Adobe Photoshop CS

We can argue all day long about the pros and cons of this software and that software. We can say things like, "get a better Computer, 6 months is like 2 years now-a-days", and "If you can't install the program, maybe you shouldn't be using it in the first place?". But that's not why were here are we?

It really boils down to how Adobe is like the movie Shrek. You can have a professional/parent and a student/child laugh at the same joke... but for two completely different reasons. The software is easy enough to use for beginners, yet, in a deeper more experienced way, there are people that can make a very good living using it.

This is the most versatile version thus far.

PS.. Before you drop hard earned $, please download the trial! Good software houses will have them available to download for free.

Adobe is a big company and has tons of money, so why are they charging us an arm and a leg for bloatware that runs very slow? Launching the program takes half a minute on my 6-month-old PC with 512 mb RAM. A lot of things are hard to understand, which means you'll need to shell out more cash for a learning book, and Adobe wants you to buy their expensive books! Get jasc or other better products from independent software publishers. There's even a decent open-source (and free) image editing program.

Adobe continues its tradition with an industry-leading product in Photoshop CS. Photoshop has long been the industry standard in graphics and photo editing. With the introduction of Photoshop CS, the product has gotten even better. What's more, Adobe listens and is uniquely in tune with the needs and requests of Photoshop users. They have listened and added the most requested enhancements to this product.

Many new enhancements are added. For example, the color replacement tool. This wonderful tool allows you to choose a color on a photograph that you would like replaced, pick the color you would like to replace it with (even between images and layers!), then easily highlight and replace the offending color. This saves so much time and effort when editing and correcting photographs.

Photoshop CS has also picked up new things from it's cousin Illustrator. You can now to text on a line with ease. This has been a standard feature of Illustrator for a long time. However, it did not come in Photoshop. Now, rather than hassling with drawing the curve and using warp or some other technique to "wrap" the text onto the line, Photoshop CS can do it in one easy step.

As a Web Designer, I cannot say enough about all of the features available in this program. ImageReady has been enhanced to include improvements in the user interface. You can now create and modify web designs faster with multiple object selection, object grouping, and smart guides. There are also great improvements in image slicing, which is very important. You can now slice complex, layered images and apply appropriate format and compression settings to each area before exporting as an HTML table.

Another enhancement for Web Designers is that Photoshop CS can export as a Macromedia FlashÓ (SWF) file. Now you can use ImageReady CS to create FlashÓ animations that include the vector artwork and variable text. This enhancement really helps when compressing images and vector art for inclusion on a webpage or into a FlashÓ presentation.

Since I also occasionally work with video in Adobe Premiere, I can also really appreciate the enhancements that they have included in Photoshop CS for 16-bit and video production. The square to non-square pixel issue has always been a problem when taking images to video. Adobe has once again listened to the users and improved the non-square pixel support. Now we can create and work with non-square pixels with different aspect and not have to worry about distortion.

In summary, this is another homerun for Adobe with a product that far exceeds its competitors-bar none. The new enhancements, plus the ability to extend Photoshop CS exponentially with third-party plug-ins makes this program a must-have for any serious photographer, graphics designer or web designer.

Way to go Adobe!

Everybody talks of Photoshop simply as software. But it's implications in the modern day digital world are huge. Photoshop as an invention has been as influential as the light bulb, because it has changed our perception of reality. Today, every time we look at an image, say it's on a website, a magazine, television or any printed media, we wonder or contemplate the posibility of how much "Photoshopped" the image is. In the popular realm Photoshop can create crazy aberrations that are at times fun, and to the trained eye you can detect just where the editing took place. But in the hands of experts, we can just wonder how much media images have been manipulated without us ever noticing. What Photoshop has done over the years is to democratize digital image editing, something that was one time limited to high end image labs and pros. Photoshop has no real learning curve, because it's progressive. The thing is that if you're intrested, go for it, there are hundreds of learning resources available (tutorials included with the software are complete and comprehensive). Photoshop is a must have tool.

Everybody talks of Photoshop simply as software. But it's implications in the modern day digital world are huge. Photoshop as an invention has been as influential as the light bulb, because it has changed our perception of reality. Today, every time we look at an image, say it's on a website, a magazine, television or any printed media, we wonder or contemplate the posibility of how much "Photoshopped" the image is. In the popular realm Photoshop can create crazy aberrations that are at times fun, and to the trained eye you can detect just where the editing took place. But in the hands of experts, we can just wonder how much media images have been manipulated without us ever noticing. What Photoshop has done over the years is to democratize digital image editing, something that was one time limited to high end image labs and pros. Photoshop has no real learning curve, because it's progressive. The thing is that if you're intrested, go for it, there are hundreds of learning resources available (tutorials included with the software are complete and comprehensive). Photoshop is a must have tool.