CS3 Beta Indepth – Photoshop, Part 6 – Cloning, Healing, Performance, Blending Modes and Brightness/Contrast

In our ongoing coverage of the CS3 Beta we now get to the main show, Photoshop. In this part, we examine Cloning, Healing, Performance, Blending Modes and Brightness/Contrast.
Cloning and Healing

Photoshop CS3 Beta Review

The new Clone Source Palette is a great help and extends the functionality of cloning and healing in an efficient way. It puts nice numerical values in view (and for change), which is immensely helpful for certain cloning tasks, allows rotation and scaling, several clone sources to be defined, a visible overlay and more. Plus there is more functionality in the tool options bar.

Photoshop CS3 Beta Review

Performance

Even for a Beta, CS3 is an improvement over CS2. Bridge is much faster generating thumbnails and Photoshop seems generally snappier.

Blending modes

Photoshop CS3 Beta Review
Old and New

Two new blending modes join the mix, Lighter Color and Darker Color, which fairly obviously choose either the lighter or darker color out of the layer choice. I haven’t personally figured out how I will use these in my own work, but more options are always welcome.

Photoshop CS3 Beta Review
Lighter Color

Photoshop CS3 Beta Review
Darker Color

Brightness/Contrast

Photoshop CS3 Beta Review
The old Brightness/Contrast in CS2

The Brightness/Contrast adjustment now stops you from clipping the highlights or shadows, which was all too easy to do in CS2. This is useful for photographic images, where you rarely want to do this. The old way of doing this is just a check box away if you want it.

Photoshop CS3 Beta Review
The new Brightness/Contrast in CS3 Beta

Scroll to Top