Adobe Photoshop CS2 is a serious image-editing package, with advanced features beyond what the casual user will want or need. For example, in this release, Adobe introduces features targeted toward professional photographers moving to an all-digital work flow, such as support for 32-bit High Dynamic Range (HDR) images, allowing you to merge multiple exposures of a single image into one composite image. Along with Camera Raw 3.0 support, which lets you edit and process multiple raw images simultaneously, there's new support for the Adobe-backed Digital Negative (DNG) standard, a new archival format for the raw files generated by digital cameras. Professional photographers will also appreciate new tools in Photoshop, such as Reduce Noise, which now will increase a camera's useful ISO range, and Optical Lens Correction, a nifty tool that compensates for some common lens distortions. There are a few features aimed at amateurs, including red-eye correction and a spot-healing brush, which can erase people or objects from a photo and which works across all layers. The ability to manipulate multiple layers with ease is a welcome improvement in Photoshop CS2. New Smart Guides, allowing you to align items across different layers, should also save you from always clicking within the Layers palette. Smart Objects, yet another new feature, lets you nondestructively edit Illustrator artwork. And, finally, there's a long-desired WYSIWYG font menu in this release. Other new features offer a high gee-whiz factor but limited real-world use. For example, Vanishing Point provides automatic perspective correction within layers, making it easy to add new objects in context to old photos, but this feature requires powerful hardware to run smoothly. The Image Warp feature, already familiar to Illustrator aficionados, may be useful for visual distorting text on signs. When it comes to professional digital image editing, Adobe Photoshop CS2 stands head and shoulders above the competition.

Platform: Windows 2000, Windows XP

System Requirements: Processor: Intel Centrino, Xeon, Pentium 3 or 4, Hard Disk Space: 650 MB, Memory: 320 MB