Over the years, Photoshop has added to itself, features that are important to the skilled professional, but which at the same
time can be put to stunning use by the novice. Photoshop 7 continues the tradition. Major improvements in version 7 are in
three areas–File management, Drawing simulation and Photo retouching. We got our hands on a beta of Photoshop 7. Let’s
take a quick tour of what it has to offer.
The final version is expected to ship by mid April at a price of Rs 31,500.
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Save a file, and the dialogue gives additional options like save as copy and save layers. The options are available depending on the ability of the file type chosen to support it |
The file browser now shows you the contents of the file along with details like file name and size. You also get (lower left quarter) extended file information if it’s available. Typically this includes camera name for digital photographs and so on. You also have facilities for batch renaming. That is, you can take a group of files and rename them automatically to make them easier to understand and locate |
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| The patternmaker is another handy tool in Photoshop 7. You can select any part of any image (bottom left corner: selection is inside the marquee) and have a repetitive pattern made out of it. Similarly you can select a part of an image, including an irregular area, and have a brush made out of it. Once the brush or pattern is made, you can apply it to an image at a click of the mouse |
The patch tool, the healing tool and automatic color correction are the highlights of this version of Photoshop. Auto color correction removes color casts at the click of a menu option. The patch tool is analogous to the patch-up work you do on torn clothes. It takes pixels from a source area and melds them into a selected area.
You can also do other interesting effects with the patch tool, like shown here.
The healing tool is similar to the patch tool, but it has the added benefit of preserving underlying texture, tones, shading, etc. For example, you can easily make a tattoo disappear, without having to work on it for hours to preserve the original muscle tone |
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One area where Photoshop 7 brings in significant improvements is in the area of drawing styles–in its ability to make graphics like they are natural drawings on different natural surfaces.
Earlier, Corel’s PhotoPaint had an edge here, but with version 7, Photoshop closes the gap. Shown here are two of the available fifteen options (the one in the center is the original). Needless to say, each of these artistic filters come with extensive customizability |
Select color range is another tool that makes life for touch-up artists very easy. As can be seen here, complex selects can be made very easily using this tool |
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| Every new version sports some innovation with the toolbar. This time around, moving the mouse over to any of the tools makes it change over from shades of grey and black outline to color |
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