Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta now available for download

AppleInsider · December 15, 2006 5:25PM

Per expectations, Adobe Systems on friday formally introduced a beta version of Adobe Photoshop CS3 software, the next release of its industry standard digital imaging software.

The San Jose, Calif.-based software developer said it's making the Photoshop CS3 beta widely available in order to enable customers to more easily transition to the latest hardware platforms, particularly Apple?s new Intel-based systems.

The beta is available as a Universal Binary for the Macintosh platform, as well as for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista computers. Meanwhile, the final shipping version remains on track for the Spring 2007, the company said.

"This is an exciting time for the Mac, and Adobe wanted to ease the move to new Intel-based systems with a preview release of Photoshop CS3," said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. "We didn't want to leave Windows customers out of the party, so the beta is available to everyone in the creative industry's most passionate user community -- no matter what their platform choice."

Some notable features of the new release include a new user interface, camera RAW enhancements, a Quick Select tool, and a much improved print dialog and print preview function. The folks over at Adobe have also built in Auto Blend and Auto Align tools, improved black-and-white conversion control, and refined the software's cloning and healing tools.

In addition to the outfit of new features, Photoshop CS3 beta also includes a pre-release version of a major upgrade to Adobe Bridge, as well as a preview release of the all-new Adobe Device Central. The new Device Central will allow Photoshop users to design, preview, and test mobile content, created specifically for smaller screens. The fully integrated tool aims to simplify and accelerate the creation of mobile content through a preview environment and built-in device profiles.

To utilize Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta, customers are require to have a serial number from either Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Creative Suite 2, Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio, Adobe Design Bundle, Adobe Web Bundle or Adobe Video Bundle.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta is available in English only. Customers who have a valid serial number for all other language versions of qualifying Adobe products can still download the software. Even without a serial number, Adobe will still allow users to download a version of Photoshop CS3 beta that will expire after two days. However, customers must register online (free) with Adobe or have an existing Adobe.com membership account to access the software.

"We still have some surprises in store, but this beta gives customers an early chance to see the power of another great Photoshop release, optimized and tuned to run natively on the latest hardware and operating systems," Loiacono said.

Recommended system requirements for Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta are Mac OSX 10.4.8 or 10.5 and a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 or G5 processor, or an Intel based Macintosh. For Windows: Intel Xeon, Xeon Dual, Centrino or Pentium 4 processor, Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or higher, Microsoft Windows Vista. Both platforms require 512 MB RAM and a 1024x769 resolution screen.

The Photoshop CS3 beta will expire soon after the launch of Photoshop CS3 in Spring 2007, Adobe said.

Details on final pricing, system requirements and availability have yet to be determined.

guartho · December 15, 2006 5:32PM

I've got it. It is fast. I haven't got the opportunity to play with it too much though. Had to get ready for a shoot tomorrow.

dglow · December 15, 2006 5:49PM

Such a shame that CS3 will leave XGA users behind - and for only one row of pixels!

kim kap sol · December 15, 2006 6:41PM

I think my New Year's resolution will be...

...1920x1200.

spamsandwich · December 15, 2006 7:09PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kim kap sol

I think my New Year's resolution will be...

...1920x1200.

HD humor...

dmz · December 15, 2006 7:25PM

Got it. Installed it.

'Second start' of the program is ~2 seconds on the 2.66 [3Gb Ram] Mac Pro.

admactanium · December 15, 2006 7:28PM

i'm using it on a quad g5 so i'm not seeing huge speed improvements. but the new features are quite nice.

spamsandwich · December 15, 2006 7:38PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by admactanium

i'm using it on a quad g5 so i'm not seeing huge speed improvements. but the new features are quite nice.

Care to elaborate?

admactanium · December 15, 2006 7:50PM

you can convert any layer into a smart object and apply non-destructive filters to it. this is huge. since the advent of adjustment layers everyone's been wondering why we have non-destructive adjustments but not filters. so that's a big one.

there are a bunch of other neat little features like being able to clone from multiple sources.

plus some of the new layer effects are very nice. things like channel mixing to a grayscale image (non-destructively).

the added functionality of photomerge and creating seams is nice for panorama shooters. it's still not as good as a dedicated stitcher, but it's quite nice.

the refine edge adjustment is very nice for adjusting layer masks and the like.

also, adobe has integrated a nice raw file importer that takes some cues from lightroom. nice addition to the workflow.

there's nothing absolutely groundbreaking in this beta, but a lot of the features are very nice and so far looking well implemented.

spamsandwich · December 15, 2006 7:53PM

As soon as someone has the time, please post a vid to YouTube of it in action, or a couple of frames from a quickie project. Sounds like it might be worth upgrading to.

admactanium · December 15, 2006 8:01PM

there are a couple videos here talking about some new features:

http://photoshopnews.com/2006/12/15/...deo-tutorials/

his voice is annoying but you see some interesting stuff.

http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=327

i haven't watched these yet but it has some more action.

admactanium · December 15, 2006 8:04PM

also, you can download it yourself without a cs2 serial and play with it on a 2-day trial basis.

spamsandwich · December 15, 2006 9:11PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by admactanium

there are a couple videos here talking about some new features:

http://photoshopnews.com/2006/12/15/...deo-tutorials/

his voice is annoying but you see some interesting stuff.

http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=327

i haven't watched these yet but it has some more action.

Thanks for the links. And yes, Russell Brown has an extremely annoying voice. Instant migraine.

admactanium · December 15, 2006 9:29PM

the lynda.com ones are very nice. good run through on some new features. i'm not a big "magic wand" type of guy, but the new quick selection tool is pretty nice. i could see using that for quickie jobs where i'm not looking for the perfeclty detailed mask.

hypoluxa · December 16, 2006 1:46PM

Its pretty nice, the palettes are a little funky, AFA locations go, but they seem to be quite customizable once you get use to it. they are all docked really small and you click on a tab to see the particular palette, kinda space saving it seems. Speed wise seems pretty snappy on my dual core G5.The Bridge app works MUCH better now, way more responsive when launching! Also, the available ram in the prefs has been expanded! Now PS can access more the 2gb of ram! and it is using possibly core image because in the prefs it detects what type of grafx card you have. It is fairly snappy when applying filters as well. However there is still a varity of program error mesages popping up, but alas it is a beta...

spamsandwich · December 16, 2006 3:16PM

I like those spring-loaded/collapsible palettes. That should give me quite a bit more screen space.

chucker · December 16, 2006 3:19PM

Still terribly broken VM management.

the beatles · December 16, 2006 4:31PM

anyone sorta feeling PS3 leaves a bit to be desired? smart filters is cool, and i have waited for a vanishing point tool along with the universal support. actually if it wasnt for the universal hype i think this update would be less significant. again though, the smart filters are cool however you'll notice that you cant apply multiple filters and mask them individually. all filters applied to a smart object share the same mask. sorta limiting.

michaelb · December 16, 2006 7:14PM

Rejected my valid Photoshop CS2 serial.

Disappointing for a customer whose upgrade payments stretch all the way back to v2.5 (~1993).

admactanium · December 16, 2006 8:14PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by the Beatles

anyone sorta feeling PS3 leaves a bit to be desired? smart filters is cool, and i have waited for a vanishing point tool along with the universal support. actually if it wasnt for the universal hype i think this update would be less significant. again though, the smart filters are cool however you'll notice that you cant apply multiple filters and mask them individually. all filters applied to a smart object share the same mask. sorta limiting.

yes, this is one thing i'm not really loving about smart filters. they should be maskable individually.

Quote:

Originally Posted by michaelb

Rejected my valid Photoshop CS2 serial.

Disappointing for a customer whose upgrade payments stretch all the way back to v2.5 (~1993).

did you try to use your cs2 serial in the beta itself or did you go to the website to request a cs3 beta serial?

hypoluxa · December 16, 2006 11:50PM

Honestly.. I think the major feature in this release besides it being universal is the fact that it taps into the grafx card power to help process images (along with expanding the ram usage), which makes sense these days given the cards that are being developed. This feature should have been developed a few yrs ago by Adobe of all people, leave it to Apple to take the first step. The non destructive filters are nice as well. My 2 cents.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta now available for download

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