What's New in Digital Imaging Software?

PSA Journal, August, 2001 by Stanley Ashbrook

One of the truths in computers in general and digital photography in particular is that there will be change and new products that will extend our ability and creativity and this article addresses some of these new products and important upgrades.

* Photoshop 6

The latest upgrade of this premier imaging application is considered by many to be the most powerful and easiest version of Adobe[R] Photoshop[R] ever. They have not only added a boatload of new features, but they also added an enhanced interface that brings more of Photoshop's real power to the surface.

The context sensitive Option bar replaces the tool Options palette and the old Brushes palette. The "Palette Well" lets you dock palettes that you often use.

There is an improved Type Tool that makes it possible to type directly onto the image and as the text is crisp vector-based and mathematically created, it's smooth and can be warped, twisted and otherwise transformed, yet still fully editable. You can enter the type at a fixed point or draw a type box that will give paragraph controls similar to word processing or layout applications, allowing full typographical control over font face and type effects. With the "Warp Tool" you can warp your text into 15 different editable shapes, which you can fully edit, adjust and distort.

Photoshop 6 now has vector shapes, which allow you to create and output crisp vector shapes right in Photoshop.

The Layer Effects are now called Layer Styles and Photoshop 6.0 comes with some built-in Styles in a new Layer Style palette. This palette makes applying layer effects quick and easy. They have added an Adjustment Layer Icon and a Layer Style Icon at the bottom of the layer palette so you can apply an Adjustment Layer or a Layer Style by clicking on these icons instead of using a menu command; new effects have been added.

These are just a few of the many new features of this powerful image-editing program. For more information visit the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com. List price is $599 and the upgrade from a previous version is $199, but if you scour the Web you can probably find cheaper prices.

* Photoshop Elements

For those of you who don't wish to jump into digital photography by spending the price for Photoshop, Adobe has introduced Photoshop Elements, based in large part on Photoshop 6.0, to replace Photoshop LE, (for "Limited. Edition") that is bundled with select desktop scanners and digital cameras as a stand-alone product. It is meant to address the mid-range market. Elements provides almost-Photoshop image editing at a price of $99, although if you look around the web you can find it cheaper.

Many of Photoshop's features have found their way into Elements. It includes the full complement of Photoshop filters, ranging from artistic effects to image enhancement filters to a filter that lets you move pixels around like wet paint. In addition to standard image-editing functions such as selection tools and multiple layers, Elements boasts advanced features including adjustable layers and editable layer effects.

The History palette, (which allows users to roll back to a previous state of the current editing session) introduced in Photoshop 5, is included and all Photoshop plug-ins pertaining to RGB files work just fine with Elements.

In Elements the underlying image-editing engine is pure Photoshop, and Elements shares many interface elements with Photoshop. For example, Elements sports the same tabbed and dockable palettes together with the context-sensitive option bar. As in 6.0 you can even regain workspace by collapsing unused palettes in the palette well at the top of the screen.

The Elements' interface makes its program's functions more accessible to the casual user. For example, instead of requiring the beginner to understand how the Levels command can correct under- and overexposures, Elements provides two functions, called Fill Flash and Backlighting (which a PSA'er understands), that accomplish the same thing with much less hassle. Those users who understand the concepts of shadow, mid-tone, and highlight tonal values can still drill down in the menu structure to find the standard full-featured Levels dialog box.

Many of the new interface features come in the form of helpful hints. (See Figure 1). Likewise, there are visual browsers that let users choose image files and filter effects based on thumbnail representations.

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For the beginner there are recipes (see Figure 2) that provide step-by-step instructions for common tasks, such as adjusting hue and saturation or removing dust and scratches. Adobe has repackaged some Actions from the full version and calls them Effects. Effects provide an easy way to perform complex tasks, such as creating photoframes or generating realistic textures.

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Elements is not merely a subset of Photoshop. In several instances, Adobe has added features to make common image-editing tasks easier for the average user. For example, there is now a specific brush to remove red eye, as well as a one-click command to crop and straighten skewed scans.