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Photoshop 6.0.1 and ImageReady 3.0

The first public demo of Photoshop 6.0 occurred during Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote speech at the Seybold 2000 publishing conference (available for viewing in RealPlayer or Windows Media Player formats here) on Aug. 29th. Exactly 26 minutes into the presentation (you can drag the video playback control slider to skip ahead), Adobe President Bruce Chizen invites a Photoshop product manager onstage to demonstrate key features of Adobe Photoshop 6.0. It's worth checking out.

Adobe (www.adobe.com) is now shipping Photoshop 6.0 (and providing a Photoshop 6.0.1 update) for Windows 9x/NT/2000 and Power Macintosh computers. The software sells for US$609; with an estimated street price of between C$900 and C$1000. Upgrades are US$199. Purchasers of Photoshop 5.5 since Aug. 28th, 2000 are eligible for a free upgrade.

The upgrade offers new organization tools for palettes, including an "options bar" and docking feature. Layer Styles are similar to those added in Illustrator 9.0 -- and, with a maximum of 8000 layers, it's hard to imagine running out of them! New layer features include colour-coded layers, locking of position or any other attribute, overlay and stroke layer effects, knockout blending, channel-restricted blending, and a fill opacity control.

The program also feature support for cutting and pasting PDF from the clipboard. Layer masks and layer clipping paths can now be applied to the same layer. Bevel functions are improved.  Fill masks can be reused, too.

Another key enhancement is the way the program now supports "on canvas" text editing. Text can also be warped with a variety of controls (bulge, twist, "waving flag" and so on) and, perhaps most importantly, text and other vector effects remain fully editable in vector form even after the file is exported to PDF and reimported. (Even layers and masks are retained intact!)

The package also includes an updated version of the Web graphics optimization utility "ImageReady." Although this tool is still not fully integrated into Photoshop, it is an improvement over version 5.5 in a number of ways, notably, the ability to define "tweens" to produce GIF animations directly within the program. You can, for example, type some text, use the text warp control (conveniently located, along with other related controls in the text tool's options bar at the top of the screen) to bend the text, then make a new keyframe and further manipulate the text. Then, select this second keyframe and click upon the "tween" icon. The program automatically produces all the required "in between" frames, which you can then preview (thanks to the HTML and graphics code the program automatically creates) directly in your web browser before exporting, or, if desired, re-editing. This appears to be the biggest change in ImageReady, and it's a good one.

We'd name the animation ability, text warping effects and "round trip" PDF export/import functionality as the three best features in Photoshop 6.0. Any one of them is probably enough to justify an upgrade for dedicated users.

The software, unveiled at the Seybold publishing conference on Aug. 28th, 2000, began shipping in Sept.

Photoshop Elements

For those who don't need CMYK separations, channel editing, some masking capability, automation and Web features such as slicing and rollovers, Adobe Photoshop Elements is a less expensive alternative. This US$99 program replaces the previously available "Photoshop LE" and, like its predecessor, is designed as a consumer version of Photoshop, suitable for use by owners of scanners, digital cameras and those looking for advanced image editing capabilities at a reasonable price. Note, however, that some users have had trouble with the software's "Try and Die" Vbox protection scheme, by Preview Systems. Photoshop Elements was named the best software title of 2001 by MacUser.

What's Ahead

In Dec. 2001, MacOSRumors.com reported, "PhotoShop 6.5 is advancing rapidly and a beta is planned to be seeded in the coming months. Photoshop 6.5 has many new enhancements added, among these are, a brand new antialiasing engine that utilizes the quartz engine in OS X, live transformation previews, and a new text tool that lets you wrap text around shapes. One of the best things stated about Photoshop 6.5 is its speed. With OS X's speed enhancements since the release of 10.1 Photoshop 6.5 is outstanding. According to my source Photoshop 6.5 will ship with ImageReady 3.5..."

By Dec. 10, Adobe had decided to rename the software Photoshop 7.0. ImageReady's version number had also been updated to 7.0. See www.thinksecret.com for a preview of the new versions.

Photoshop 6.0.1 Update

Because Photoshop 6.0 shipped after the initial release of Adobe Illustrator 9.0, the latter program suffered from some incompatibilities with Photoshop 6 files upon its initial release. Adobe, in Dec. 2000, released a patch to address this issue. The 6.0.1 update, released in March, 2001, further smoothes compatibility with other popular publishing tools, including Illustrator, ImageReady and QuarkXPress.

Notable improvements include:

  • Image clipping paths in EPS and TIFF files saved from Photoshop 6.0.1 have been modified so that software, such as QuarkXPress, is able to read them.
  • ImageReady is able to save and preview animations under constrained memory conditions.
  • Export Paths to Illustrator retains path scaling.
  • Get the 6.0.1 update at Adobe's web site for Mac or Windows (about 7MB)
  • See our report on Adobe Illustrator 9.02 elsewhere in this section for further details.

For Further Reading

  • MacCentral has an in-depth look at Photoshop 6.
  • MacWEEK contributes some Photoshop 6 Screen Shots and notes the Photoshop 6 announcement.
  • PR Newswire: Adobe Reinvents Image Editing With Adobe Photoshop 6.0.
  • Digital Dog has a comprehensive 19 page PDF on the new color management architecture and features in Photoshop 6.0.
  • Ben Willmore, a Photoshop trainer and alpha tester for version 6.0, has posted the humbly named Ultimate Guide to Photoshop 6.0.
  • News.com: Adobe cozies up to Apple's OS X [Dec. 17, 2001]

In other Adobe news, the company announced its acquisition of Glassbook. This gives Adobe a product with some compelling advantages over Microsoft's competing eBook technology, such as the ability to rotate the screen 90 degrees. With this feature, users of notebook computers can turn the laptop and it feels just like reading a book. A page at Barnes and Noble has a side-by-side comparison of three of the leading eBook technologies.

See also:

Tutorials (external links):

Graeme Bennett's Introduction to Photoshop (also available in PDF format, suitable for printing)

Getting started, making selections: http://brillig.nebrwesleyan.edu/~glarose/classes/html/photoshop.html
Cloning tips: http://ise.uoregon.edu/photoshop_demo/Photoshop.html
Retouching photos; fixes for Moire: http://abgnet.com/abg/tips/retouch.htm

Color Body: Color Relationships in the Light Spectrum, added March 2, 2000.
Recommended reading: "Photoshop and the Web: Improving Photos For The Web" at MacReviewZone

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