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05/09/2005 02:09:34 PM · #26 |
I'm waiting ever so impatiently for my company to purchase the CS2 Suite... I'm a graphic designer and I am now watching the world go by without me. I got spoiled by the 30 day trial...
Can't wait to play with photo's in Photoshop CS 2....
Ho hum...back to waiting, ever so impatiently. |
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05/09/2005 03:47:19 PM · #27 |
Originally posted by snackwells:
Granted, my friend has a PIII 1 gig with 512MB RAM. |
Adobe has long stated grossly optimistic system requirements for Photoshop. |
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05/09/2005 04:26:18 PM · #28 |
Hmmm, I've had time to play with it properly now. Apart from the smart sharpen and noise reduction it seems like a big step in the wrong direction.
Taking the file viewer out of the main window ... bad! I keep losing it! Is there any way to re-integrate it?
Popup progress bars for everything ... really, really, really, stupidly bad. If you're used to pressing several keyboard shortcuts to get things done forget it - as soon as one of these poups appears it just beeps at you and forgets what you pressed. Now those "press a few keys and come back in 5 minutes" jobs are actually "sit at the computer waiting for progress bars to disappear for 10 minutes" jobs :-/
And accepting a memory leak because the last version had one is like accepting a new car with a fuel leak because your old one had one ; ) |
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05/09/2005 05:01:17 PM · #29 |
| Well thanks bod for the interesting commentary on the new CS2. I totally agree with ya. CS2 is more bloatware than performance. I like the new RAW conversion and white balance adjustment but aside from that, there's not a whole lot going for it. Users of 3rd party sharpening tools (FM) or noise reduction (NI, NoiseNinja, Kodak GEM, etc) will not find these two new additions very useful. |
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05/09/2005 06:16:05 PM · #30 |
Since I ordered Photoshop CS just barely after the cutoff date for a free upgrade to CS2, my copy arrived last Friday. I ended up playing last weekend rather than writing up the Minimalism post-mortem I've been promising myself to write.
Before Photoshop CS (8.0), I used mostly the Gimp. Note for TechnoShroom: Photoshop CS is Photoshop v8.0, and Photoshop CS2 is Photoshop v9.0 -- these numbers are visible on the spash screen
Notable improvements from CS:
RAW import drastically improved. Autodetection of correct values is very good, and gets me almost instantly to the baseline starting point that I normally required a minute or so of bumping sliders around to get, before I started fine-tuning. The autodetected values are used for the RAW files in the browser, as well, making it a lot easier to distinguish between underexposed or overexposed shots.
IPTC handling actually complies with the current IPTC specification now, which is nice. There's better editing control in the browser, as well.
The file browser is now effectively a separate application, which I see that bod doesn't like, but I much prefer (I prefer alt-tabbing to it or minimizing the entire PS window than trying to find the correct minimized title bar inside of PS itself). It's much less memory-hungry than the original built-in browser was when dealing with RAW files (I couldn't have the CS browser open while editing, as the system would grind to a halt, but the CS2 one is so lightweight I can forget that it's still open).
The file browser now has its own internal scoring system, making it very easy for you to go through several alternates of an image, do simple adjustments to see how it is working out, then keep only the top two that you liked.
Full support for DNG. I'm of mixed opinions on actually using this, since support isn't very widespread yet. As I understand it, the specification is fully open and royalty-free, however, so I expect it to take off, and then I will probably end up converting all of my RAW files to DNG to get away from proprietary EXIF handling once more tools support it. My only real concern is whether DPChallenge will accept a DNG in lieu of a RAW file as proof for a challenge.
There is a new lens correction filter that works in 16-bit mode that, had I known was going to be there would have saved me a $130 purchase of ImageAlign. It actually works better than ImageAlign does, as it has a much larger preview window, and a more visible grid.
More filters work in 16-bit mode. This doesn't affect me all that much, since I tend not to work much with fancy effects, but I know a lot of people were complaining about this in 8.0.
Some of the stuff you can do with HDR automation is a little scary. I'm still getting a grasp on how it works, but I'm starting to get tempted to autobracket +/- 1 stop on every tripod shot I take now, just in case I want to merge later. I may need to upgrade my storage first.
Major disappointments:
Photomerge still only works in 8-bit, and the abysmal merge point detection and perspective compensation has not improved. I was very disappointed by this, as I had read earlier that it was going to at least handle 16-bit.
The noise reduction... sucks. Oddly, the chroma noise reduction in the RAW import tool works very, very well (and has since 8.0), better than Noise Ninja, in fact, but the luminance noise reduction is awful.
Overall startup time seems slower. Some operations are faster, others are slower, but overall the feeling is that the application has slowed down very slightly. It's not really enough to put my finger on any particular thing, though. If I have a memory leak, it's not a serious one. I've worked for several hours straight on it without closing it, and it was still running smoothly.
RAW import still doesn't allow you to save and load a limited subset of settings in a convenient way. The browser lets you trivially clone exact settings from another RAW file, however, and that lets me do most of what I generally want to do.
CS2 requires activation, which CS did not. I don't trust software that relies on a foreign network connection to install properly. If anything should happen to Adobe in the future, or they decide to stop supporting CS2, and I have to change machines, my shiny, well-protected CS2 CD will be so much worthless plastic. It's very tempting to go find a cracked version to keep as a backup just in case.
Although I upgraded from Photoshop CS in place, CS2 did not attempt to copy my settings. I had to go tweak a number of little things all over again.
The autoheal tool doesn't work anywhere near as well as I hoped. This may simply be because I was trying some very difficult manipulations (trying to edit out lights in between bits of fine detail).
Oddities:
The Layers interface has changed slightly. I'm not sure whether I like the CS2 style better or not yet. It's not changed so much that I can't figure out what to do, but it is different enough to throw me off a little and slow me down. Dragging is nice, but I hardly ever use it.
I haven't noticed the loss of keyboard queueing. For anything where I would have been queueing multiple commands, I wouldn't have done it with multiple keystrokes anyway, but would have created an Automate macro.
Overall, I'm very happy to have upgraded, which is an easy call for me since it was free. It sped up my "decide what images to keep and rename" section of my workflow pretty dramatically, and offered me a few minor tweaks in my editing that I like. My disappointments are mostly in the category of things I wished they would have fixed, rather than things that got worse, and the ones that got worse I can mostly work around.
If you already have CS and a collection of plugins that cover everything you need, I wouldn't pay much to upgrade from CS to CS2. If you're still running on PS 7.0, I'd recommend upgrading at this time just to get Shadow/Highlight ability, though, which I've found I use a lot. |
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05/09/2005 06:47:43 PM · #31 |
Originally posted by bod:
Hmmm, I've had time to play with it properly now. Apart from the smart sharpen and noise reduction it seems like a big step in the wrong direction. |
Vanishing Point, Merge to HDR, and the improved ACR interface are all really smart directions however.
Originally posted by bod:
Taking the file viewer out of the main window ... bad! I keep losing it! Is there any way to re-integrate it? |
If you like the keyboard, you can learn to switch to compact (or ultra-compact) mode - ctrl-enter - where it's (optionally) always on top and you can alt-tab to it quickly, then pop it out to a larger viewing mode. Note that ctrl-enter toggles between full mode and whichever compact mode you used last. The bridge was probably a necessary step for adobe since other apps can use it too. Personally, I like it since I can close PS and leave the bridge open for sorting, rating, previewing, and the like.
Originally posted by bod:
Popup progress bars for everything ... really, really, really, stupidly bad. If you're used to pressing several keyboard shortcuts to get things done forget it - as soon as one of these poups appears it just beeps at you and forgets what you pressed. Now those "press a few keys and come back in 5 minutes" jobs are actually "sit at the computer waiting for progress bars to disappear for 10 minutes" jobs :-/ |
Actions/macros/scripting? I know, old habits die hard and sometimes it's very silly to create a macro for a task which is used infrequently but for which you know the 10-keystroke sequence. I think I preferred the little progress indicator at the bottom of the main window.
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05/09/2005 06:50:10 PM · #32 |
Wow, great post Zed! You summed it up.
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05/09/2005 07:11:25 PM · #33 |
Originally posted by dwoolridge:
Actions/macros/scripting? I know, old habits die hard and sometimes it's very silly to create a macro for a task which is used infrequently but for which you know the 10-keystroke sequence. I think I preferred the little progress indicator at the bottom of the main window. |
Great if you always do all the same things in the same order. Less so if you sometimes skip or add steps. What I'm usually doing is kicking off (or at least trying to) multiple actions!
Another annoyance - cancelling a step during an action (when you have a dialog set to pop up) seems to stop the entire action now rather than just skipping that one step like it used to. This makes consolidating my actions into one to cure the first problem a lot more difficult!
Cheers for the tips on the viewer. I'm just used to it being there when I close my image.
Zed - the autoheal gets better with practice, once you know what size to use in different situations. It also seems to behave diferently depending on whether you click it, drag it (straight line) or zig-zag it. Sometimes you just have to go back to the old heal or good old cloning though. |
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05/09/2005 07:22:05 PM · #34 |
Originally posted by Zed Pobre:
Autodetection of correct values is very good, and gets me almost instantly to the baseline starting point that I normally required a minute or so of bumping sliders around to get, before I started fine-tuning. |
Your word usage seems to indicate that you believe CS2's ACR somehow grabs extra/new info out of the raw file, thereby making it look correct. In fact, the auto adjust options for the sliders means that ACR is just making some image-dependent guesses (magic black box) as to how to get the image to some final state, presumably a more pleasing one.
Originally posted by Zed Pobre:
I couldn't have the CS browser open while editing, as the system would grind to a halt, but the CS2 one is so lightweight I can forget that it's still open. |
I have to totally agree here. Even after making all the recommended file browser tweaks in CS, I still found it unwieldy and slow. The bridge is much faster (it seems) which is contary to an cpanaioti's experience/opinion.
Originally posted by Zed Pobre:
The file browser now has its own internal scoring system, making it very easy for you to go through several alternates of an image, do simple adjustments to see how it is working out, then keep only the top two that you liked. |
Seconded: This really does help with workflow and image management and you can do all this in slide show mode for one (or more) quick passes.
Originally posted by Zed Pobre:
Full support for DNG. I'm of mixed opinions on actually using this, since support isn't very widespread yet. As I understand it, the specification is fully open and royalty-free, however, so I expect it to take off, and then I will probably end up converting all of my RAW files to DNG to get away from proprietary EXIF handling once more tools support it. My only real concern is whether DPChallenge will accept a DNG in lieu of a RAW file as proof for a challenge. |
I think the smart thing for archival purposes is to create the DNG with the original RAW file embedded. You can extract the original RAW file if you need it at some other date. The extracted file is a bit-for-bit copy of the original, although the mtime of the file will not be set to the original capture time.
Originally posted by Zed Pobre:
Some of the stuff you can do with HDR automation is a little scary. I'm still getting a grasp on how it works, but I'm starting to get tempted to autobracket +/- 1 stop on every tripod shot I take now, just in case I want to merge later. I may need to upgrade my storage first. |
Well, I've really been playing around with this feature: it's the one thing I was very excited to hear about. I'm extremely pleased with the results and hope to see significant improvements in future (e.g. creating custom camera curves a la hdrshop).
Originally posted by Zed Pobre:
RAW import still doesn't allow you to save and load a limited subset of settings in a convenient way. The browser lets you trivially clone exact settings from another RAW file, however, and that lets me do most of what I generally want to do. |
I have to agree. I create custom settings for the calibration/lens/ tab and would like these automatically loaded under specific conditions (e.g. WB above 6000K then load calibration X, lens = 15mm fisheye then load CA correction Y, ISO > 800 then load detail settings Z). Sidenote: RSE already has this capability on a per camera basis for different ISO ranges.
Originally posted by Zed Pebre:
The Layers interface has changed slightly. I'm not sure whether I like the CS2 style better or not yet. |
I think you can change some layer options to get things a little closer to CS.
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05/09/2005 07:51:09 PM · #35 |
I have CS2 set up to automatically load the Bridge on startup however I have to select it. Is there some way to have it load on top of PS?
Message edited by author 2005-05-09 19:51:27.
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05/09/2005 08:04:26 PM · #36 |
Originally posted by Zed Pobre:
Note for TechnoShroom: Photoshop CS is Photoshop v8.0, and Photoshop CS2 is Photoshop v9.0 -- these numbers are visible on the spash screen |
I'm completely aware of this. If you go back and read what was written though you'll find I was making a joke about CS8 which would not be the same thing as PS8. Humor is often lost in type. |
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05/09/2005 08:09:57 PM · #37 |
I love it so far! Alot easier to work with RAW cr2 Canon files.
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05/09/2005 11:24:03 PM · #38 |
Originally posted by dwoolridge:
Originally posted by Zed Pobre:
Autodetection of correct values is very good, and gets me almost instantly to the baseline starting point that I normally required a minute or so of bumping sliders around to get, before I started fine-tuning. |
Your word usage seems to indicate that you believe CS2's ACR somehow grabs extra/new info out of the raw file, thereby making it look correct. In fact, the auto adjust options for the sliders means that ACR is just making some image-dependent guesses (magic black box) as to how to get the image to some final state, presumably a more pleasing one. |
Oh, no no. It's just that I used to spend a minute or so futzing with different combinations of Exposure, Shadow, Highlight, and Contrast values and peering at the results at different areas and magnifications, coming up with what I thought was a decent starting point for gently fine-tuning afterwards. The automatic settings seem to jump straight to where I usually want to go anyway, saving me that minute or so per image. That's kind of nice. Having those values applied to the preview in the browser is very nice.
The only additional thing I really wish I could do with it is calibrate the black point for each raster line and color channel in the RAW data to get around the awful banding problems in low-signal Canon images, but I suppose it's not really Photoshop's job to compensate for Canon's crappy analog-to-digital converter. |
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05/10/2005 07:53:30 AM · #39 |
the smart sharpen filter is good enuuf reason to upgrade to CS2!
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05/10/2005 02:19:19 PM · #40 |
A couple other things I noticed last night:
Photoshop (the browser, specifically) is picking up the wrong EV bias value in the EXIF data on auto-bracketed shots. I have no idea where it's getting the value it's getting. A shot with a base EV of +1/3 and bracketed +/- 2/3 comes out +1/3 (correct), -1/3 (correct), +1/3 (wrong -- it's actually +1). Exiftags under Linux reads it correctly. Actual aperture/speed values are correct.
Still no way to stick Shadow/Highlight adjustment in an adjustment layer. This is annoying, but you can get around it by duplicating the background layer a few times.
Smart Sharpen *is* impressive, and seems to obsolete Focus Magic in the same way that Lens Correction obsoletes ImageAlign. I've discovered something I miss in both of them, though: the ability to click on an arrow to make a very minor adjustment (rotating by 0.1 or 0.25 degrees, for instance, or shifting the motion blur angle by 5 degrees without having to type the value). Overall, they're more effective, though, because you *can* put in very precise values, whereas the plugins limited you to discrete steps a little larger than I would have liked. |
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