The Duplicate Frame function gives you a head start-you just have to edit the part of the element that is different. For example, if you are adding an element to a video, you have to draw or paint that element, with slight variations, on each and every frame in which it will appear-a tedious process.
Photoshop Extended adds tools such as Duplicate Frame that greatly speed up the process of painting your movie by bringing the images from a previous frame’s layer into subsequent frames. Note that the Animation (Timeline) palette sometimes appears as an Animation (Frames) palette depending on the project. And, you can Clone from one frame to another or across multiple frames at once. The Animation (Timeline) palette also enables you to address individual frames within single layers, so you can edit the video frame by frame with familiar Photoshop tools including Clone, Text, and Scale. You can apply nondestructive adjustment layers to multiple frames and add graphic layers to some or all of the frames. You then use the new Animation (Timeline) palette to control the frame you’re working with. Importing is very quick in Photoshop Extended, with an eight-minute QuickTime movie taking only a few seconds. Photoshop Extended can import video files, and importing a video is as easy as adding a new layer and selecting a movie, which shows up as a Video Layer in the Layers panel. You can also export Measurement logs to a spreadsheet. The Measurement Log is persistent across files, which means it will keep logs for multiple image files. Once measurements are calculated, you can record them in tabular format using the new Measurement Log, which keeps track of data including width, height, area, units, scale, file name, and more. For instance, you could open a photograph of a building and apply 3-D planes to the various surfaces to incorporate perspective when applying or manipulating textures and images.
Photoshop CS2 included a feature called Vanishing Point that allowed you to apply 3-D planes to 2-D images.
And I have yet to see a 3-D application that can edit texture maps as easily and powerfully as Photoshop CS3 Extended.
Photoshop’s new 3-D capabilities are much more flexible, particularly for designers who do not create their own models. Often you’d have to repeat the process-with the clock ticking. While you could accomplish much of the same kind of object manipulation with a dedicated 3-D program, it would take time to get the view just right, export it as a 2-D image, and then open it in Photoshop. You still have access to additional layers, 2-D elements, and all the functionality of the standard Photoshop CS3 application, so working with 3-D elements can become part of your normal Photoshop or collaborative workflow. When you export the 3-D models from Photoshop into a 3-D format, the edited textures are maintained with the model.Īll of this 3-D manipulation is contained within the model layer. After you’re done editing, Photoshop Extended automatically updates the 3-D models along with the new texture map. You can access the various textures through the Layers pane and edit them within Photoshop using any of the program’s 2-D tools. If your 3-D model includes textures, Photoshop Extended preserves them. Keep in mind that only the model itself or the view of the model will rotate-not any underlying 2-D elements and layers. You can adjust the field of view to simulate various camera lenses if you are trying to match an image to an underlying 2-D background or scene. The Object Tool allows you to rotate the object itself. You use this tool to fly around the object, walk through a scene, or view a scene from any direction relative to the object. The Camera Tool allows you to move the “camera” that is viewing the model in 3-D perspective. The former gives the viewer a different perspective of the static object, while the latter actually moves the object. Photoshop Extended offers two ways to manipulate your view of the model: the Camera Tool and the Object Tool. I encountered no lags of any kind in rotating, cutting sections in, or moving the model. Performance on my test computer, a MacBook Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB of RAM, was snappy. You can even create cross-sections, or slices, of the model in real time and adjust the location of the sections with a slider control. After that you can scale, rotate, position, and render the model just as you would in any 3-D program. Layers with 3-D objects can co-exist with 2-D layers in the same document. The 3-D model automatically opens in its own Photoshop layer. Importing a 3-D object into a file is straightforward: you simply use the Open command from the File menu to navigate to and select your 3-D object.