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This is very rare in my educational experience, but for once, I am at a school that encourages using the absolute latest version of a software! I obviously think this is a great idea since being up to date and well-versed in the software that the industry is using is so crucial.

Anyway, so RMIT’s photography department (or the Creative Media department as a whole) is encouraging everybody to get their hands on Adobe Photoshop CS3 as quickly as they can.

So that is exactly what I did. I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop CS3 now for a little over a month and I can definitely say that this is worth the upgrade.

When Photoshop CS2 came out, the changes and improvements in it were good but they weren’t worth the price of the upgrade in my opinion — especially if you were using it for photo purposes. At the time, Photoshop CS was sufficient enough for most photographic tasks and CS2 was just a minor upgrade to the suite. Sure, it made life easier in some ways, but it didn’t necessarily make life better nor did it make it any faster. Adobe Photoshop CS2 ran with an unimaginable slowness when first starting up. Even after disabling some of the pre-loading sequences and files, the startup time for Photoshop CS2 was almost unbearable. Sometimes, I would leave the program open just sitting in my task bar simply because I didn’t want to wait for the program to startup if I wanted to edit one photo.

The recent upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS3 solved all those speed problems and general kinks I had with Photoshop CS2. Compared to the startup time of CS2, Photoshop CS3 feels like a bullet coming out of a gun. It is so unbelievably fast. I can’t emphasize that enough. It is just that much faster than its predecessor.

Also, the new additions and improvements in Photoshop CS3 are so good towards photographers and retouch enthusiasts. “Smart objects” are smarter (heh) and more streamlined into the whole work flow process in the application. Managing and working with RAW files and DNG files is easier than ever. Even HDR is better, especially when used with smart object adjustments.

Of course, Adobe Photoshop CS3 comes with the next Bridge upgrade aptly named Adobe Bridge CS3. It’s what you would expect with Bridge, but with a better looking interface and cooler looking metadata features and displays. It’s a good photo management tool if you can’t get your hands on Adobe Lightroom.

Along with the upgrade to Photoshop CS3, RMIT is also encouraging students to try and get their hands on Adobe Lightroom, an application geared specifically towards photographers and people working with digital image files. Honestly, I gave one of the beta versions of Lightroom some testing a while back and I didn’t fall in love with it. It was slow, cumbersome, and just a bit of a memory hog. In the version 1.1 release, Adobe Lightroom is none of these.

Adobe Lightroom runs a heck of a lot faster now (maybe it’s a faster computer since the beta testing days…maybe not) and it handles all of my files with an ease and efficiency unlike any other program. Before using Lightroom, I used Adobe Bridge as my photo organizer of choice, but since installing Lightroom, I think I’ve crossed applications for this task.

As a general note, I really love how Adobe made the logos and the splash images for the applications in the Adobe Creative Suite all color gradients with large white letters corresponding to the application’s name. I think this look is a much better suit than the previous feather thingamajig. This application logo scheme also makes it easier to quickly pinpoint the program in the taskbar and/or dock.

Maybe I’m liking Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Lightroom so much because I’m actually getting proper training in using it here at RMIT. It’s a wonder how different the class structures are between Parsons and RMIT. Parsons, supposedly one of the top design schools in the world, have nothing on the RMIT professors and experts in terms of teaching programs like Adobe Photoshop. I’m only a month into my classes here and already I feel like I’ve gained more knowledge with Photoshop than I did in a whole 2 years at Parsons.