Photoshop CS3 Public Beta

Adobe has released Photoshop CS3 Beta for intel-based Macs (there's also a release for XP). I discounted this Beta as something for that purpose alone, but after checking things out, I'm incredibly impressed at the direction Photoshop is going in.

The entire interface has been modified. It's a flexible interface with docking capabilities. It feels more like a Macromedia product now. The Palette Well is gone and there are collapsible docking areas for placing palettes wherever you wish. Palettes, when collapsed, look like buttons and afford you a lot more room when working with high-res images. If you hide the palettes (Shift + Tab) they come back when you hover over the area that displayed them.

There is a new tool that will turn heads. The Quick Selection tool. Finally, Adobe has caught up on the science of selections. All you have to do with this tool is click and drag over an area with a brush and it's selected! The results are remarkable. The Refine Edges button can help you re-define the edges of the selection and preview it on different backgrounds. You might never use the Extract Command again!

There are too many other features to mention so check out the NAPP Photoshop CS3 Beta Preview movies by the Photoshop Guys and Deke McLelland's preview at Lynda.com.