Adobe Photoshop CS3

Photoshop CS3 speeds the path from imagination to imagery. New automated features slash the time needed for selectingand compositing. Live filters boost the comprehensive, nondestructive editing set to keep you more flexible than ever. And with the new, streamlined interface and time-saving tools, your work simply flows faster. With Photoshop CS3, you can create any image.

Top new and enhanced features in Adobe Photoshop CS3

Nondestructive Smart Filters

Smart Filters are simply Photoshop filters that are applied nondestructively, and remain live and re-editable. That gives you the flexibility to experiment with different filters and settings, without having to back up and start over with the original image. You can edit the Smart Filter mask to precisely adjust the filter's effects on different areas of the image, and because Smart Filters are applied within the context of Smart Object layers, your designs are accelerated by now being able to scale, transform, and filter your images in an efficient, nondestructive workflow.

Quick Selection tool

Photoshop has always been distinguished by its powerful selection tools, which enable you to target editing and enhancements to precise areas of an image. Photoshop CS3 slashes the time necessary to choose image areas with the new Quick Selection tool. Now, instead of painstakingly outlining the image region you need to work on, you can simply paint the general area with the Quick Selection tool. Photoshop CS3 watches as you paint, and analyzes the image to complete the selection automatically. Expanding or contracting the selection is as simple as holding down modifer keys. And the Quick Selection tool can be used in conjunction with all of the other powerful selection tools in Photoshop. Whether it's simple or complicated image selections, or image area extraction for advanced compositing, the new Quick Selection tool is a real time saver.

Refine Edge

The final touch to any image selection, the new Refine Edge feature is the simple, flexible way to modify the edge of a selection before you begin editing the area. With one-click access from the Options bar, or from the Select menu, Refine Edge lets you precisely smooth, feather, contract, or expand the current selection, with simple slider controls, in a single, intuitive dialog box.

Automatic layer alignment and blending

Automatic alignment and blending of image layers makes it especially easy to create advanced image composites-for example, combining the best parts of multiple images of the same scene into one "best" image. Now you can simply place multiple, related images on separate layers in one document, and then let Photoshop CS3 analyze the contents, moving and rotating the layers so they overlap as precisely as possible. Use the masking tools to reveal the areas you need from different layers to finalize the elements of the composite image. Then use automatic layer blending to seamlessly blend the color and shading into the final image. You could achieve the same highest-quality results in earlier versions of Photoshop, but the new automatic layer alignment and blending features get you there faster,