Cadalyst - September 2007 - (Page 35)

firstlooks Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended A Photoshop for the technical at heart. By Ron LaFon T rying to describe what’s new in Photoshop — any version — is like trying to capture the essence of The Lord of the Rings trilogy in 10 words or fewer. You might be concise, but you lose a lot of the subtleties. Whole books have been written about just portions of Photoshop’s capabilities, so I won’t spend a lot of time trying to define what’s new. For a better look, visit the Adobe Web site at www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/ family. I will, however, take a very brief look at a totally new version of Photoshop — Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended. It’s Photoshop geared to those in the technical pursuits. The software’s features offer much to film, video, and multimedia professionals and to graphic and Web designers using 3D and motion in their creations. Manufacturing and medical professionals also will find much of use here, as will architects, engineers, and scientific researchers. Figure 1. An Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended screen showing a U3D 3D file open inside the application. Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended Photo-Editing Software Pros: World-class photo-editing tools; 3D support; new technical features. Cons: None significant. Price: $999 Adobe Systems 800.833.6687 www.adobe.com With this release, you get everything that’s included in Photoshop CS3, as well as tools for editing 3D and motion-based content and performing image analysis. Photoshop CS3 Extended now directly supports several 3D file formats: U3D (no surprise there), 3DS, OBJ, Collada, and Google KMZ. Native support is provided for files with 1–1.5 million polygons (figures 1 and 2, p. 36). You can import, view, and interact with most 3D models, and you can easily render and incorporate 3D content into your 2D composites and edit existing textures on 3D models directly within the application to see the results immediately. The Vanishing Point feature has been enhanced with 3D support in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, so you can edit in perspective on multiple surfaces — even those connected at angles other than 90 degrees. You also can measure in perspective; wrap images, graphics, or text around multiple planes; and output 2D planes as 3D models. New measurement tools in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended allow you to extract quantitative information from images. You can calibrate or set the scale of an image then use any of Photoshop Extended’s selection tools to define and calculate distance, perimeter, area, or other measurements. You can record data points in a measurement log and export data, including histogram data, to a spreadsheet for further analysis. Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended includes an Animation palette that lets you create an animation from a series of images. After an animation has been 35 www.cadalyst.com | cadalyst | September 2007 http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/family http://www.adobe.com http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - September 2007

Contents Editor's Window Techtrends: Resurrecting an Unforgettable Second Living Large UGS Solid Edge v20 Adobe Acrobat 3D v8 Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended CAD Manager: Managing 2D and 3D in the Same Office MCAD Modeling: Where is MCAD Going? AEC in Focus: Automated Estimating and Scheduling Using BIM CAD Cartoon Issue Indexes CADfidential

Cadalyst - September 2007

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