Adobe Photoshop CS2

Adobe Photoshop CS2 is considered the premiere program for use in creating graphics for the web, manipulating photographs and creating art.

Photoshop CS2 was released in 2005 and introduced a number of features and innovations, including the ability to create GIF animations with an Animation palette. Filters were upgraded to 16-bit capability and included the popular Liquify and Lens Blur filters.

Adobe Bridge were introduced in CS2. Bridge is a file browser that creates thumbnails for files and makes it easier to shift files between Photoshop and other Adobe programs such as InDesign and Illustrator. It also aids photographers with a slideshow mode and multiple-file processing and hands them the Red Eye tool, which can get rid of that common photographic effect.

One of the most highly-touted features of CS2 is Vanishing Point. Vanishing Point allows the user to create a perspective plane and then paint and clone an image to drastically cut down on time spent in image manipulation. For example, a user could take an image of a 5-story building, create a vanishing point and end extend the building to appear to be 13 stories in a seamless, realistic manner.

The Spot Healing Brush is another major feature of CS2. With it, the user can effectively erase a person from a picture and paint the background over as if the person was never there. The system will even analyze the picture and sample the best pixels to use for the "healed" area.

Optical Lens Correction is a handy tool that can correct a lot of common camera distortion flaws and even perspective errors. It creates an adjustable alignment grid for the user to manipulate the image with.

The Smart Sharpen filter further refines the ability to sharpen. Previously, multiple uses of the Sharpen tool broke the area into visible pixels and was of limited use. The Smart Sharpen added variations of the sharpening effect, which preserved the edge of the area and could enhance shadows or subtle highlights.

Smart Objects were part of the new Creation Acceleration concept, designed to speed up the creation of a new image. Smart Objects could be used to allow for scaling which could be reversed without damaging the quality, rotation and layer warping.

High Dynamic Range was a format introduced in CS2 that was originally made for creating lighting effects to simulate a 3D environment. The format stores quantity of light per pixel rather than colors. What this means is that an HDR file can store more colors than the human eye can see and can be saved in the TIFF or PSD format. CS2 introduced the ability to use HDR, allowing the user to adjust the luminosity of an image and light it in a way that is not possible by taking a photo while still allowing it to look natural.

Pros:

It's the premiere image-editing program

A mind-boggling suite of useful features

Cons:

This is a gigantic program. You will need a lot of free space.