Apologies I am not able to participate fully at the moment, sadly we are not able to look forward to an improvement in my wifes health, perhaps just a respite in the pain from palliative Radiotherapy....
Back to topic...
As Dave Kjaer knows I had perhaps one of the first advance copies of CS3 and have been using it for a while... is it worth the upgrade? IMO yes.
Improvements...
The new Bridge is very nice, much better than V.1, fast efficient and responsive on my Dual Core, 2gig machine,
ACR 4 is a vast improvement with all the functionality of lightroom, in fact I find the implimentation better than in lightroom, only thing missing (which is a shame) is the targeted adjustment tool in lightroom, the conversions appear to have slightly more noise than C1 but that is minor.
Photoshop itself has some worthwhile improvents, apart from the new interface which is easy to get used to, of note are the new smart filters (with a couple of provisos) allowing adjusment layer type control of filters, most importantly you can apply Shadow/Highlight as a smart filter allowing you to return and tweak the values...
The new Curves Dialogue is a welcome improvement allowing you to preview any clipping also the new selection tool and the refine selection dialogue are a godsend...
The Auto alignment of images of different layers is great too and well worth experimenting with for multiple handheld exposures of the same subject on different layers.
This is just brief, there is a lot more, but that would take a long time to type and read..
I have been using CS3 for some while too (I am part of a professional photographers 'group' for want of a better word that have been trialling some Adobe Imaging products) and feel it is definitely worth the upgrade from CS2.
In my opinion the greatest improvement is the VERY noticeable processing speed increase particularly with Bridge but also within PS itself.
Hi Phil,
That is very very sad news to hear about your wife and having been through the exact same thing last year with my partner my thoughts are with you at this very difficult time.
Regards
Brian
sorry to hear about your wife's progress Phil.
I'm just battling with Lightroom which I bought on a trip to New York. Seems slow and crap to me. Is it RAWShooter in disguise? I'm getting the same weird sky artefacts at 100% that I did with RAWShooter which caused failures at QC Alamy.
Might have done better to upgrade CS2 to CS3 by the sound of it. Been very pleased with Spyder 2 calibration.
Best wishes Phil, Peter.
I have CS3 and have had Lightroom for some time (like barry part of a beta group)
Lightroom appears a better raw processor than CS3, the problem with Lightroom is the enforced workflow - i.e. the database functionality
I upgraded from CS to CS3 and would say that is was worth the money, it is faster, there are less artifacts, the sharpening tool is much more refined, the bicubic smoother interp is as good as most will need and the bridge has some rudimentary noise reduction software.
All that said I await Capture One V 4 has capture One V3 has still the faster, better, and less noisy raw conversion routine which suits my workflow better, althought Lightrooms adjustmenst are much more advanced. and therefore if I have a problem prone Raw conversion I will use Lightroom.
Discussion
4 repliesApologies I am not able to participate fully at the moment, sadly we are not able to look forward to an improvement in my wifes health, perhaps just a respite in the pain from palliative Radiotherapy....
Back to topic...
As Dave Kjaer knows I had perhaps one of the first advance copies of CS3 and have been using it for a while... is it worth the upgrade? IMO yes.
Improvements...
The new Bridge is very nice, much better than V.1, fast efficient and responsive on my Dual Core, 2gig machine,
ACR 4 is a vast improvement with all the functionality of lightroom, in fact I find the implimentation better than in lightroom, only thing missing (which is a shame) is the targeted adjustment tool in lightroom, the conversions appear to have slightly more noise than C1 but that is minor.
Photoshop itself has some worthwhile improvents, apart from the new interface which is easy to get used to, of note are the new smart filters (with a couple of provisos) allowing adjusment layer type control of filters, most importantly you can apply Shadow/Highlight as a smart filter allowing you to return and tweak the values...
The new Curves Dialogue is a welcome improvement allowing you to preview any clipping also the new selection tool and the refine selection dialogue are a godsend...
The Auto alignment of images of different layers is great too and well worth experimenting with for multiple handheld exposures of the same subject on different layers.
This is just brief, there is a lot more, but that would take a long time to type and read..
Speak soon
Phil
In my opinion the greatest improvement is the VERY noticeable processing speed increase particularly with Bridge but also within PS itself.
Barrie
That is very very sad news to hear about your wife and having been through the exact same thing last year with my partner my thoughts are with you at this very difficult time.
Regards
Brian
I'm just battling with Lightroom which I bought on a trip to New York. Seems slow and crap to me. Is it RAWShooter in disguise? I'm getting the same weird sky artefacts at 100% that I did with RAWShooter which caused failures at QC Alamy.
Might have done better to upgrade CS2 to CS3 by the sound of it. Been very pleased with Spyder 2 calibration.
Best wishes Phil, Peter.
Sorry to hear about your wife.
I have CS3 and have had Lightroom for some time (like barry part of a beta group)
Lightroom appears a better raw processor than CS3, the problem with Lightroom is the enforced workflow - i.e. the database functionality
I upgraded from CS to CS3 and would say that is was worth the money, it is faster, there are less artifacts, the sharpening tool is much more refined, the bicubic smoother interp is as good as most will need and the bridge has some rudimentary noise reduction software.
All that said I await Capture One V 4 has capture One V3 has still the faster, better, and less noisy raw conversion routine which suits my workflow better, althought Lightrooms adjustmenst are much more advanced. and therefore if I have a problem prone Raw conversion I will use Lightroom.
T