Photoshop's New Era (at least for me)

I just loved reading Steve Simon's latest post about the abuses of Photoshop. Switching heads and adding fake moons has irritated me for years. So much so, that I've tried to swear off Photoshop many times.

Then I started playing with the beta versions of the upcoming version of Photoshop CS4, and I fell in love all over again. Why? Because this latest version of Photoshop takes a much broader view of what photographers really need. Yes, you get all the new goodies such as the merging technologies. But now you also get tools that help you with your everyday work, and they're designed in a way to promote best practices.

Now I must tell you, I am a big fan of Apple's Aperture. It is the final destination for all of my images. But there are scenarios when I need Photoshop too. And here are a few:

• My photo assistant hands me a DVD of the 100 images she's contributing to our latest wedding assignment. I put the DVD in my Mac and point Bridge to it. There I can quickly review her work, look at the metadata, and provide her feedback on the spot. I'm not going to load those images into my Aperture library because they are not mine.
• I have a series of images that I want to merge into a panorama. I can point Bridge to that folder, initiate the merge from Bridge, and have the final stitched picture sent back to the same directory as the originals.
• I just finished a shoot with a client and want to show them the images on my 30" Cinema display. I'm not ready to load them into Aperture yet, where I add metadata and organize the shots. I just want to show the client the pictures now. I put the memory card in the reader and point Bridge to it. I don't even transfer the images, just read them off the card.

These are just three scenarios of many where I need Photoshop and its bundled tools. And I can't even talk about the new ones that are in CS4 yet (I don't think!). When I first saw this beta, I knew I wanted to write a book about it. The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers is that book. I write more about it in this Digital Story post.

I won't be giving up my existing tools at all. But finally, I can employ Photoshop for more than just selective area edits.