Adobe Photoshop CS2

Still haven't gotten a working version of Photoshop (blame me, DHL and me again, in that order), but I expect to have my copy delivered tomorrow (FedEx, thank you very much). Until then, I'll just read reviews of new features.....

Macworld: Review: Adobe Photoshop CS2:
Speaking of raw image files, Photoshop CS2 includes Camera Raw 3, a major update to the software that most photographers use to prepare and optimize such images. Camera Raw 3 still works as a plug-in—a design approach that enables Adobe to release frequent updates that support new cameras. One update has already appeared; at press time, the current version was 3.1.

Camera Raw 3 features several improvements, including new tools for straightening and cropping images. A new Curve tab lets you finely adjust image contrast by positioning control points (pictured right). It works much like the Curves dialog box in Photoshop, and because raw images contain a great deal of highlight data, the Curve feature is particularly useful for bringing out highlight detail that might otherwise get discarded during the conversion process.

This sounds interesting:

No camera can match the human eye’s ability to take in a scene containing a wide range of dark and bright areas. Photoshop users employ several techniques to deal with this reality, ranging from tweaking shadow and highlight details to processing a raw file using multiple tonality settings, and then combining the resulting files.

Photoshop CS2 adds another option: the HDR Merge command. HDR is short for high dynamic range. HDR photography involves using a tripod-mounted camera to shoot several photos of a scene, each at a different exposure. Run those shots through HDR Merge, and Photoshop blends them to attempt to capture the full tonal range of the original scene. The resulting file is a 32-bit image that you can convert to an 8- or 16-bit image for printing and displaying.

During that conversion process, you have a few options for shoehorning the broad dynamic range of a 32-bit image into the narrower range of an 8- or 16-bit image. But it’s a tricky process, and it’s easy to end up with unnatural-looking photos.

{Macintosh, Photos}