by Derrick Story
Sept. 8, 2000

At the recent Seybold Conference in San Francisco, Adobe announced the release of Photoshop 6. In a sense, this was the perfect setting for such an unveiling. The Seybold conferences began as the "place to be" for desktop publishing. But then the annoying new medium called the Web barged onto the scene. Seybold kept pace by adopting e-publishing alongside its more traditional media emphasis.

There's a lot more Web action on the Seybold floor these days than before. It's a tough balancing act for a conference that wants to continue to support the customers whose final product appears on paper, yet stay in step with the new wave of Web-based communication.

Adobe can surely sympathize. For Photoshop versions 1 through 5, Adobe focused on its print audience, who had been responsible for the application's rise to dominance. But then Adobe realized that if it were going to keep the Web users on board, it needed to better integrate Web publishing functionality into its product. Photoshop 5.5 was an attempt to do just that. It was an instant hit in the Web community and a cause for grumbling among some print specialists.

But just as Seybold is having to give up more and more real estate to those upstart dot-coms, so is Photoshop. Version 6 is targeted squarely at Web designers while still trying to keep the print folks happy. So what better place to unveil this tightwire act of a new release than at ever-evolving Seybold?

Figure 1: Adobe debuted Photoshop 6.0 at SeyboldSF much to the delight of standing room crowds at its demos and tutorials.

Because I'm a Web publisher, I think there are quite a few reasons why Photoshop 6 is moving in the right direction. I've picked six of my favorite features and am going to introduce you to them.

Now granted, there are dozens of substantial improvements. I sat through three demos at Seybold, and have seen most of the new features. I've been on the phone with Adobe product mangers and discussed the ones they like. But when I sit down at my computer and fire-up the application, the following six things make me smile.

New Text Engine—At Last!

You just know the competition hates this particular improvement. Adobe has fixed the one thing that Photoshop was really lousy at: text handling. In previous versions, using a separate dialogue box to enter and format characters seemed like something right out of the 1980s. And prior to Layers, heaven help you if you wanted to make a change to existing copy.

Figure 2: You can now type right on the canvas—and even better yet, edit it there too.

Forget about all of that. In Photoshop 6, you choose the text tool, click on the canvas, and enter the text (see Figure 2). If you want to edit it, simply highlight the characters and make the change.

Much of the joy results from the fact that Photoshop now supports vector text, which stays nice and sharp throughout the production process. In addition, you have text warping controls. So if you want to warp a headline to produce a special effect, no problem. And much to the delight of designers all over, you can still edit the text after you've applied the effects.

The application still creates a new layer every time you use the tool. I hated this behavior at first, but now I kind of like it and am glad Adobe has retained that functionality. I've become so accustomed to it that I now curse it only 10 times a day; those are the moments when nothing happens as I try to edit text, not realizing that I'm on the wrong layer. But layered text can't be beat for quickly creating a stack of buttons with different labels.

The Context-Sensitive Tools Options Bar

Technically, this improvement falls under the broader heading of "improved user interface," which Adobe has put a lot of effort into in Photoshop 6. And the company has done a nice job. The dialogue boxes are much cleaner, better organized, and full of functionality. But the UI improvement that makes the "Six Greatest" list is the new horizontal contextual tool bar (see Figure 3).

The funny thing is, I've never really liked contextual tool bars before. In my former life as a print production specialist, I hated the darn thing when it was introduced in Pagemaker. I just continued using key strokes and dialogue boxes. Then GoLive CyberStudio (now Adobe GoLive) took this concept to new heights (and sometimes lows). Some nights I'd catch myself fooling around with the contextual editor for 10 minutes instead of just entering three minutes of source code. Boy, did I feel stupid.

But Photoshop 6's contextual tool bar isn't like either of those scenarios. It actually saves you mouse clicks.

Let's go back to our new friend, the Text Tool. Once you've created text right on the canvas, you'll see that the contextual tool bar is showing all sorts of nifty type-related options such as typeface, point style, alignment, and so on. So not only is the dreaded type dialog box for entering eliminated, but you don't have to use it for styling either.

Figure 3: The Context-Sensitive Tools Options Bar is a definite improvement that will save you time during image editing.

But that's only the half of it. Now let's say that I want to use the Paintbrush Tool. The contextual tool bar changes accordingly to display the associated options such as mode and opacity. But how's it going to handle all the different brush tips that are available? I just click on the brush option, and the palette drops down and stays open until I make my choice. Very nice.

It's actually fun to click on the various tools and check out the options in the contextual tool bar. You can dock the tool bar at the top of the screen, float it, or hide it all together if you think it's a waste of real estate. Also, it does toggle on and off with the Tab key just like the other tool bar and palettes.

Annotation Tools

Photoshop's new Annotation tools were a source of great joy and disappointment too. Let me explain.

The Annotation set consists of a Notes Tool and an Audio Annotation Tool. You use these to attach notes to Photoshop files that can be read by other folks, such as clients, during the development process. What's even cooler about this functionality is that the files and annotations can be saved as PDFs. So your clients don't even need Photoshop to review the document and your notes—all they need is the free Acrobat Reader.

The Notes Tool adds a little icon to the canvas that pops up as a yellow sticky note when double-clicked (see Figure 4). The note can be moved around the canvas and resized. If you use the Save As command in Photoshop to save the image as a PDF file, the note opens in Acrobat Reader too, although it isn't editable there.

As much as I liked the new Notes Tool, I was thrilled with its counterpart: the Audio Annotation Tool. With it you can place a little speaker icon on the canvas, hit the record button in its dialogue box, and speak into your computer's microphone. Your audio notes are saved with the file and can be played back by your clients and co-workers.

My disappointment is that the current version of Acrobat Reader for the Mac doesn't support the audio annotations—only the written ones. What a missed opportunity! The only saving grace is that other non-Mac Photoshop users can play back the audio, but that limits its usefulness tremendously.

I'm hoping that Adobe will correct the audio shortcoming soon so we can enjoy both written and audio annotations on the Mac. This can be a very helpful tool for projects with team members in different locations.

Figure 4: The Notes Tool is part of the Annotation Tools set that let you add comments to your Photoshop files. You can now save your comps as PDFs so anyone with Acrobat Reader can open and read the notes.

Slice Tools Added to Photoshop

The addition of Slice Tools to Photoshop represent Adobe's effort to clarify the difference between Photoshop and ImageReady. With this latest version of both applications, we can now safely say that Photoshop is for the manipulation of static images and ImageReady is designed to animate those images.

Figure 5: The Slice Tool has moved over from ImageReady to Photoshop.

Moving the Slice Tools from ImageReady to Photoshop is consistent with that clarification (see Figure 5). Many times, after an image is finalized, I'll slice it up to help it load faster. Sometimes I'll apply different levels of compression to the slices to reduce the loading time further.

For example, if I have a complex graphic that contains the company logo plus solid areas of color and textured background, I may apply less compression to the logo in order to retain as much detail and clarity as possible. I can manage these different levels of compression by slicing the image and optimizing the slices individually.

Now, if I wanted to animate the slices, such as create rollovers, then I could move the sliced graphic into ImageReady to finish the job.

There are all sorts of things you can do with slices such as add URL links, unique alt tags, and JavaScript messages. Photoshop 6 supports all of these nifty slicing tricks.

Print Preview Saves You Ink

Even the most dyed-in-the-wool e-publisher has to print images on occasion. Often those prints are produced by ink jet printers that provide excellent quality but at the price of expensive ink cartridges that dry up way too fast.

Plus, when I'm in a hurry, the last thing I want to do is spend my time and money running test prints in order to position the image properly and make sure all my marks are in the right place. Now, thanks to the new Print Options dialogue box, I can see how the page will print without sacrificing a single microdrop of ink.

Not only can you see your optional registration, crop, and printer's marks, but also your captions and labels too. The best part, however, is the positioning of the image on the page. You can size it on the fly, then, amazingly grab and drag it anywhere you want. You can then specify the halftone screen and color profile.

Now, when you hit the Print button, you have a pretty good idea of what's coming out of the printer. And considering the speed (or lack thereof) that most of these printers lumber along at, you're going to have a hard time deciding if you're more happy about the extended life of your ink cartridges, or the time you save not staring at the print monitor box.

Unlimited Layers

Adobe talks about the "enhanced layer management" in Photoshop 6. The improvements include allowing you to color-code layers for quick identification of relationships, to create layer sets that reside neatly in folders, and to lock down layers to prevent accidental editing.

But the one layer enhancement that really jumped out at me was that Photoshop 6 now allows you to create an unlimited number of layers. In other words, if you've got the hard disk space, you can create and manage as many layers as you need.

The Bottom Line

Is Photoshop 6.0 worth the $199 upgrade? I think that depends on how much you use it. In some ways it's hard to justify an upgrade price tag that exceeds the complete price of other capable packages such as Ulead's PhotoImpact 6, which you can download from its site for $89.

On the other hand, Photoshop 6 is a work of art. The already friendly user interface has been improved to near-elegance, the functionality is superb, and integration with other Adobe products is seamless. Personally, I think the new text engine alone warrants serious consideration of the steep price tag.

If you're already using Photoshop everyday to pay the rent, then you'll recover that $199 in the four hours of time that you'll most likely save the first couple of weeks using it. It's that good.