So unless you have been living in a hole for the past little bit, then you will have noticed that Photoshop CS3 has been released. And of course like a bleeding edge techie, I decided to opt for the digital download and jump on board at 8 AM the day it came out. I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning. Eager to get up try out my new toy.

Then it happened. Like a freight-train over my excitement, I got the dreaded Photoshop CS3 Beta uninstall issue. The now infamous words have been burned into my skull, "Do not drag the Photoshop CS3 application folder into the trash and delete". Thus I spent the next 2 days trying to figure out how to get rid of this darn Photoshop CS3 Beta.

In the end, it all came down to re-formatting my entire HD just to get rid of this "adobe diarrhea beta code".

But I digress, after all this headache there is light at the end of the tunnel. As soon as the reinstall of my system was done and I had installed CS3 without any complication I was once again a happy camper.

At first glance, Photoshop CS3 looks a lot different from its predecessor. With a bit of a cleaner look and a different what it displays some of it palettes. But after a couple minutes of messing around with the GUI you will begin to realize that it’s good ole faithful Photoshop.

A couple of the features I enjoy most about the new release:

1. Panorama Stitching: In this new release, panorama stitching has had some much needed love. I am blown away by how well it stitches together photos now. I can stitch 5-10 photos together without having to go back and re-edit a lot of the minor detail glitches.

2. Smart Filters: It just works. Using smart filters on a sharpen layer or a shadow/highlight layer will tremendously increase your fine tune-ability in Photoshop. No more having to re-do a layer just because you had your sharpen a tad to much or your shadow/highlight detail a bit off. It’s just a matter of double-clicking on the layer and you can readjust easily.

3. Intel Support: If there was one thing I dreaded about getting an Intel Mac, it was thinking about how Photoshop CS2 ran in Rosetta, and it was painful. With this new release of Photoshop CS3 it runs completely native on my Intel Mac and it purrs like a kitten. There are still a few hangs here and there, but a major improvement in speed

Well those are some of my random thoughts on the launch of and running Photoshop CS3. It has been a rather love/hate relationship thus far but I imagine over time it will just keep getting better and better. If you had any adventures with the CS3 launch, or are scared about making the transition, I’d love to hear your feedback and comments.