Software
Review
PhotoShop 7
by
Kathleen McGuinness
When
PhotoShop 7was released I didn’t bother to switch from Photoshop
6 because I figured it a minor upgrade. Boy, was I wrong. There are tons
of "can’t live without” new features in PS 7 and here are
some of my favorites.
First, if you are a digital camera user like I am you’re gonna love
the new file browser. I’m on a Mac G-4, system 9.2 and OSX on my
G-3 laptop. And yes I know there is a picture program to organize digital
photos. And my Canon G-2 powershot came with a browser program, too. But
with Photoshop 7 I can see file previews from my media card without opening
them, rotate my files. I always need to rotate a file, and organize my
photos as well. So cool.
Next, there is the healing brush. This allows you to change the color
of your image by using another area in your image. If it sound familiar
it is sort of like the clone tool, but the healing brush allows you to
maintain the texture of your underlying image. Though the technology to
make this happen is complex using it is easy, and it’s superb for
retouching photos.
And then there is a pattern maker tool. This is sort of an adjunct to
the healing brush. It helps with retouching and lets you make seamless
background patterns, too.
The liquefy tool has moved to filters and added pixel shifting and more
new ways to distort your image. To my mind this takes the liquefy tool
out of the realm of a toy and makes it a serious addition to my work force.
The brush tool has picked up new abilities, too. You can add lighting
effects to your brush. The palette is bigger with more options, which
helps when selecting or building brush. Plus you get lots of new brush
tips.
While brushes aren’t really my thing, I do use styles constantly
and PS 6 had a pretty limited selection of pre-mades. So I was pleasantly
surprised when I found more styles, including styles for specific needs,
like text effects.
I also do a lot of web galleries, but found that the templates that came
with PS 6 were pretty meager and frankly didn’t work all that well
in giving me decent thumbnail or images sizes. But PS 7 changes that–more
control my way. I like that. And though I’m not a big picture package
person, PS 7 has added more templates there, too.
Unfortunately Adobe has taken away one of my must-have tools and hidden
it inside the brushes palette where I have to dig to get to it. Sad but
true, the airbrush is missing from the tools palette. Adobe, how could
you be so cruel? And sure Adobe, you may have included customizable tool
“presets,” ways to set up tools the way a user wants them. But
hitting “A” on my keyboard no longer brings up the airbrush.
I’d don’t like that one bit.
Still Photoshop 7 is a fabulous upgrade and I can’t believe I lived
without it for this long.