Introduction
In Dec. 2001, MacOSRumors.com reported, "PhotoShop 6.5 is advancing rapidly and a beta is planned to be seeded in the coming months. This product, as Photoshop fans know, never reached the market. By Dec. 10, Adobe had apparently decided the changes in the program were substantial enough to justify bumping the version number to 7.0. It was officially launched at midnight GMT on February 24, 2002 as Photoshop 7.
What's New
Photoshop 7.0 isn't what some might call a major step forward -- indeed, the program doesn't really need major steps forward. Instead, it is the beneficiary of hundreds of minor refinements and a few significant enhancements -- the most important of which is native OS X compatibility on the Mac. There's a brand new antialiasing engine that utilizes the Quartz technology in OS X, a revamped painting engine that simulates effects such as pastel or watercolor, some time-saving new tools and a new file browser, capable of displaying detailed information about an image's attributes. There's also a spelling checker and a find-and-replace feature.
One of the best things about Photoshop 7.0 is its speed. In Aug. 2003, Adobe released a plug-in that optimizes the program for the new G5 processor. With OS X's speed enhancements since the release of 10.1, Photoshop 7.0 performance is outstanding (although we weren't surprised to read reports that some operations are faster and some are slower than those in PS6 running under Mac OS 9.x). Perhaps more important for many users is an option in the Get Info dialog that allows Photoshop 7 running under OS X to be launched as a Classic app. While this defeats many of the advantages of OS X, it does allow certain printing tools and scanner drivers to work, that otherwise wouldn't run.
We tested the software on a variety of Macs, in both single and dual-CPU configurations. Our "low end" test system was a G3 PowerMac with only slightly more than the program's minimum recommended 192MB of memory. With it, we were able to launch Illustrator 10 and Photoshop simultaneously, then automatically transfer an animated GIF to ImageReady via the "Jump to..." command, jumping between Photoshop 7 and ImageReady 7, without problems. Performance was markedly better on G4 systems, but a healthy RAM allotment is clearly the single upgrade most beneficial to Photoshop performance. Photop needs three to fives times as much RAM as the largest image you will be working with, to avoid slowdowns induced by the system's reliance on "virtual memory" in cases where physical memory is unavailable.
New Tools
One of the most useful additions is the Healing Brush, a time-saving tool you can use to lose all that junk you don't want on your images. With it, dust, scratches and the other annoyances are removed while preserving shading, lighting, textures and any other attributes. It uses a cloning style from one layer to another or even one image to another but, says IDG art director Aileen O'Donnell, "seems to work, unlike its 'Dust and Scratches' forerunner."
Says O'Donnell, "Its cousin the Batch (actually, the correct name is "Patch" -- Ed.) Tool lets you define your selection using channel operations and the normal selection tools, then it'll match all the characteristics of the sampled pixel to the source pixels. Very clever stuff indeed."
A few new tools can be found in the menus. In the Image menu you'll see two new tools: "Trim" eliminates white or transparent zones around an image, and "Pattern Maker" (called "Texture Maker" in recent beta versions) generates textures.
Although many of the improvements seem to be aimed at making the program more accessible to beginners, Adobe hasn't forgotten the pros that have so far been the program's primary audience. Version 7.0 adds support for XMP, the open standard developed by Adobe, designed to store and display detailed information about an image's colorspace, bit depth, resolution and other attributes. The File Browser also displays EXIF information from digital cameras, including date captured, exposure settings, and associated metadata (such as creation and modification dates.
The program integrates with AlterCast, Adobe's recently announced networked image-management program. And, perhaps most importantly, the program for the very first time provides support for AppleScript.
Version 7.0 of Photoshop is now shipping, with versions tailored for Windows XP and Mac OS X. As with recent versions, the Web image editing tool ImageReady is bundled with Photoshop. ImageReady 7.0 has had only minor enhancements, with new tools for creating and manipulating Web page elements. (Adobe's press release has details.)
What's Ahead
Beta versions of Photoshop 8 began circulating in July 2003. New features of the version code-named "Dark Matter" include new support for video frames, a layer-like metaphor for adding plug-in effects, and new keyword-based search functions. Expect a final release of Photoshop 8 before the end of 2003.
Adobe has already tested product activation on some international releases of Photoshop. The company says it will evaluate trial results before deciding whether to bring this form of copy-restriction to future retail versions in North America.
FYI
Product: Photoshop 7
For: Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP, Mac 9.1 or newer, including OS X.
From: Adobe
Price: US$609 (upgrades $149 from previous versions or $499 from Photoshop Elements or Photoshop LE)
Summary: Native OS X support is the highlight for Mac users, but the new Healing Brush and Patch tools will prove useful, too, in helping less experienced users touch up images.
Artists will appreciate a revamped painting engine that simulates effects such as pastel or watercolor, allowing users to define and save brushstroke attributes.
Adobe has adopted a "mandatory" registration and licensing system with some of its latest titles, and Photoshop is no exception. The Mac version, like the Windows version, automatically sends user info and registers the program against the serial number when connected to the Internet, unless certain DLLs are disabled.
Third-party plug-ins that aren't "Carbonized" won't work on the Mac version under OS X.
An apparent bug in the 7.0 release may cause rotated or otherwise transformed images to be resampled incorrectly in some circumstances.
Adobe in Aug. 2003 released a plug-in that optimizes Photoshop 7.0.1 for Apple's new G5-based Macs.
For Further Reading:
I was always interested
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