Edit Review: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended

Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended now allows users to create and edit video files directly. Using the new video layers, you can animate text, objects, images, and styles, then export to just about any video file format.

Introduced just before NAB among a flurry of new product announcements that includes Premiere Pro CS3, Adobe's new version of Photoshop has been buried somewhat by the hype surrounding the whole CS3 family. That's a shame, because Photoshop CS3 Extended contains a host of new and improved features that hold special promise for video producers.

Photoshop CS3 Extended is part of the new CS3 Design Premium software package from Adobe. (It also comes as part of the Production Premium package.) The Design Premium package also includes InDesign CS3, Illustrator CS3, Flash CS3 Professional, and Dreamweaver CS3, along with Acrobat 8 Professional. Additional programs included are Bridge CS3, Version Cue CS3, Device Central CS3, Adobe Stock Photos, and Acrobat Connect for $1,199 for the full version or $399 for the upgrade.

If you don't need new versions of InDesign, Flash, or Dreamweaver, you could choose the standalone Photoshop CS3 Extended upgrade ($349), which is only $150 more than the standard Photoshop CS3 upgrade ($199). In this review, I'll focus mainly on Photoshop CS3 Extended because that's where most new video and animation features lie. First, I'll mention an omission: Photoshop no longer ships with the separate program ImageReady. Largely ignored by some users, ImageReady was powerful when it came to preparing images for animation and the Web. Those tools have been rolled into Extended for the most part. (For more on the other CS3 programs, see upcoming issues.)

A 3D object can be lit and manipulated inside Photoshop CS3 Extended. The texture map for the car is a separate image that can be altered and then updated.

Considering the new additions, it might follow that Photoshop CS3 Extended would be one huge, clunky, slow program. It's actually the fastest-loading and most responsive version of Photoshop I have used in several revisions.

The first thing you'll notice as you boot up the new Photoshop is the redesigned interface. The toolbar used to default as two rows; now it can be set up as a single horizontal or vertical row. Panels that are docked to the right of the screen (such as colors, text options, and layers) can now be toggled to icon mode. This is amazingly handy for tidying up and conserving screen real estate. (Of course, this feature comes a few years too late, because inexpensive 24in. and 30in. monitors now provide plenty of screen space for most serious digital artists.)

One of the coolest new features of Photoshop CS3 Extended is Smart Filters. The last several versions of Photoshop have included lots of “Smart” options (such as Smart Objects), and the concept allows you to design and redesign, easily toggling effects off and on. Now you can take any layer and convert it to a Smart Filter layer, allowing you to add lots of filters one after another. Each is listed on the layer, just like other effects, such as layer effects. You can then toggle each filter on and off selectively, and even click off all filters if you like.

Adobe has dramatically improved selection tools with the new quick selection tool. Forget the typical painstaking selection of irregular objects — now you can easily draw a loose selection around the element and Photoshop CS3 Extended will accurately snap and hug the selection to the object intelligently, with less tweaking than ever before. This is especially handy with greenscreen stills. Clipping out objects is finally fast and easy.

If you bring in a lot of stills or image sequences for rotoscoping or touchups, you'll also appreciate Extended's increased speed and quality in dealing with RAW files. The RAW import directly supports more than 150 camera models. New features include dust elimination and adding key and fill lights to an image. The RAW importer continues to be improved — another update that materialized as I was writing this article.

For video producers, 3D and animation are two of the most exciting reasons to get the new Photoshop CS3 Extended. You are now able to bring in a 3D object (formats include Autodesk Maya and AutoCAD and Adobe Acrobat 3D) and render them into your 2D composites. You can rotate the objects, change the lighting, and swap out and create textures. One nice thing about lighting is you can set it via presets within Photoshop or use the existing lights that import with some 3D objects. You can move the object in 3D space, rotate, and flip it, etc., or you can move the camera in 3D space, so you can spin, walk, orbit, and fly around the scene. You can slice your object into cross sections and manipulate different parts of the object.

All of this sounds cool, but it's important to note that this is the first version of Photoshop to handle 3D, so you just get the basics. You certainly should not uninstall your version of Autodesk 3ds Max or Maya. Basically, Photoshop CS3 Extended is designed to allow you to bring in a 3D object, manipulate the textures, and do basic rendering. It's a lot of fun to play around with, but it's also going to be extremely powerful for a lot of professionals. Producers can now dip into the rich reserve of 3D objects available from third-party 3D object websites, such as turbosquid.com, and incorporate 3D into their images and workflow.

Animation is the other big news. As with the 3D element, the new video layers provide just the basics. First, you may have already noticed animation features if you used ImageReady in CS2. That program offered a timeline and basic keyframing, but it was really a series of frames. You'd manually (and tediously) make changes from frame to frame. Photoshop CS3 Extended offers those options and rolls in Adobe After Effects-like keyframing. It's actually closer to the toolset of the sorely missed (well, by me anyway) Adobe LiveMotion. In Photoshop CS3 Extended, you can perform keyframe-based changes for opacity, position, and lighting.

But most importantly, you can animate styles, which opens up a world of creative possibilities. Styles include photo filters, color schemes, saturation controls, curves, levels, gradients, and exposures. I've been using Photoshop CS3 Extended to add text and alter color schemes for existing promos that run on the podcasts I produce. I do the sponsor promos in After Effects. I animate the logo and images, mix in a moving background, add some swirly light dashes, then save it out as an HD 1080i QuickTime file. Once that is set, I can easily import it to Extended, add more titles and credits, and animate them. I can also alter the tonal color hues. Then, I quickly export the finished project as a video file.

These new animation features might ease your facility's workflow. You could have an assistant add elements to existing video within Photoshop, animate them, and export, all without ever having to journey into (or learn) After Effects. The program exports to a variety of formats, including image sequences, FLV, iPod, AppleTV, AVI, DV, and MPEG-4.

What's missing in the animation toolkit? Mainly motion blur and ease in/out, two staples in most animation packages. Motion blur would provide a smoother feel to moving objects and recreate closer to what people see in commercials and movies; ease in/out would allow more natural movement, allowing objects to speed up and slow down as they start or stop. These additions would greatly enhance the capabilities. However, what's there now is beefy. You can even preview your animations for your video device from within Photoshop. For desktop playback, if you enable video acceleration within Photoshop (in preferences), you'll find that playback is about as fast as in After Effects (discounting any render to RAM options).

Tying your workflow together is a newly redesigned Bridge. This software is the center for searching and tracking all your production elements. It searches much faster now and also looks better, with a nice darker background and easier-to-navigate interface.

For video producers, Photoshop CS3 Extended is clearly the star of the CS3 Design Premium package, but the other programs offer long lists of new features worth checking out. Again, if you don't need all the other web and design programs, you can easily stick with the Photoshop CS3 Extended upgrade. However, Adobe has said — and I will agree — that this is the company's most feature-packed suite update ever, so at least consider the whole package if you want the maximum creative experience.

Company: Adobe www.adobe.com

Product: Photoshop CS3 Extended

Assets: Import, manipulate textures, and basic rendering of 3D objects, new video layers, keyframing.

Caveats: Animation toolkit doesn't provide motion blur and ease in/out.

Demographic: All video producers wanting to maximize their creative experience.

PRICE: $999 (FULL); $349 (UPGRADE)

Flash CS3 Professional has also been tweaked to make its interface resemble that of the rest of the suite. (See upcoming issues for a full review of Flash CS3.) Video conversion is much improved and a lot smarter. If you want to create video content in Flash format for the Web, you can go in and apply the new wizard, which walks you through all the steps while offering player skins, de-interlacing, and the addition of cue points.

If you just want to do a straight conversion — say, MOV to FLV — check out the standalone Flash Video Encoder that ships with the CS3 package. It installs when you install Flash, but it's easy to miss. It's a separate, feature-packed program that does batch conversion; you can convert just about any type of video to every variation of Flash video for the desktop and the Web.

One of my favorite features of the new Flash CS3 Professional is direct import of Photoshop PSD files. This is an incredible time-saver. Adobe really spent a lot of time getting this element right; the program offers multiple ways to work with layers as you import.