PS CS2 question

I upgraded primarly to get the ACR support for the D2X. Having just shot a studio portrait session with a couple of teenage girls, I was amazed at the power of the new spot healing brush. If you do a lot of retouching, this alone is worth the price of admission. The new ACR is very good and I like the new Bridge application. Smart Sharpen is also pretty neat and superior to USM for a lot of stuff (IMO).

 

Many more otpions are now available with 16 bit mode than in the previous version.

 

Adobe Bridge is awesome...also, there is support for 32-bit images/editing.

C

 

Nearly all the 'Filters' are available for 16 bit editing, AND there are a lot more of them.

But the number one thing that got me to upgrade to CS2 was the curve control inside ACR. It's a true linear gamma curve. I can now do everything but sharpen, crop, transform and resize in ACR. All that other stuff I can do with actions inside Photoshop. CS2 has (at least) halved my edit time per photo when I'm doing a large number of pictures.

Bridge is cool too. You can ue the Bridge application as an independant cataloger and browser. Even with NC if'n you want.

Oh, and now that Photoshop has absorbed Image Ready's animation capabilities, I have never needed to use Image Ready CS2.

 

As others have mentioned I think the biggest improvements are to ACR and the Bridge. If you use ACR for RAW processing CS2 is a big improvement. The Bridge is faster and much more capable than the CS file browser. Things like filmstrip mode and the slideshow have pretty much eliminated the need to use another application for initial image review and culling for me. 16-bit filter support has been expanded, also the merge to HDR feature should be useful for high dynamic-range landscape images though I haven't used this too much yet but plan to in the future.

IMHO the new tools in Photoshop are nothing to get excited about. The spot healing brush isn't revolutionary, it just decides where to sample from on it's own saving you from having to alt-click. But sometimes it will decide poorly so I often have to revert to using the regular healing brush. Likewise I've found the new red-eye tool to be just about worthless, I get much better results with the color replacement tool. I can't see myself ever using vanishing point tool or smart objects, since I don't do montages or illustration type stuff. The one tool I do find myself using a lot is the Lens Correction tool, albeit not for the primary intended purpose. I use the vignette control to add a vigetting to portraits; it's very easy and works quite well.

As for stability and performance, CS2 seems to be an improvement. The Bridge has yet to "lose" the image preview data for folders the way the CS File Browser always did, probably because you can configure it to use external file caches by default. Photoshop itself seems a bit snappier, it doesn't get bogged down editing 16-bit images the way CS often did. My only complaint is that when you have both PS and the Bridge open there are sometimes some "synchronization" issues. I'll occasionally get an error when saving a file saying the file is already open, and have to try saving it again. It seems like PS creates a temp file for the save, but then the Bridge sneaks in and tries to add it to the cache before PS has a chance to rename it. Also sometimes when you save a file it won't show up in the Bridge until you change to a different folder and then back to the original. That's really the only stability problem I've had though, overall it's definitely better than CS.

 

Do many of you use PS CS for RAW editing? Based on Dave's (Manzico) recommendation & reasoning I've been using Capture for RAW editing, then saving as Tiff, opening in PS and immediately saving as PSD. Then continue editing (USM, etc...).

HDR sounds interesting, as does the Lens Correction Tool. But other than that and stability and performance improvements, I'm still not sure it's worth the upgrade yet either.

I'm definitely still a beginner with Capture and PS CS. I've just recently starting post processing in the last couple of months, but will probably only really get a chance to dig into it in July. On that note, what are some good tutorials / references for beginners of not just how to use the tools, but some of the concepts behind them?

Thanks for posting this one Manzico.

 

For me, that just adds a lot of extra work, and storage requirement for the TIFF files.

I would guess that the membership is pretty well split between using Nikon Capture and ACR for raw conversion. The styles are completely different, so when you try them both, you will know which one suits you better. One is a little better at one thing, while the other excells at another.

So, just like shooting Canon, there is no shame in using Nikon Capture instead of ACR. <Running, Ducking and Laughing Hysterically!>

 

I forgot to add that I delete the TIFF after I save it as a PSD. You're right that it adds a little extra work, but when you're in the habit it doesn't take long at all to do on a small scale.

 

If you have any interest in ACR and building a workflow around the Bridge, check out Bruce Fraser's book "Real World Camera RAW with Adobe Photoshop CS".

For a beginner's book on Photoshop, check out Scott Kelby's "The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers". Nice thing about this one is it's task-oriented, rather than teaching you about every feature of Photoshop it teaches you how to accomplish tasks that digital photographers often want to accomplish.

For something a bit more advanced there are a number of books on photoshop, from Deke McClelland's "Adobe Photoshop CS One on One" to "Real World Photoshop CS" by Blatner and Fraser. Scott Kelby also has a book coming out on Layers that might be interesting.

You should note that pretty much all of these book are version-specific; the CS versions have been out for a while and the CS2 versions are just coming out now or in the near future.

 

Thanks Jeff. I purchased Adobe Photoshop CS for Photographers by Martin Evening last year but haven't really taken the time to get into it. I hear it's not for the PS beginner, so I shouldn't have purchased it. But, it may come into use someday. I just ordered The Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. You're not the first person to recommend it, so I'm fairly confident I'll like it.


So, Manzi, do you have enough reason to upgrade or not?

 

Martin's book is far more advanced than Scott's. Scott was the number one selling computer book author in 2004. He is the President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP - which you should join), and Editor-in-Chief of Photoshop User Magazine (part of NAPP membership) and Layers Magazine (formerly Mac Design Magazine). I recommend any books by either of them.

Two other great books are Professional Photoshop by Dan Margulis, and Photoshop Color Correction by Michael Kieran.

C

 

Manzi, sorry to have hijacked your topic here, but what do you care, you're away for four days. Have fun in Indy. All I have to say is, next year.

Cory, thanks for the info. I'll stick with PS CS for now and study the books. Why should I join NAPP? I've been trying their website all morning, they must be doing maintenance or something.