Review:
Photoshop 6.0
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by
Don Herion
(4/5 Geeks)
(1) (2)
Photoshop 6.0? Yeah,
I'm thinking the same thing. Is there going to be a time when Adobe has a press
conference and does a Howard Beale? You know the newscaster from the film, Network.
The PR guy stands up at a podium and says: "Well, I'll tell you what happened.
We just ran out of bull****. Adobe Photoshop can't be improved. It's perfect.
Thank you and goodnight." Well, unfortunately
that day has not yet arrived. So here's my review of Photoshop 6.0.
New
Features
Adobe seems committed to the concept that you can always improve
upon success if you will only listen. Responding to input from Photoshop's enormous
user base Adobe has made major improvements with their World Class image-editing
program. The key enhancements for me are its vector shape, text creation and image
slicing tools. There are also updates to the layer palette, new image warping
and distortion effects, and improved integration with Adobe's suite of graphic
programs; namely, Illustrator, GoLive, LiveMotion and Image Ready.
How's
Our Vector Victor?
Vector support received a lot of attention in this
release. The vector toolset has been rebuilt, with new rectangle, rounded rectangle,
ellipse, polygon, line and custom shape tools. You can use these for shape layers,
vector masks and even painting. A new feature to the Photoshop interface is the
'context sensitive option bar.' Whenever you select a tool this bar pops up across
the top of the screen giving you access to all options for that tool.
 |
| New vector tool shapes |
Photoshop
now provides pathfinder operations to combine basic shapes into hard to draw shapes.
These options include Add, Subtract, Intersect and Exclude. Of course you can
edit the shape at anytime, and even rearrange path points with the new 'direction
selection tool.' You can add and subtract points with the 'add-anchor-point' and
'delete-anchor-point.' These resolution-independent shapes can be saved and shared
with other artists.
 |
| Combine basic shapes with context sensitive toolbar |
These new vector capabilities are excellent
for creating vector masks to clip out portions of images. You can now combine
layer clipping paths to create hard and soft masking edges. You can also fill
clipping paths (masks) with color, patterns, and gradients. These improved tools
take Photoshop a step closer to Adobe Illustrator. I look forward to the day when
both programs are merged into one kick *** graphic program.
Text
on the Fly
This is my favorite improvement to Photoshop. You can now enter
and edit text directly in an image without bringing up that annoying 'text dialog
box.' Photoshop now outputs sharp edged text that produces high quality results.
This text can edited even after you have applied the new warping effects like
the addictive liquefy. Adobe has also updated the word and paragraph styling options
that operate similarly to Illustrator. These include; alignment, auto leading,
spacing, hanging punctuation, justification and indenting. Additional capabilities
include the power to apply color per character, scale characters, and set baseline
shift. This is a major reason for upgrading to 6.0.
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| You can now edit text even after using the new warp effects |
