Adobe Photoshop 7.0

Adobe Photoshop has always been the application of choice for professional image editing. And with the new features and improvements that have been implemented in version 7, its appeal is now stronger than ever. To describe Photoshop as merely an image editing application does not do this package justice, as it can do far more than that. For example it is almost equally at home helping you design and create entire Web pages and print adverts as it is at enhancing, re-touching or editing photographs and other digital images.

Every new version of Photoshop has delivered significant, noteworthy improvements. Witness: Photoshop 4.0 unveiled Layers and Actions; Photoshop 5.0 brought us the History Palette and Layer Styles; Photoshop 6.0 introduced Shapes. Hence, Photoshop 7.0's perfunctory, should-have-been-there-earlier enhancements, such as the new file browser and updated paint engine, are a bit of a letdown.

We were most impressed with a number of smaller features that we predict will save skilled graphic artists scads of time and effort. Two new retouching tools-the Healing Brush and Patch Device-are finest described as very sensible cloning brushes that may make scratches, mud, and other imperfections disappear automatically. They work by blending the noise (or texture) of selected source pixels with the colour and shading of the target area. The results are spectacular: You'll be able to remove unwanted artifacts whereas preserving the color and shading details found within the original image. In addition, the new Auto Shade function can stability shade images with a single click. Auto Color works only in RGB mode, and it nonetheless cannot beat handbook adjustments. However for quick removing of a colorcast, Auto Shade gives more pleasing results than either Auto Levels or Auto Contrast.

Indeed, its ability to produce almost complete Web pages, complete with all the java necessary to handle button rollovers and image swapping behaviours, makes Photoshop a tool not just for those working in more general media design and print houses, but also one that Web designers can use alongside their HTML editors.

One of the most annoying limitations of Photoshop 6 and all its predecessors was its lack of an image browser, a feature available in just about every other image editing application, including those at only a fraction of its cost. Thankfully this has finally been rectified in Photoshop 7, which now boasts a powerful image browser that not only allows you to view thumbnails of the images in any directory on your PC, but also to view information on them, such as their colour profile, size, modification date, and even any attached Exchangeable Image File (EXIF) information generated by the likes of a digital camera.

Photoshop's painting facilities have also been improved, making it easier to choose the size, shape and dynamics of the brush you want. Some completely new features have also been added to the brush section, which amongst other things allow you to accurately simulate traditional types of painting techniques should you wish to. And you can now even combine two different brush types when painting, which allows you to produce some quite amazing results.

Photoshop's image editing and enhancing facilities have also improved. You'll now find it even easier to automatically correct colours in a photograph, for example, and thanks to some additions and tweaks in its Liquify facility, you'll find making precision distortions or adding certain types of special effect an absolute doddle. Two completely new photo enhancing tools have also been added to Photoshop 7 - the healing brush and patch tool - which together make invisibly removing blemishes, scratches, dusk and wrinkles from scanned images a pleasure rather than a chore.

The new Rollover palette makes it far easier to create, edit and manage rollovers and image maps than was the case in previous versions of the package. However, it is still not quite as easy or intuitive as performing the same tasks with arch-rival Macromedia's Fireworks Web-specific image manipulation package. A few more general improvements to Adobe Photoshop 7 are also worthy of note albeit briefly - such as the slightly more modern look to its user interface, support for Adobe Acrobat 5's security settings and, last but by no means least, a built-in multilingual spell checker.

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