Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Upgrade [OLD VERSION]

Photoshop 7.0's new file management system comes in the form of a Windows Explorer-like file browser that allows users to easily sort and locate their images within various projects. Users can now organize projects by name, date, resolution, and a number of additional parameters.

The enhanced brush palette allows users to create custom brushes and save them as presets that can be accessed from the Tools options bar. Users can easily vary different aspects of the brush by changing the hue, opacity, or flow of the brushes for pastels, oils, and charcoal. Photoshop 7.0 also introduces a new Healing Brush and Patch Tool. With these tools, users can easily "heal" their images by removing scratches, blemishes, and other imperfections while preserving shading, lighting, and texture attributes.

Adobe has taken great strides in revamping Photoshop 7.0 to be more Web-ready than ever before. With the help of its companion software Image Ready, users can now easily create rollovers and complex navigation bars by using the new Rollovers palette. Additional Web-ready features include enhanced Web export functions that allow designers to preview images designed for PDAs and mobile phones in the WBMP format. Users can easily create a slide show of their images and post online using the new Web Gallery. People concerned about posting their images online can secure their images with the new password protection feature before sharing them.

Adobe has finally introduced a long overdue spell checker with wicked multilingual spell-checking capabilities. A new search and replace feature allows users to search and replace across different layers in the same document.

While Photoshop 7.0 introduces an impressive array of features that allow photographers, Web designers, and graphic designers to work more effectively with Web and wireless devices, it also remains the leading tool for anyone serious about digital imaging. No other software package provides users with the ability to create such high-quality images. --Rich Ting

Amazon.com Review
With each new version of Photoshop, Adobe never fails to come up with an awe-inspiring mix of great new features, productivity enhancements, and tweaks and treats. Version 7 is no exception.

Major points of interest include a new healing brush that removes facial wrinkles and other surface blemishes with incredible ease, a long-awaited file browser that allows you to view image thumbnails and metadata, enhanced Web features, automatic color correction, and even a spell checker.

One of Photoshop's many strengths is the versatility of its tools, and this has been stretched to new limits. Filter previews are bigger, the Liquify tool has been enhanced, brush parameters have been extended, and commonly used tool settings can be saved as presets. This means you can virtually do away with the toolbox, instead selecting tools with exactly the settings you need from the presets palette.

Image Ready, Photoshop's Web-authoring and export module, remains a separate, linked application. Creation of rollovers is simpler and a new "selected" rollover state takes some of the repetitive strain out of nav-bar production.

New output options include Picture Package, which allows you to print multiple images on a single page, and new templates and security watermarking for Web galleries.

All in all, this is an upgrade guaranteed to keep Photoshop at the cutting edge of professional image editing. --Ken McMahon

Amazon.com Product Description
Photoshop 7.0 boasts an extensive set of features that allow photographers, Web, and graphic designers to work more efficiently, explore creative options, and produce high-quality images for print, Web, and other media. Create imagery with easier access to file data; streamlined Web design; faster, professional-quality photo retouching; and more. Support for WBMP format enables optimization for display on PDAs and other wireless devices. Plus, Web designers can apply extra compression to images and exercise greater control over how transparency is maintained online with Photoshop 7.0's added output enhancements.

Photoshop 7.0 delivers a comprehensive tool set that helps users meet both creative and production challenges. Its Healing Brush revolutionizes the process of retouching images. Remove dust, scratches, blemishes, and wrinkles effortlessly. Preserve shading, lighting, texture, and other attributes automatically. Photoshop 7.0's File Browser lets users locate, organize, and visually manage images quickly. You can even view EXIF data from digital cameras, including date captured, exposure settings, creation and modification dates, and more.

Native on Microsoft Windows XP, Photoshop 7.0 provides even greater multiprocessor support as well as superior interoperability with other Adobe applications. The software also offers a robust painting engine that lets users create custom brush presets, simulate pastels and charcoal, and add special effects, such as grass and leaves, while its Pattern Maker plug-in creates patterns, including rocks and sand. Photoshop 7.0's Liquify plug-in provides enhanced control over image warping with zoom, pan, and multiple undo capabilities.

(This text refers to the product description for Photoshop 7.0 for Microsoft Windows.)

As an upgrade, I give 7.0 four stars. Why? There's just not that much more for that extra star. I was expecting a jump in features like the one between versions 5.5 and 6.0. Pretty much, they give you a new tool for repairing photos (this is great and worth it if you're interested in digital photography, of course: but for a web designer, it's useless), a few upgrades, and a prettier interface. As a web designer, I didn't find a whole lot more that's useful, so for the fellow web designers out there, it might not be worth it at all. But for the digital photographer with the extra money, grab it. That brush will probably be very useful to you.

As a new program, without a previous installation of Photoshop, FIVE STARS. GET IT NOW. I can't stress this enough. Photoshop will be worth it if you're looking to do this professionally; it is THE graphic design program out there right now. If you're just a home user that wants to fix up a photo or two, I don't think it's worth the $600+ just for that.


Great piece of software, nice update.   June 18, 2003
Vincent Jacquemin (Oakland, CA USA)
20 out of 32 found this review helpful

Although this update is not as big as the one from 5.5 to 6.0, it is still worth buying. Actually the healing brush/healing patch tool itself is worth the price of the upgrade. When you think of it, how many of us digital photographers would gladly pay that price for a plug-in that helps us fix blemishes, scratches and wrinkles in a couple seconds?

Another nice addition is the file browser. See all your pictures at a glance, rotate them, classify them, rate them, etc. You can also view all the metadata (data added by your digital camera), such as date taken, exposure, color profile, and others.

Adobe also reworked (OK... fixed) Contact Sheet, Web Gallery, and Picture Package. Those actually work now, and they'll do exactly what you want them to. I agree it should have been done right in the first place, but I'm just too happy they are usable now.

Photoshop 7.0 also lets you save your workspace. You can now place all your tabs and windows just the way you like them, and save the positions. I have 3 or 4 different workspaces I toggle through, depending on what I'm working on. This is a huge time saver. Once again, this could have been done before, but I'm glad it finally found its way to Photoshop.

Conclusion: the healing tool itself is worth the price. Think of the rest as a bonus. :)


Fi ve Stars Adobe Photoshop 7   May 16, 2003
Michel R. Doret (Westbury, New York United States)
For the past 3 years, I have been using Adobe Photoshop 2- which I must say, gave me a lot of satisfaction. Very simple to use, of course, but also provides the user with rapid results. The essential functions are there and if you use them properly many aspects of writing a page are taken care of.
With Photoshop 7, new dimensions are achieved. If you already know Adobe 2.0, it is very easy to become familiar with 7.0. Also, the precision and accuracy of the various functions reach a higher level and the additional possibilities leave more flexibility to individual creativity. This powerful software is becoming for me a must in all digital works and I cannot give it less than five stars. Michel Doret