Photoshop 7.0: Terrific for Photo Retouching and Graphic Design
Written: Oct 14 '03 (Updated Oct 18 '06)
Product Rating:
Pros: Multifunctional program for graphic design and photo retouching
Cons: Expensive and complex, an overkill of capabilities for casual users
The Bottom Line: Photoshop 7.0 improves the capabilities and easy of use of this classic program, but it remains a tool more for the professional than the amateur.
DAnneC's Full Review: Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Full Version for PC (23101604)
I don't pretend to be a graphics professional. I am, however, a publications professional. My background includes experience as a book editor, technical writer, proposal manager, production manager, and general Jill-of-All-Trades in publications. Accordingly, I often have need for working with graphics--including photographs.
Fortunately, my employer provides me with a license to use Adobe Photoshop 7.0, which helps me pull out quick and appealing compositions for covers, header bars, and CD labels. Photoshop also allows me to retouch photos that are candidates for insertion into the text of my documents. More important, knowing a bit about Photoshop and how it works enables me to work more effectively with the graphics designers in my office.
In the old days, you might have said that I know just enough about Photoshop to be dangerous. Given the contemporary need for professionals of all stripes to be on familiar terms with a broad range of software packages, I know just enough to survive. Still, unlike a number of the programs with which I'm familiar (and upon which I depend), Photoshop is a continuing joy. More to the point, because I have a grasp of the basics of our graphics designers' craft, I'm able to provide more usable input for specific tasks--which means that the graphics I end up with reflect the themes I want AND helps ensure that my expectations in that regard are reasonable. Photoshop is also a useful tool for website design and enhancement, but I have no experience to offer in this area.
What You Can Accomplish
Away from my workplace, I'm also an amateur photographer. And I have come to love what I can do with a photograph using this marvelous new technology. In the amateur arena, here are a few examples of what you might hope to accomplish using Photoshop:
~ Ever have a photo that you loved--except for the fact that your slip is showing or there's a laundry basket or a stack of dirty dishes in the background? Or perhaps there's a spot of food visible on your favorite jacket? Or power lines are marring a special landscape? Photoshop can solve these problems quickly and easily.
~ Is the photo you took of your grandchild just perfect--except for the red eyes caught in the flash? Or perhaps the composition is great, but the photo itself is too dark or over bright? Photoshop tools can help you solve (or at least minimize the impact of) each problem, allowing you to improve the overall quality of your image.
~ Did you ever wish you could change the hideous color of that dress your sister made you wear as her bride's maid? She put you in a puce gown when she knows how it clashes with your complexion? At least as far as the photo goes, you can change that awful color to a pale blue or a soft green--something that becomes you better.
~ Or do you have faded photos handed down through the family--images in which you can no longer distinguish Grandpa George from Grandma Martha? Photoshop can help you restore detail you thought had been lost forever. And it can do this even if all you have is a photographic copy of older originals.
One of my current projects, a very personal one that is giving me great joy, involves taking photographs from my family album to create a storybook for my 6-year-old grandson. Working with images that include him and his brother at play, as well as landscape photographs from places of importance to our family history, I'm creating a storybook that will help him make connections to his place in that history. Using Photoshop, I can de-clutter the background of my grandchild running down a soccer field. I can add artistic efforts that make an image look like a watercolor or a pastel drawing, and I can even give it a neon glow or a frescoed look. I can also add and edit text to create my story line.
Another project that gave me great pleasure involved pulling together a collection of photos taken on family trip with my mother, daughter and sister. I used Photoshop to enhance and crop the images and to develop an album on CD of our travels together. Once the CDs were burned, I called on Photoshop again to create a series of personalized CD labels. Each label was developed using a photo that featured the recipient. The finished products were of professional quality, and each was as unique as the person who received it.
The Photoshop Desktop
For anyone who is accustomed to working with today's complex software packages, Photoshop is a highly responsive program. It is user-friendly in the sense that one must know a few basics before venturing forth, but once those basics have been learned, intuition and a willingness to experiment can take you a long way.
Based on the familiar arrangement of drop menus resembling those found in any number of widely used software programs, a standard Photoshop desktop consists of a series of palettes designed to facilitate the organization of each task and an options bar that ensures easy access to the program's toolset.
The palettes permit the user to develop each graphics task through a series of layers, thereby allowing the manipulation of one element within the overall design without disturbing any other element. Coordinated activities between tools and palettes provide the user with an almost unlimited range of options that can be applied to each design. Examples include:
~ The Layers Palette, which facilitates duplication and deletion of layers, allows the user to hide some layers to better focus on others, and permits the user to bind selected layers into a single fused or "flattened" organizational unit that is fixed and permanent while providing maximum flexibility to continue the manipulation of layers affecting other design elements.
~ When working at high zoom levels, the Navigation Palette allows the user to move quickly and easier from one area on the canvas to another.
~ The Color and Swatches Palettes allow the user to dip into a range of color and tone much as a traditional artist might dip into a palette of oils.
Photoshop 7.0 Enhancements
I came to Photoshop 7.0 by way of its two previous iterations, and several features on this new release have caught my attention in a serious way. Examples include the following:
~ As I get older and my eyesight more fickle, I have come to rely more and more on spellcheck features in my software packages. Photoshop 7.0 HAS spellcheck. I could literally kiss someone for that.
~ Improved Browser capabilities make it easier to organize, preview, and retrieve files.
~ A new Healing Tool takes photo touchup to a new level, allowing users to quickly and easily retouch areas that need to retain texture and shading. It's great for removing blemishes and minimizing wrinkles in portraits or repairing the damage caused on original images by scratches or dust.
~ A new History Palette allows the users to track and retrace modifications. It is now possible to undo and redo multiple steps with one stroke. It is also possible to save a temporary "snapshot" as a fallback point, in the event you decide to discard the results of unsuccessful experimentation.
~ Autocorrect functions have been improved. While these functions are still not fail-safe, autocorrections for levels, contrast, and color are often the only steps needed to revitalize an image.
System Requirements
Per Adobe recommendations, minimum system requirement for the Windows version of Photoshop 7.0 are as follows:
~ Intel Pentium III or 4 processor
~ Microsoft Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, or XP
~ 128 MB of RAM (192 MB recommended)
~ 280 MB of available hard-disk space
~ 800x600 color monitor with 16-bit color or greater video card
Minimum recommended system requirements for Macintosh include:
~ PowerPC processor (G3, G4, or G4 dual)
~ Mac OS software version 9.1, 9.2, or Mac OS X version 10.1.3
~ 128 MB of RAM (192 MB recommended)
~ 320 MB of available hard-disk space
~ 800x600 color monitor with 16-bit color or greater video card
Cost
The cost of Photoshop is high, with a list price of $609 in the States or £505 in the UK--taxes not inclusive. Lower prices can be found by the determined and the persistent, but any way you add it up, it's pricey.
Final Thoughts
Photoshop 7.0 is an expensive and versatile software package. Despite its capabilities and the wonderful results to be gained by using this program, it's not for everyone. While Adobe has done a gone job of making this product increasingly intuitive, it is a complex program that is in fact meant to be used by graphic artists and designers. Unless you're willing to invest the time required to learn about the capabilities and complexities of this software, you're better served by using a simpler and less expensive product.
Adobe Photoshop 7.0 software, the professional image-editing standard, helps you work more efficiently, explore new creative options, and produce the ...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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