We won’t to talk about the bad and the ugly you know who you are. Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended which is the version of CS3 that we will be talking about here adds some nice changes and at least one improvement that is going to be time consuming for some.

One of the nice changes include new Smart Filters. Smart Filters make use of the Smart Object technology that Adobe introduced in Adobe Photoshop CS2 to make the filters included with Adobe Photoshop CS3 non-destructive. In previous versions of Photoshop when you applied a filter like Gaussian Blur to your image that filter actually altered in a destructive way your image. If you saved and closed the image and then reloaded it to reduce the blurring you couldn't. Smart Filters use the Smart Object technology to create a sort of hybrid image that when you apply a filter to it remains editable for as long as you want. Even when you save, close and reopen the image. Even better you can apply several filters this way and you have the ability to choose the order they are applied to the image by dragging and dropping the filters in the layers palette. Unfortunately you can’t apply layer masks to the Smart Filters though you can apply a single layer mask to the smart object layer which would affect all Smart Filters attached to that layer. It would have been nice if each Smart Filter on a layer could have had its own layer mask.

You can also alter the blending mode and opacity for each Smart Filter but you have to access these controls by right clicking on the Smart Filter and choosing “Edit Smart Filter Blending Options” You can’t just select the Smart Filter layer in the layers palette and make the opacity and blending mode adjustments there. I would like to see in the next version of Photoshop the option to have a layer mask for each Smart Filter layer as well as being able to adjust the opacity and layer blending mode right from the controls on the layers palette instead of having to go in to a dialog box. One final thing you can turn on and off Smart Filters by clicking the little eye icon next to each one.

While I would not have done the non-destructive filters this way, I would rather not have to convert my image/layer in to some special format in Photoshop, However, I have to admit that this is a very cool capability and one that makes all of the filters in Photoshop a lot more compelling to use. Plus as third party plug-ins are updated you should be able to use them as Smart Filters too. Way cool if you ask me.

Now under the heading of time consuming changes I list the changes to the Photoshop interface. Yes, you can still have your palettes and you can arrange them in any grouping you want, you can still place them on a second or third monitor if your system has them. However, you can also shrink them down to a horizontal bar that includes an icon and the name of the palette Screen Shot or you can shrink them down to just the icon Screen Shot. Now I found these changes to be fairly easy to get used to but for some people it may take a little longer.

When you make what is actually a large change to a programs interface that people have known, used and loved for years it is going to slow people down. However, this is not the same drastic interface change that Microsoft made with Office 2007. This is much less drastic and in the end just makes it easier to customize your Photoshop workspace. On the down side the way you click, drag and drop to rearrange the grouping of these palettes is a little tricky at first. So is the clicking, dragging and dropping of the icons to group them the way you want. Just remember the palettes you click and drag the tabs with the name of the palette, for the icon bars (icons with text, the rest of the palette collapsed) you click in the narrow bar along the top and you do the same when clicking and dragging the icons.

Another change that Adobe made was changing the button for the palettes fly out menus. I don't know why they did this. Personally I like the old round button with arrow in it better than the down pointing arrow with list next to it. I find this new button much harder to hit and I don't see why they couldn't have left that alone.

One really nice little feature that I like is the new document modes specifically the "Maximized Screen Mode" Screen Shot. This option creates a void area on the right hand side for the palettes, collapsed palettes and iconed palettes that prevents these palettes from overlapping the image you are working on (though when you expand the icon and text or icon palettes they will come up over your image.) I love this mode, except for one thing. If you are working on several images there is no easy way to switch between one image and another. You either have to go to the Window menu or press control+tab which will cycle you through the open documents. What I would like to see Adobe do is add tabs at the top of the screen in this mode (this mode only) so that you are one mouse click away from the document you want and it would allow you to choose your document by name too.

Very seldom does Adobe go back and improve a feature that was added in a previous version, even when that feature is so weak it is near useless. However, two existing features have been improved in Photoshop CS3. The Vanishing Point option has been improved and the Photomerge (panorama stitching function) has been greatly improved as well. Since have not yet had a need for the Vanishing Point feature I am going to talk about the Photomerge feature as I shoot hundreds of panoramas each year.

If you have ever used the Photomerge feature to create a panoramic image in previous versions of Adobe Photoshop you were in for a real treat, it was in my opinion one of the worst stitching features I have ever used. Only if your source images were 100% correct could it create a panorama that wasn't more joke than panoramic image. However, Photoshop CS3's Photomerge feature is simply incredible. I have thrown images at it that even expensive standalone stitching programs had problems with and the new and improved Photomerge handled them perfectly. I have also used images that were shot both horizontal and vertical and it still stitched them together and made a beautiful panorama. It can also do tiled panoramas, meaning you can photograph say a building by shooting 4 or 5 rows of three images and it will stitch them together. I am very impressed with the new Photomerge especially considering it 99.9% fully automatic. There is one other change to Photomerge in CS3 and that is once it is done and your images are stitched together you will see that you still have your separate images one per layer in the layers palette along with the layer mask that blends them together. This is a wonderful thing as it allows you to go in an manually tweak the image before you crop and flatten it.

Now one of the neat things that came out of this new Photomerge feature… well maybe the new Photomerge came out of these two new features. It is the chicken and egg thing, go with what makes you feel good. Any ways two of the cool new things that came with this new Photomerge are two new layer commands. These two commands basically break the Photomerge function in to two pieces. One aligns the images twisting and moving them so that they align perfectly. The second step blends the images together. These two new features are called "Auto-Align Layers" and "Auto-Blend Layers". What makes these two features so fun is you can as an example take two pictures one of a man standing in front of a car and one of a woman standing in front of the same car. You can then use the "Auto-Align Layers" feature to fix it so that they are perfectly aligned, the feature will align the car so that when you flip from one image to another the car doesn't move, just the person standing in front of it changes. You can then remove the redundant parts and use the "Auto-Blend Layers" to combine them in to one picture that has both the man and the woman standing in front of the car. This is a basic example and one that I may not have described real well. But, trust me this is cool and it can be used for many other uses.

Photoshop CS3 Extended besides allowing you to work with 3D objects including the ability to rotate them and adjust lighting also lets you paint on the texture map so for example if you have a gray elephant you can edit the texture map so that you have a pink elephant with purple polka dots.

Photoshop CS3 Extended also lets you work with video including being able to paint over time. While this new functionality is most welcome the video support in my opinion is very weak. For example you can create some keyframe effects but they are limited to position, opacity and color. You can not for example start with a blue square on the top right and move it, morph and change it to a green circle on the bottom left of the screen. If you want to do this or other complex animations you will have to do this frame by frame manually. Considering that video for TV is 30 frames per second we are talking about a lot of work. This is still best left to a good video editor.

As I said Photoshop is not a dedicated video editor however, since Adobe opened the video door I hope the video handling features are expanding in coming versions. Otherwise the video support at least in my opinion is not all that terrific. Even the painting over time requires frame by frame modification. They need to add support for other types of keyframing including morphing/tweening.

The 3D support is much more useful as it allows you to add 3D objects to your photos for advertising, web sites, etc. The tools are pretty good and fairly easy to use. However, if you need more 3D capabilities there are several packages available that work as plug-ins for Photoshop CS3 Extended like the three available from Strata that actually gives you complete modeling and rendering capabilities inside of Photoshop including giving you a finished layered document with everything from the basic models, to texture maps, bump maps, color maps, etc. on separate layers for further editing with the Photoshop tools. Pretty nice if you ask me, I just wish there was a plug-in solution for the video in Photoshop. But, then who knows maybe there will be.

Adobe Camera Raw while not really a feature in Photoshop it is used within Photoshop to open and process digital camera raw files and it is used in Adobe Bridge CS3 for the same purpose. However, besides some great new features ACR 4.0 (now 4.2) can now process JPG images and TIFF images and while not all of the ACR functions are available for these non-Raw files nearly all of them are. In fact the only thing that is really more limited when working with JPG and TIFF images is your white balance preset options. You have As Shot, Auto and Manual. The other options you normally get like Cloudy, Daylight, etc. aren't available. Adobe says that is because JPG and TIFF images don't have white balance information. Well that maybe true but there is no reason they can't fake it. I would really like to see all of the same options available no matter the format even if some of them have to be "simulated." Even if don't like the simulated options you always have the As Shot, Auto and Manual options so I don't see a problem.

Other changes made to ACR is a new and improved and goof proof curves option. It is now almost impossible to badly mess up an image; I think this change is great though some people don't like it. There are several new adjustment sliders like Vibrance and Clarify, there is new sharpening which is just fantastic you now have four sliders to control the sharpening including an edge masking slider. Noise Reduction has also been improved but it still very weak in my opinion. To make sure you get all of these features make sure and update ACR to the latest which is 4.2 as of 9-25-07.

Also, it is important to note that ACR 4.x only works with Photoshop CS3 or Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended and Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 or 6.0. If you have an older version of Photoshop like CS2 you have to upgrade Photoshop to get the new ACR and support for new cameras. While the new features in ACR should not be made available to users of older versions of Photoshop (older versions don't have the code base to support these new features) Adobe really needs to make updates to the 3.x version of ACR so that it can handle new cameras. I really dislike the fact that if you buy a new camera you have to buy a new Photoshop to get support for it even if you have no use for any of the new ACR features.

While I don't think Adobe needs to update versions of ACR older the 3.x I really feel they need to update 3.x with new camera support for the Photoshop CS2 users. Even if they charged $9.95 for these updates it is still something I think a lot of people would be more than happy to pay for. When Photoshop CS4 comes out updates to 3.x end and Adobe starts offering new camera updates for ACR 4.x when they update ACR 5, this support for the previous version of ACR and Photoshop is a very fair and proper way to treat their customers. Though honestly I doubt this will ever happen.

While I am not a big fan of HDR images as I think they look like paintings at best and fake and ugly at worst. I was still very interested in the improvements made to the Merge to HDR function in Adobe Photoshop CS3 they have updated the image-processing and alignment algorithms and now you can use brushes, filters, blending modes, transformations, selections and more on the 32-bit images. However, I was very disappointed that the new alignment algorithms do not use the alignment technology they used in the new Photomerge feature. To make sure they didn't I aligned the same series of images I shot for my test HDR using the "Auto-Align Layers" function to align them and then had the new Merge to HDR feature do it. The Auto-Align Layers did a perfect job, the Merge to HDR feature did not. Had Adobe used the "Auto-Align Layers" technology in the Merge to HDR feature it would then have been possible to shoot an HDR hand held (if you're very still), but they didn't and I find that a big disappointment.

Well, there you have it. My take on some of the most promising new features in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, these are not the only new features just the ones that made the upgraded to CS3 Extended a must for me. While I don't always agree with what Adobe does to Photoshop this is a great upgrade in my opinion.

Still I would like to see Adobe take an update and go back and flesh out and refine features that they added in the past. A better Extract feature, password protection of action source code, being able to save the history with the image, doing something about the god-awful filter gallery, for it I would like to see it smaller and I would like see them add layer blending mode support and opacity support. I would like to see them work on some of the filters to make them more powerful and flexible. Like more options for lens flare and the ability to add it to a blank layer. Better lighting and texturizer filters. Natural media brushes that actually look like natural media, basic logic processing (if/then) capabilities in actions along with being able to prompt the user for text. I am not asking for a full scripting language just some basics for actions.

There are many things that Adobe needs to go back in and fix up, expand, refine and improve. I and I know many others would love to see this happen. But, like making new camera support available for ACR 3.x users this too will never happen. Adobe feels that it is new features that sell the upgrades and that is partly true, but fixing what's there so it isn't so weak is also a good selling point.

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