Photoshop Review Reviewed

I am surprised by the technical errors and omissions in your review of Adobe Photoshop 4.0 ("A (Re)Touch of Genius," December). Layer masks are not new to Photoshop 4; they were introduced in version 3.0. They are not applied "to a selection within the layer"; they are specific to the entire layer to which they're attached. When using Actions, mistakes that occur during the recording process can often be corrected by editing the final Action itself instead of, as you suggest, "Recording Again." You can indeed merge adjustment layers; there must be a target image layer underneath the adjustment layers you want to merge. While it's true that you cannot "combine" the color/brightness corrections introduced by multiple adjustment layers into a single adjustment layer, keeping them separate allows the adjustment layers to be reordered at any time. This is more useful than simply merging adjustment layers. Adjustment layers do work with masked layers.

The sidebar on the Digimarc image watermark encryption technology in Photoshop is also inaccurate; applying a simple Gaussian blur to an encrypted image renders the encryption unreadable. You can add text to an existing layer by selecting the selection mode for the text tool while the desired target layer is active. Tr ue, you must fill the text with the desired color as a separate step; it would be nice to not have new layers generated when creating text in the default mode.

David Biedny
idig@nbn.com

I'm aware that layer masks appeared in version 3.0; the impression that it is new with version 4.0 was due to an editing error. A mask can be applied specifically to selected objects within a layer; the drop-down menu even includes selections to hide or reveal the objects. While you can correct mistakes by editin g final Actions, it's often easier to "Record Again," especially in complex revisions. An adjustment layer can be merged to the target layer below, but my point was that multiple adjustment layers cannot be merged to the same target layer, short of merging all the layers. Adjustment layers did not work with masked layers in the beta software I reviewed. They do in the shipping version.

According to Digimarc, watermarks DO survive normal edits, including sharpen and blur, scale, crop, color separation, and file-format conversion. Finally, regardless of which layer is selected, text is placed on its own layer for ease of manipulation. When adding lots of text, this feature is cumbersome. In that situation, adding the text to one target layer and refilling with color would be equally cumbersome. -- Joy-Lyn Blake, production assistant, The BYTE Site