Photoshop CS3 now available as a beta test

Adobe has released a beta test of the newest version of Photoshop for Macintosh, Microsoft Windows XP, and Windows Vista computers. The beta is available to current licensed users of Photoshop CS2, Adobe Creative Suite 2, Adobe Production Studio, Adobe Video Bundle, or Adobe Web Bundle. The final shipping release of Adobe Photoshop CS3 is planned for spring 2007. One of the most touted features is an updated interface, designed to bring Photoshop CS to other Adobe applications in terms of how the menu buttons look. The intention is to make it easier to navigate between multiple Adobe programs. Maybe I sound ignorant here, but wouldn't that make it more confusing? I like the archaic look of my Adobe Pagemaker 7.0 in contrast to Photoshop; I can identify them with ease.

On his blog Living Photoshop, Scott Byer had this to say:

The new UI can test Windows XP video drivers a little more, so you may want to make sure you have those updated, especially if you see some problems. I like the new palette panes, but they do take getting used to, so give them a chance. There are legacy workspaces in there if you really need the floating palettes back. Vista support is in there, too.

As for performance, you should see start up times that are much lower than for CS2. We've really worked hard on this - there's more to go, of course, this is just a beta. Oh, and as for comparing performance between platforms now that they use the same chip and we're a Universal Binary on the Macintosh, well, I just don't think such comparisons are valid - there are so many variables involved: number of processors, system memory bandwidth, disk I/O bandwidth, OS scheduling, API performance. So if you see sites claiming that one platform or the other performs better, take it with a big grain of salt - I do.

You can download the test version here. A serial number from one of the programs listed above is required to make it past the two-day grace period.