability of the vector art. Combine this with the Warp tools, and you've got a yet another way to expand your capabilities.


Figure 16: Smart Objects maintain their scalability.

Personally, I got a kick out of the new Vanishing Point tool (Figure 17). Think of it as a cloning tool combined with a perspective vortex. Once you've got the hang of it, you can easily expand, extend, or even overlay art while maintaining the proper perspective.


Figure 17: Using the Vanishing Point tool, I was able to expand the artwork to better fit the project.

Want to put your images on a website? Simply transfer them over to ImageReady (Figure 18) and make slices, image maps, and optimize to your heart's content.


Figure 18: Using ImageReady, you can quickly add image maps.

Of course, what I've covered is a mere sampling of what you are capable of accomplishing inside of Photoshop. But here is where things get sticky. I like a lot of what Photoshop has to offer, but the toolset is most closely related to Paint Shop Pro, which I'm used to working with. Add in the fact that a lot of the keyboard shortcuts that I've learned don't match up and you might begin to understand why even for this review, I was using Paint Shop Pro to capture and crop the example images used. Perhaps with some training I'll find it easier to manage, but at this point, I'll have to stick with the dual-mode.