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Photoshop CS: What is missing?


C

Cloak amp; Dagger

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Hello,

I have taken notice of the new Photoshop CS, and I was wanting to know if anyone noticed any missing tools or features.

I hate it when any software program is redesign and they decide to leave out a very powerful and sophisticated tool or feature, or simply make it less powerful and less sophisticated. [upset]

I have Photoshop 7 and I wanted to make sure that everything I have in Photoshop 7 will remain there and not be removed or downgraded. :B

Thanks,
Cloak & Dagger 8[
 
Hi C&D,

I don't ever remember Photoshop actually dropping tools although sometimes changes in the evolution has made it seem so superficially. For example GIF89.a was a standard which people thought was dropped in PS6 but was actually still available (although the Save For Web dialog did a better job IMO). In PS 7 early on people were suggesting that many brush options were lost when in fact the new brush dialog was incredibly enhanced, once you learned how to use it.

Now I'm not a beta tester or reviewer, so I don't have experience with the new version but it is something I'll buy as soon as it is available. The new features which sound significant to me are type on a path, the Color Replacement Brush, two new image interpolation options for increasing and decreasing image size (which Chris Cox of Adobe says are much better than just the old bicubic), some new filters and the Filter Gallery for previewing the cumulative effects of multiple filters, custom keyboard shortcuts, Shadow/Highlight Adjustment, improved file browser (to which I'm addicted), and a biggie...Photoshop CS also allows 16-bit editing (all core Photoshop features are now available to 16-bit images including layers, filters, painting, text and shapes); match colors across layers and images; view histograms anytime; create lens blur effects; photomerge for automatic panoramas; and more. Well there's more but that's plenty to get my upgrade $s.

Here's a good PDF by Martin Evening describing the new features...

http://www.imagingrevue.com/open/What_is_new_in_CS.pdf

PS I've read about a dozen in depth reviews of PS CS and no one has mentioned missing tools. The biggest issue is if you wish to buy into the Creative Suite or upgrade individually. I won't get into that issue here but note that I'll upgrade individually as I already own all my Adobe software and the CS upgrade path is somewhat limiting.
 
With all the images of it I've seen, the "palette well" seems to be missing.
 
Welles: I couldn't agree with you more! I'm chopping at the bit to get my grubby hands on PhotoShop Cs(8). :B
I'm glad they left the palette well or improved it 'cause, I use plenty tools and wouldn't have the screen space for my documents with all of them open at once [doh]
If you want an interactivate peek check out
www.photoshopuser.com
 
Welles,

What do you mean the CS upgrade is somewhat limiting? :shocked: I need to know what that means. That will be the final deciding factor in my decision.

Otherwise, everything else that has been said sounds really great. [excited]
 
C&D,

It isn't an issue with the software but with the marketing. If you upgrade to the CS Suite of applications you are required to upgrade the whole suite as a unit in the future. If you upgrade just stand alone applications you can pick and choose what individual applications you wish to upgrade. The difference seems to be that if you just currently own Photoshop but wish to upgrade to the Standard Suite (for print specifically, the Premium Suite is geared more for web and multimedia), you get InDesign and Illustrator, plus the Photoshop upgrade for a very favorable price in addition to a small application called Version Cue which helps with integrated file management and workflow (as best as I can figure it out...the real info is nebulous so far). However if you go that route you have to upgrade as a suite in the future, plus if you already own previous versions of the applications in the Creative Suite, the upgrade price is slightly more than the sum of the individual upgrade prices.

I hope this makes some sense. My own decision is to upgrade them individually as this seems to yield a bit more freedom to choose whether you need a particular upgrade or not. If you go with the suite and would only really want one application's upgrade you are still stuck with the whole upgrade package. It seems like marketing to me.
 
Most people who I've met seldom mention the vastly improved support for 16 bit color. That is for me and probably most professionals THE reason to upgrade.

Here are some more Photoshop CS examples and screen shots;

http://www.photoshopuser.com/pscs/pb-features.html


And btw, Imageready can now export to Flash; might be interesting for some of us.
 
Most people who I've met seldom mention the vastly improved support for 16 bit color. That is for me and probably most professionals THE reason to upgrade.
Click to expand...

Why? What's so fantastic about 16 bit color compared to what's being put out now by great digital artists, such as Mark or Wendy? or the other members here?
 
Welles,

Oh, I see what you mean now. Well I will be upgrading Photoshop individually, due to the fact that, that is all I can afford and judging by what you have explained to me that works out in my favor.

I like my freedom also. 8}

Anyway, I want to thank everyone who has participated in this topic. The help that was offered here has allowed me to come to a conclusion whether or not to upgrade to Photoshop CS. 3[

Yes, I will be upgrading. :perfect:
 
Moth said:
Why? What's so fantastic about 16 bit color compared to what's being put out now by great digital artists, such as Mark or Wendy? or the other members here?
Click to expand...
Sorry Moth, but I have a hard time to understand your comparison between 16 bit filters and the members of this board [confused]

The reason why and others are happy with the improved support for 16 bit is that 16-bit images are supposed to offer more flexibility during image editing. So when you apply image processing to a 16-bit image in Photoshop, you will have less quantization errors and therefore less potential banding and less overall image degradation. It's not important for users who produce only web images, but it's a great improvement for those professionals whose customers want high quality output.
 
First we will need "real" 64 bit processors, then we will need "real" 64 vidcard drivers, "real" 64 bit printing software and all professional printers will have to invest once again in "real" 64 bit equipment and software. You know them a bit???

Internally PS will be able to calculate it, and my 48 bit scan (I scan in RGB) will be imported into PS (probably if and only if I pay the upgrade price to a new version of the soft) but I won't be able to see it on my monitor (just like o so many 8bit LAB colours) or print it on my desktop printer as my printer soft is not made for it.

The printers I work with prefer simple quadri to six colours (too expensive). Some high-end printers will indeed make the investment when all will be ready in several years (don't expect it too soon!!) but most pro's will stay safe on the 8 bit side for a very long time.

Also: did you ever think of the storage in MB? The increased calculation time? OpenGL? Instead of 256 options per channel, there will then be 65.536. (256x256). In CMYK mode (you speak professional, and not monitor) this means no less than 262.144 units to store per pixel instead of 1024. Files will be some 260 times bigger. Not everyone has a dualXeon or the most expensive G5. Most certainly not professional printers who have many, many puters and licenses to upgrade.

Don't over-estimate this 64 bit. It's great. In theory. And it will be great somewhere in the future when the economy flies again like a butterfly in a lovely summer day. But who knows when that will be???

Also: the publicity machine works now at full speed. We get visitors we never had before making every possible effort to convince us that this is (once again, I heard this before) "the" upgrade to buy. (I don't mean you Gfx@rt ;) ). Is has of course strong points, but let's decide each one of us on our isle, not in the current of created mass-excitement.
 
Sorry Moth, but I have a hard time to understand your comparison between 16 bit filters and the members of this board
Click to expand...

Sorry to confuse you,GfX@rt ;\

I meant a comparison with their quality of artwork. You answered my question anyways. :perfect: [/b]
 
Erik, the 16 bits files are not 256x times heavier than the 8bits ones, they are just 2 times bigger (they use 16bits/channel instead of 8.

The main target of 16 bit editing is photographers. The idea is to work in 16 bits(the files that most SLR cameras take are more than 8bits in their raw format) to avoid loosing too much info, to get the best 8bit file at the final output.

Also, 16bit might be useful to fight banding in gradients. (especially since the 16>8bit conversion brings some dithering.)

64bit computing has little to do with the 16bits files, besides the fact that it will one day allow for more than 4gigabytes of memory to be used, without programming tricks. Halas, the Microsoft os seems to be more than 6months away. And the processors are still expensive.

C&D, welcome to PSG!

I don't remind any major tool being removed from Photoshop, besides maybe the HSB colour mode, still available as a Plug-in...

Sometimes, a function just moves from a menu to the other, and they just reverted to Pre-7 behaviour with the open documents that are not any longer in a sub-menu... for faster access!
 
I reread my posting and it is indeed a bit too negative and dark.
The big advantage of having more hues at our disposal is that as long as we work in Photoshop, be it from scratch or from a 48bit scan is that we will have less visible loss in images whislt manipulating. Even in 7 I usually import my scans as 48 bit and work as long as possible in that setting.
For offset printing, we will always be limited to CMYK, but desktop printers with 6 and more colours will most probably benefit. For those who see the difference that is...

As for the doubling:

One bit has two options, on and off, black and white, 0 and 1
Two bits have four: 00, 01, 10, 11

and so on, and the number of options is two to the n th power, where n is the number of pixels.

That is why 8 bits have 2 to the 8th power or 256 options.

16 bits per channel means that the power is doubled, from 8 to 16, but the number of options, or in this situation hues, is 2 to the 16yj power.

You may write them out if you feel like it. I assure you that there will be more than 512!

64 bit sounds wowowow but it is 16bit per channel, and counted for the four channels of CMYK. The bigger the number, the more people fall on their bended knees.
Also don't believe that a 64 bit processor can handle twice as much data as a 32 bit one. That is as big a lie as claiming that hyperthreading doubles the processor's capacity. It will be needed if all apps, beginning with the OS, drivers etc will go to 64 bit, but then there will be a slow down becoase of more data to handle.
Due to this the real speed-gain will be a slow down. Inevitably.
 
Yes, of course. I must have been spaced out in outer space or something. Sorry for that. I reacted like a b-spline!

Yes, there will be 65000 and some brightness values with 16 bit, and yes, it only doubles the file size as twice as much bits have to be remembered/calculated. Meaning an A1 poster size file (some 24x34 inch) at 300 dpi in CMYK will become some 300MB.

Luckily ram is cheap and processors are quite fast.

mes excuses, mon ami!
 
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