I've been using PhotoShop since version 2. Returning to Mac this year, with wizzy fast intel hardware, I found myself in a bit of a spot. I'd just purchased CS2 for Windows and spending another $1,200 to get CS2 for PPC Mac didn't really appeal. So, for the past few months, I've been limping along with CS2 under Parallels. Needless to say, when Adobe released this PS beta for Intel Macs, I was downloading it at 3 in the morning.
So, what do I think after a couple of days use? Well, so far I can't find anything major that's worse than CS2 and there are a handful of super nice improvements. The first improvement I noticed was the new Quick Selection tool and Refine Selection features. Wow. This makes things so much faster. It literally cuts maybe 90% of the time for most of my photograp selection tasks. The second thing that blew me away was the new non-destructive Filters. You have to experience it to believe it, but this is definitely the killer new feature in PS CS3. You no longer have to "apply" a filter to an image. You can simply add it like a layer, or even stack multiple filter effects. It's just brilliant.
I'm sure I'll have more to report when I've had longer to play with it, but so far I'm sold. I'll definitely be making this purchase as soon as CS3 ships.
Posted by: corevette | December 17, 2006 1:11 AM
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That attitude is so horribly broken. Why wouldn't you pay for something that has had huge amounts of time and effort put into it, resulting in a good product that is essential to your work or enjoyable to use? If you don't feel it's worth the asking price then don't buy it, but realize that many professionals will gladly if it's a worthwhile upgrade.
Posted by: David Smith | December 17, 2006 3:17 AM
Those who can will, those who can't Bittorrent.
Posted by: Omega X | December 17, 2006 3:30 AM
I wish I could buy it. But I promised myself long ago that I'd never use a product that'd use product activation, so that makes getting it doubly impossible (it not being available for windows 2000 being the second impossibility, as downgrading to XP is thus also out of the question).
*hugs his Photoshop 7 and dreams of the days that there'll be an open source program that does even half of what Photoshop does (as long as that half is the exact half I need for my photography!)*
Posted by: Sander | December 17, 2006 5:58 AM
Grabbed the beta as soon as it was available too. Compared side-by-side with CS2, this thing is amazing. It started up in 16 seconds on my MacBook compared with CS2's 56 seconds (as good as Rosetta is, it can't hold a candle to the real thing)
Not had much of a chance to play with the filters yet, but this new approach sounds promising.
As for Corevette's comment, well, would you nick a car if you couldn't afford one?
As for 'who buys it', well, millions of people the world over. Try asking half the publishing world out there to use GIMP, they'd laugh at you out loud.
Nothing against GIMP, (I use it myself) but it has a different target audience- i.e. the general user- as opposed to publishing houses.
Posted by: Mr Lizard | December 17, 2006 8:40 AM
There are some nice videos here showing what's new:
http://www.photoshopuser.com/cs3/videos.html
Posted by: José Jeria | December 17, 2006 11:34 AM
Yeah, for me it started up in just under 3 seconds without opening a file. When opening a 2.7mb file, it took about 17 seconds, which I hope speeds up in the official release. I haven't tried anything larger than that yet.
But this is certainly vastly better than having to go through Parallels to run Photoshop. New features look fantastic too!
Posted by: Daniel | December 17, 2006 11:38 AM
Oops, and that was on a MacBookPro (original release). Regarding posting above.
Posted by: Daniel | December 17, 2006 11:40 AM
'but pay 1200 for software?'
eck.. i wouldn't pay that much for a car.. lol
Posted by: a | December 18, 2006 4:04 PM
Who seriously buys photoshop anymore? I mean, if you want it, download it via bittorrent. If you enjoy open source use GIMP. but pay 1200 for software?
Posted by: corevette on December 17, 2006 1:11 AM
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1) There's a thing called tax and tax deduction for work expenses. Plenty of people buy Photoshop in the real-world. And the savings of time and money make it good value for many.
2) Sure you can download it. And also use pirated software in a production environment, too. And pay fines if caught out by employees, too. All to save a relatively minor amount of money.
3) GIMP in no way even comes close to the power of Photoshop. So, while someone can 'enjoy' it, using it exclusively for many jobs will leave you huffing and puffing, and quite frankly, wasting lots of time; not working very efficiently for many tasks...and not working at all for many others. Also good luck putting Gimp on your resume...
Posted by: Bruce | December 25, 2006 6:48 PM
Incredible or not, some things are actually easier (*much* easier in fact) to do in the Gimp than in Photoshop, and for these tasks, Photoshop, not the Gimp, is the software that makes you feel you are wasting your time. I would say that for the things that both can do, the *only* real Gimp killer is "adjustment layers" (which I use *a lot*).
But the real Gimp killers are things that Gimp cannot possibly do, mostly due to patents, for example: CMYK support, Pantone support, and the like. So if you do print graphics (instead of web graphics), there is absolutely no chance you can use the Gimp to create anything that even come close to being usableï¿œunless what you do is in black-and-white.
And if you have to communicate with people who use Photoshop or Illustrator, you have basically no choice but to use Photoshop yourself, even if the work you do is only in black-and-white.
Posted by: Ambrose | January 9, 2007 8:45 PM
I haven't been up to much today. I've just been letting everything happen without me. Basically nothing seems worth bothering with. I've just been hanging out doing nothing. I just don't have anything to say right now. More or less nothing happening.
Posted by: Sten43624 | March 22, 2007 12:09 PM
Who seriously buys photoshop anymore? I mean, if you want it, download it via bittorrent. If you enjoy open source use GIMP. but pay 1200 for software?