PSCS2 or 3 for Windows users

[robert_ades1]

I've read the press release, but I wondered if Photoshop CS3 is any sigificant

benefits for us. It's abou $200 and most of the changes appear to be geared

toward the Mac side. I am, however, a big ACR and Bridge fan, although

increasing I'm using DxO for the initial conversion.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Robert Ades

[robert_brake1]

It's not really the changes that are geared toward Mac, although CS3 does take advantage

of the Intel Macs and I'm sure will take advantage of upcoming Leopard as well as the

already released Vista. If you already have a legit copy of CS2 go ahead and dowload the

Beta and check it out. They co-exist fine with PSCS2 on my Mac and I haven't heard of any

windows problems in that respect. Biggest changes for me are in b&w, I've eliminated

99% of the lengthy conversion methods I used to use. Any layer can be converted to a

smart layer and adjusted at will, especially nice for sharpening. If you're into panoramas

the new photo merge is a major improvement. There is a new feature in Bridge called

stacks that allows you to stack/unstack any grouping of files, really nice if you have lots of

bracketed images and want to group them when not used as one image. ACR 4.0 is, I

think, a much finer product now with far more latitide than before. The Beta is free, so

check it out. I'm not sure but there may even be a trial version.

[pico]

During Adobe's recent roll-out show they said that the Mac is now fully included in all the

software. It's about parity, not differences.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

In additon to what Robert said, you can process JPEG's and TIFF's in ACR as if they were RAW. I'd get CS3 for the B&W conversion layer. The rest is just incredibly tasty gravy.

[seanduckett]

I could be wrong but i don't know if PS CS3 is compatible with AMD processors though. i have a relatively fast dual processors Opteron system with 3 gigs of memory and it doesn't want to run. in fact all the required specs just say Intel for the window side.