Photoshop CS2 announcement

For all you Photoshop nerds out there (I'm one of them), Adobe goofed and released (then yanked) a press release for the release of Photoshop CS2 a week early.

I thought I'd post it here.

Adobe Pushes the Boundaries of Digital Photography and Imaging with Debut of Photoshop CS2
New Vanishing Point Feature, Dramatic Camera Raw Workflow Enhancements, Customizable Menus and Smart Objects Headline Milestone Photoshop Upgrade
SAN JOSE, Calif. — April 4, 2005 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Photoshop® CS2, a major upgrade to the professional industry standard for digital image editing and creation. Available as a stand-alone software application or as a key component of Adobe Creative Suite® 2, also announced today (see separate press release), Photoshop CS2 software brings a new level of power, precision and control to the digital photography experience and to the overall creative process.

"Photoshop CS2 pushes the envelope with powerful features and simplified workflows that provide photographers and creative professionals the freedom to deliver stunning images," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Digital Imaging and Digital Video Products at Adobe. "In light of the four million digital SLRs expected to ship this year, more photographers than ever will be making Photoshop CS2 their digital darkroom of choice."

Advanced Tools for Digital Photographers, Graphics and Video Professionals

Photoshop CS2 integrates a new set of intuitive tools, including an enhanced Spot Healing Brush, for handling common photographic problems such as blemishes, red-eye, noise, blurring and lens distortion. Smart Objects allow users to scale and transform images and vector illustrations without losing image quality — as well as create linked duplicates of embedded graphics — so that a single edit updates across multiple iterations.

Responding to requests from film, broadcast and video professionals, Photoshop CS2 now allows non-destructive editing and the creation and editing of 32-Bit High Dynamic Range (HDR) images, ideal for 3D rendering and advanced compositing. FireWire Previews can also be viewed on a television monitor through a new direct export feature.

Photoshop CS2 users will test the limits of creativity with new tools like Vanishing Point and Image Warping. Vanishing Point cuts tedious graphic and photo retouching tasks by allowing users to clone, paint and transform image objects while retaining visual perspective. Reinventing workflows such as product packaging development, Image Warping makes it easy to fold, stretch, pull, twist and wrap an image into shape by selecting an on-demand preset or dragging custom control points.

Adobe Bridge and New Camera Raw Features Speed Imaging Workflows

With Photoshop CS2 software, finding and working with digital photos and images has never been easier. The popular File Browser has been upgraded to Adobe Bridge, which functions as a hub for productivity, imagery and creativity, providing multi-view file browsing and smooth cross-product integration across Adobe Creative Suite 2 software. Adobe Bridge also provides access to Adobe Stock Photos, a new stock photography service that offers users one-stop shopping — across five elite stock image providers — to deliver high-quality, royalty-free images for layout and design (see separate press release).

The new Camera Raw 3.0 workflow allows settings for multiple raw files to be simultaneously modified. In addition batch processing of raw files, to JPEG, TIFF, DNG or PSD formats, can now be done in the background without launching the main Photoshop executable. Integrated, non-destructive cropping and straightening controls allow raw files to be easily prepared for final output.

Simplifying Photoshop's rich interface, task-based menu presets make it easier to find the features needed for specific work. Users can create their own custom presets, highlighting favorite items and now have the ability to define event-based scripts and time-saving operations that execute automatically when triggered by actions, such as saving or printing a file. Multiple Layer Controls speeds editing, enabling the simultaneous selection and manipulation of numerous layers within a file.

Pricing and Availability

Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Mac OS X version 10.2.8 through 10.3.8, Microsoft® Windows® 2000 with Service Pack 4 or Windows XP with Service Pack 1 or 2, will begin shipping in May to customers in the United States and Canada, and will be available through Adobe Authorized Resellers and the Adobe Store at http://www.adobe.com/store . International versions are expected to begin shipping in late May and early June. Adobe Photoshop CS2 will be available for an estimated street price of US$599 and licensed users of any previous version of Photoshop can upgrade for US$149. For more detailed information about new features, upgrade policies and pricing, please visit: http://www.adobe.com/photoshop . Adobe Photoshop CS2 is also available as part of Adobe Creative Suite 2.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe is the world's leading provider of software solutions to create, manage and deliver high-impact, reliable digital content. For more information, visit http://www.adobe.com .

© 2005 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe, the Adobe logo and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Apple and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Windows and Windows XP are either a registered trademark or a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Ooooooooooo! Thanks for posting this Hanford. I was getting ready to finally upgrade from 7.0 to CS... Think I'll be waiting for this version.

Photoshop is an awesome program! I use it everyday!!!!!! These new features sound impressive.

Interesting - I sat in on a focus group about this (adding editing software to CS) about a year ago. They seemed really interested in taking on Final Cut Pro, etc....

Now we'll be able to paste even more heads on moshing fat girl!

On 2005-03-28 10:38, Tiki-bot wrote:
Now we'll be able to paste even more heads on moshing fat girl!

face it, photoshop should have preset tools called "paste head on different body," "add ironic visual element," "put tiki mug into" etc.

BTW, this upgrade sounds particularly lame. Their lead-off feature in the press release is "enhanced Spot Healing Brush" Are you kidding me?

The Smart Objects thing sounds cool, non-destructive editing scaling of layers, and instancing of layers. Long overdue.

The vanishing point tool is very cool (I've seen a demo of it) ... it lets you add vanishing points and perspective guides to a photo, then clones and scales according to those 3d rules. But how often are you going to need that?

I sounds like a filter package upgrade. I was thrlled with Photoshop when they added layers. They haven't really found a new plateau since then, but heck, I'll play wit the new toys since work will be paying for it.

On 2005-03-28 16:37, Raffertiki wrote:
I sounds like a filter package upgrade. I was thrlled with Photoshop when they added layers. They haven't really found a new plateau since then, but heck, I'll play wit the new toys since work will be paying for it.

That & "history".

Yeah - I heard heard there were no layers and only one level of "undo" until Photoshop 3....

Jeeeezus.....

I still firmly believe PS to be the most hideously outdated interface of any major software package. Well, except for Word. Perhaps they will actually have customizeable menus and function groups (not the sorry "actions" pallette) and programmable HOT KEYS for every menu pallette and function now???

I doubt it.

On 2005-03-28 10:48, Johnny Dollar wrote:

On 2005-03-28 10:38, Tiki-bot wrote:
Now we'll be able to paste even more heads on moshing fat girl!

face it, photoshop should have preset tools called "paste head on different body," "add ironic visual element," "put tiki mug into"...

"Paste JD's head onto Jimmy Buffet concert photos".

... on stage doing the "fins" dance. :)

[ Edited by: MachTiki on 2005-03-29 06:47 ]

On 2005-03-29 00:17, Unga Bunga wrote:

On 2005-03-28 10:48, Johnny Dollar wrote:

On 2005-03-28 10:38, Tiki-bot wrote:
Now we'll be able to paste even more heads on moshing fat girl!

face it, photoshop should have preset tools called "paste head on different body," "add ironic visual element," "put tiki mug into"...

"Paste JD's head onto Jimmy Buffet concert photos".

you'll have to purchase the "Never Gonna Happen" plugin for that tool, unga :)

:lol:

On 2005-03-28 17:59, Tangaroa wrote:
Yeah - I heard heard there were no layers and only one level of "undo" until Photoshop 3....

Jeeeezus.....

With no layers you had to do everything with channels or "Chops".

On 2005-03-28 21:53, Tiki-bot wrote:
I still firmly believe PS to be the most hideously outdated interface of any major software package.

They did add LIMITED hotkeys in CS.

And, I do agree with you TikiBot, that for how widely-used Photoshop is, it's interface is dated.

HOWEVER, you come from the world of 3D, where their UIs are so fucking difficult to learn because every program decides they have the best way of creating little shortcut menus and whatnot. I don't want to have to CUSTOMIZE a UI before it becomes useful. It needs to be useful out of the box. A lot of software designers forget that.

The "task-based menu presets" in the press release for CS2 sounds like it could be useful ... but we'll see.

You used to be able to set the F5 - F15 keys to anything you wanted. The F1 - F4 were cut, copy, paste & something else.

3DS Max installs with default hotkeys for a few basic functions, probably 50 of them or so. There's a really simple hotkey assignment menu where you can assign any key or combination of keys to any of the thousand or so commands in the program. Plus, you can reassign those default keys if you like. You can then save that to a .txt file and can take or send it anywhere.

In my experience, probably 80% of users don't heavily customize their hotkeys, but it really sppeds things up once you settle into a certain way of working. This is where PS drives me nuts. I spend as much time clicking on and adjusting tools as I do actually doing the work. I honestly don't know how people can work effeciently by always having to travel clear across the screen every couple of seconds to click on some button, then all the way back to the work area to again find some detailed spot where they were working before (3D work is very painstaking like that). It sounds silly, but it's really not when you consider that you have to go back and forth to the tool area hundreds of times in a day of work.