Adobe Photoshop 7.0: what's the scoop?

[Phil St. Romain]

I don't have a copy, but have intentions of getting it soon.

What's its performance like on OS X?

[metiure]

as we should expect:cool:

[Welles Goodrich]

I've been exploring PS7 for a couple of days, still doing my 'real' work in 9.2.2 because I have a huge number of plug-ins which haven't been rewritten for OSX yet but they all work fine in PS7 running in OS9.2.2. As a result I've been able to compare the two quite well. Understand that I have only a 400MHz G4 AGP 1.5GB RAM installed. So far, my impressions are that PS7 is faster in OSX than in 9.2.2. The response seems even crisper than PS6 booted in 9.2.2 was (I almost never use Classic) and the new features add up to a substantial upgrade, not 'merely' for it's compatibility with OSX.

Only one somewhat widespread issue has been discovered so far. The first version of the Sawtooth G4's have some hardware incompatibility with the Altivec Core plug-in and it causes them to crash fairly often with a complete system freeze, not just Photoshop 7 crashing. It is resolved by putting a ~ before the name of the plugin which deactivates it. Adobe is aware of this issue and is working on a fix. Parenthetically, my G4 was a second generation AGP and doesn't suffer this flaw.

In my case, i discovered one little problem to be aware of, perhaps.After configuring all the preferences in Photoshop 7 on an OS 10.1.4 partition, it would not launch, hanging at memory configuration and then quitting with the following message...

"Could not initialize Photoshop because you do not have the necessary access privileges."

Exploration of the issue proved that the problem lay in the fact that I have two hard drives each of which has a scratch disk on it. I had selected my two scratch disks in Photoshop's preferences without thinking of the larger aspect of OSX's need for privileges. The issue was resolved by using SharePoints - 2.0.5 (http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo.fcgi?id=12512&db=mac) to create read/write permissions among the various partitions.

Cheers!
Welles

[lerkfish]

played with it some....haven't used the different features yet.
I was surprised that the font used for menu lists was nearly unreadable...I think its not aliased or something (odd).
Unfortunately, it wont accept the plugin for my canoscan 650u, even though it works fine in classic and photoshop 5.5...any hints out there for scanning?

In general I'd say its just fine...some of the familiar things are in not so familar places, but that I'll get used to in time. I like how saving is more configurable, but since I jumped from 5.5 to 7.0, I'm not sure if that's new to 6.0 users.

[bahamutX]

Generally PS 7 is ok. If you want Photoshop in X, then get it. I'm sure that there will be more Photoshop Plugins in the near future and if there are any bugs, Adobe will release a patch A.S.A.P.

[sao]

Works well under X, same quality as always. Save me a lot of time.

Cheers...

[Phil St. Romain]

Quick question: does the upgrade work for v. 5.5, or do you need 6.0?

Anyone know?

[Welles Goodrich]

Yes, the upgrade works with 5.5. Actually it will work with v4 and onward. You need your 'legacy' serial number and PS7 provides a totally new serial # and complete install. It doesn't install over an older version. You also need to supply your 'legacy' serial number on the Plugins and Scratch disk preferences panel to allow you to use your old plugins. All your old plugins will work in PS7 running under 9.2 but not under OSX. They need to be carbonized. So far, only AlienSkin has done so with EyeCandy 4000 and their new release Splat.

Cheers!

[RacerX]

suggested by Welles Goodrich
Yes, the upgrade works with 5.5. Actually it will work with v4 and onward.

I was under the understanding that it would work all the way back to version 3.0. I have version 3.0 and the upgrade to 6.0 (using my 3.0 serial number), and I was told that when the time came that I was ready to upgrade (saving up those pennies :D ), I only needed my current installation (using my current serial number) and the 7.0 upgrade and the new serial number that comes with it.

Hope Adobe wasn't giving me bad info. I was also under the impression that I could (again, when ready) upgrade to GoLive 6.0 from my PageMill 3.0 for the $99.00 upgrade price.

[Welles Goodrich]

Racer X,

Believe what Adobe told you. If you registered your serial number it will work. Someone on the Adobe Photoshop Forum said that they had been upgrading since three also. Somewhere I read that PS4 factoid, but it may have been that you can only register PS4 and up, even if you get a brand new unit which had never been registered.

Hmmm, I'm going to keep my eyes open for further information.

[Reddog]

From the Read Me file for version 7.0:

"If you are upgrading from a version of Photoshop prior to Photoshop 4.0, you will need to contact customer service at 800-492-3623."

So it appears that you can upgrade, it's just a little more trouble.


Pat

[RacerX]

I wonder if they mean people who are still using a pre-4.0 version? I'm currently using 6.0.1 on my system. I had heard that (like Acrobat 5) the upgrade installer looks for a previous versions on your system (and in my case that would be 6.0.1).

The Acrobat 5 upgrade took me by surprise. I had removed Acrobat 4 to make room for 5 thinking it would only need my serial number. In the long run it actually helped having both on my system though. Capture works better in 4 than 5, and 5.0.5 run natively in Mac OS X.

[Welles Goodrich]

Reddog,

Thanks for that! It clears up my confusion.

RacerX,

I'm nearly certain it means that if you attempt to upgrade directly from PS3 or earlier to PS7 you need to call Adobe. There was a post on the PS Forum from a person who has been using his PS3 serial number right along through each upgrade since then and he just performed a regular upgrade using his original serial number with no problems. You should have no problem at all.

[Phil St. Romain]

I squeaked in on the last day of a $50.00 rebate for the upgrade version on Amazon.com. Although I don't come close to using the potential of this app, it's nice to have it when I do need it in OS X. I can now scan directly into it using my Canon N67OU, which I bought today.

Which means . . . NO MORE CLASSIC!

Ta da!

[RacerX]

I'm still $125.00 (though Jadey said something about $99.00 on Amazon.com last week) way from getting the upgrade. I think I may wait until after I get a eMac though.

Good ol' Classic ball and chain...

;)