Zoomify Browsing with Photoshop CS3

Is file size bothering you while placing high-quality images on a Web page? CS3 provides a way out of this and much more

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

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Want to explore a particular area of a map or an image on a Web page and make high-resolution images zoom on your website? Then try Photoshop CS3's Zoomify. Apart from this there's a lot more that CS3 offers-Bridge CS3, Camera Raw enhancements, Adobe Photo Downloader and an enhanced PDF support-which help meet the diverse needs of professionals. Let's check these out.

Zoomify
Photoshop CS3's Zoomify feature lets you export high-resolution images to a web page and enables viewers to zoom into them. A tool called 'Zoomify Export' in CS3 includes everything you need to use high-quality images on a website. It gives you an HTML file with 'zoomable' content integrated into it. A small intuitive 'viewer' is also added to the same. All you have to do is upload this web page to a website and you are ready to go. To use Zoomify Export, just open Photoshop CS3, select File>Export>Zoomify and set export options like the image size in the viewer's browser, image tile options and image background. On the web page you can zoom in or out of the image or map as much as you want; Zoomify renders only the part you are viewing at, the file size being the same as a .jpg file.

The user doesn't need any special setup on his/her machine. Zoomify just involves JPEG, HTML and Flash. Web designers, especially Photoshop users, now have the opportunity to publish high-resolution images to a website rather than throwing them away or spending time reducing their resolution. Any web browser can view, using the Zoomify Viewer, a tiny Flash movie that will zoom and pan your zoomified images.

Bridge CS3
The Bridge CS3 has file stacks for efficiently organizing and batch-processing, an inbuilt Loupe tool and a new previewing support.

The loupe tool lets you magnify specific areas without zooming the entire image (view even the pixels of a portion of the image). Organizing files has now become easier-file stacks help you to place multiple photos of the same subject at one place, reducing the clutter in the content panel and the time to search. Create a stack of selected images by choosing Stacks >Group.The new preview support feature helps you compare multiple images in the preview panel. You can now preview several images at the same time.

Use Zoomify to export high-resolution images to a website. Zoom into a particular portion by either clicking the mouse on the area or using the slide bar at the bottom of the image. Zoomify will render only the magnified part of the image

Compared to the Bridge tool in CS2, this one in CS3 is pretty fast and renders the process of sorting and ranking images more efficiently. In CS3 you can make important images more prominent in the folder and prepare a slideshow of these images.

On the left of the Bridge CS3 screen, you see Adobe Stock Photos tool, Version Cue tool and many others. Clicking the Adobe Stock Photos enables users behind corporate firewalls to access Adobe Stock Photos through a proxy server. These images can open directly in Photoshop and other applications without leaving Adobe Stock Photos. You can easily download high-resolution EPS images too. Version Cue is a client/server-based file management system that helps your workgroup centrally manage design files. The clients are integrated into each of the applications and they all communicate with the Version Cue Server. From Photoshop or Bridge you can connect to a Version Cue server without having an IP address. Version Cue is integrated in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign and other creative applications within the Creative Suite. Adobe uses Apple's Bonjour technology to enable the connectivity to Version Cue servers on a LAN. Bonjour is used throughout Mac OS X and Windows applications like iTunes to allow users to set up a network service without any configuration.

The new Bridge CS3 feature in Photoshop can be accessed from File>Close and Go To Bridge. The tool lets you organize files, magnify specific areas without zooming the entire image and compare multiple images in preview panel

The Camera Raw
Camera Raw isn't just for Raw files. You can use its controls on .jpeg and .tiff files too. Included with CS3 is the new version of Camera Raw that offers you new features through which you can use the Camera Raw dialogue to edit .jpeg, .tiff and Raw images. In the dialog box you see few sliders-Fill Light Slider, Recovery Slider and Vibrance Slider. Fill Light Slider is just like shadow/highlight command in Photoshop while Recovery Slider lets you pull back some of the highlights without having to lower the exposure. The Vibrance Slider increases the saturation of under-saturated areas in your photo. Adding to this, a wonderfully designed, intuitive Parametric Curve adjustment makes it easy to adjust your image.

Selecting an image shows the preview. Click anywhere on the preview and the portion magnifies

Adobe Photo Downloader (APD)
Adobe Photo Downloader is a component of Bridge CS3 to copy files from a camera or a card reader. To use APD, simply connect a camera to your computer or insert a card in a connected card reader. You can access APD from Bridge CS3. Open Photoshop CS3 and select File>Close and Go To Bridge. After opening the Bridge screen, select File>Get Photos from Camera. This feature imports images from a camera or from a card reader directly into Bridge. You can import the images straight into Bridge and also rename, convert to DNG, save copies to an external drive, sort into sub-folders and embed copyright info all at the time of import.

Enhanced PDF support
With CS3, you can work more easily with Adobe PDF-based content, precisely control the size of PDF pages opened in Photoshop and create a richer image display in PDF presentations and documents. PDF slideshows and presentations are a little easier to create and more information can be embedded into them. Photoshop PDF files are now compatible with Acrobat 8.

Adobe Stock Photos screen showing the images available for download

New print dialogue screen
The print dialogue box is much more comprehensive, containing a lot more functions in one box. There is print with preview, paper orientation and scaling, color management options and other print commands. The new print command in Photoshop CS3 gives one-shot printing, which means that selecting the print command gives you one dialogue box containing all print commands and the preview.

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