Review: Adobe Photoshop CS3 image editing suite

Get the credit card ready for the latest version of Photoshop

The first thing to mention about the new version of Photoshop is that there are actually two of them - Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended.

The 'standard' version of Photoshop is aimed, as always, at creative users, such as photographers and designers, while the new Extended version includes additional features aimed at specialist markets such as medical imaging and engineering work.

However, the core improvements and new features are the same in both versions.

These kick off with some welcome interface changes, such as the row of tabbed icons on the far right of the screen that allow you to quickly open any of the program's many tool palettes.

Hitting the Tab key will instantly hide all the on-screen tools - as it did in previous versions - but if you move the mouse to either side of the workspace you'll now see the hidden tools pop back into sight. You can then select whichever tool you need and the palettes will automatically hide themselves away again.

This is a nice way of keeping the workspace tidy, allowing you to work with full-screen images while still being able to quickly select any tool that you need.

Another really nice interface addition is the Loupe tool in the Bridge - the browser that lets you sort through and locate your image files. A loupe is a magnifying glass used by jewellers, and if you click on any preview image in the Bridge the Loupe tool will instantly display a magnified version of the image immediately beneath the mouse cursor.

This will be a real time-saver for many people, as it lets you examine images closely even before you've opened them into Photoshop itself.

Once you're ready to start work, you'll find that some of Photoshop's key editing tools have been overhauled quite drastically. The Magic Wand selection tool - which Adobe admits is often called the 'tragic wand' due to its lack of flexibility - is now joined by the new Quick Selection tool.

Select this tool, click on any part of an image that you want to select, and then move the mouse over the area (or multiple areas) to be selected, and the Quick Selection tool will automatically detect the edges of that area and select them for you.

It works extremely well, and will certainly save time when selecting objects that contain fine detail.

Photoshop's filters work differently as well. You can now use 'smart filters', which apply their effects to a separate layer, leaving the underlying image untouched. To edit the filter settings you just double-click on the filter in the Layers palette and the filter's settings dialog will appear once more.

You can apply multiple smart filters, with each one stored in its own separate layer, which makes it very easy to experiment with different combinations of filters without ever losing your original image.

You can also use layers to combine images together. Handheld photography will often produce several slightly different versions of the same image, so this feature allows you to place each version of the image on a separate layer. Photoshop will then use its new Auto-Align Layers feature to align them correctly and merge them into a single image.

There are plenty of other new features - including improved colour correction and printing controls, perspective and cloning tools, and the ability to retouch Raw files.

And that's even before you throw in the extra tools in the Extended version as well. In short, this is a 'must-have' upgrade for anyone that uses Photoshop regularly.

Pricing is similar to the previous version of Photoshop. The full Photoshop CS3 will set you back £569, or £163 for an upgrade.

Reviews of Flash and Dreamweaver CS3 are coming soon...