To coincide with the official announcement of Photoshop CS3, Martin Evening has released a sample chapter from his forthcoming book: Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers, published by Focal Press. Here’s the summary of his overall impressions of Adobe Photoshop CS3:

“…The new Camera Raw 4.0 plug-in shares the same new image adjustment controls as will be found in the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom program. And as was pointed out, these new Camera Raw controls can now be applied to any image, not just to raw files. Therefore I would say that if you were to buy only Photoshop CS3, then there is actually quite a lot on offer photographers in this upgrade of Photoshop. If on the other hand you intend to buy Lightroom, or will choose to rely on some other third party program to process and manage your digital captures, then there may be less compelling reasons for you to upgrade.

My own personal view is that I very much like the new Photoshop CS3 interface design. I am also enthused by the new things you can do with features such as the Align Content feature and how this has been implemented to enhance Photomerge, which have all featured in this introductory chapter. I would also rate the new Clone Source palette for providing accurate clone control, the Black and White adjustment and new Curves dialog and even Brightness/Contrast, for improved pixel editing. The Refine Edges command has a lot of great potential, especially as you can use it to edit layer masks as well as selections…”

Website : Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers from Martin Evenin

Download : Introductory chapter - What’s New in Adobe Photoshop CS3 (PDF)