Many of you may have noticed there is a lot of buzz about this Web thing. Well, Adobe never to let dust settle upon them, have decided to update Photoshop to accomodate the Web and make it much easier for Web producers worldwide. And if that wasn't enough they threw in ImageReady 2.0 to boot. Photoshop does have some nice features thrown in for web production and even some incredible background removal tools, but the star of the show is really ImageReady 2.0.
When Adobe first released ImageReady 1.0, it was received with open arms. Many web developers were wishing for such a product for a long time. ImageReady does an incredible job of helping one compress their images down while doing it in such an elegant manner. It seemed to have everything we ever wanted but unfortunately fell short in a couple areas. Slicing of graphics was minimally supported and Type layers never seem to speak exactly the same language as Photoshop. Because of this, many of us had to turn to Fireworks (Macromedia's answer to a web graphics application), for slicing. Fireworks did handle image slicing and since it didn't even bother to try to read Type layers in, we left it at that. Many of us felt more comfortable using ImageReady with it's noble lineage stemming from Photoshop than anything spawning from Macromedia, but we really had little choice. Fireworks had slice objects and ImageReady did not. That is until now.

Adobe has once again come to the rescue. Slices... ImageReady 2.0 has what you're looking for – and then some! Not only can you automatically generate slices from guides, you now can interactively create, combine, divide, link, and name slices. Rollovers are implemented nicely into the whole mix, also. I could go on and on about the slicing features, but it is best summed up by saying you will not be disappointed.

ImageReady now is compatible with Photoshop Type and Effects layers. You now enter type directly within the image area, a la Illustrator. Many Web producers toil everyday with type being readable within their graphics, so it is nice to see Adobe include such nice features as underlining, faux bolding and italicizing, and the ability to turn off fractional widths. Three levels of anti-aliasing are still included and have migrated over into Photoshop's type dialog. A nifty 2-Up and 4-Up Optimize view has been added. Optimizations settings can now be saved for use on other graphics.

Other enhancements include creation and editing of Effects layers. This is implemented with a new Styles submenu within the Layers palette. Styles can also be created and saved from various Effects layers and applied to other artwork. Actions can now be created and edited. QuickTime movies can be converted to animations with incredible control. And more creative tools have found their way over from Photoshop to make this update feel more of a true stand-alone application as opposed to a Photoshop utility it felt as in 1.0. Adobe has decided to include ImageReady directly within Photoshop and is referring to it as a component of Photoshop 5.5. This leaves many of us wondering what Photoshop 6.0 will become.

But what about Photoshop? Isn't this a review about Photoshop? Well, yes it is meant to be a review of the entire product. I feel ImageReady is the best part about this release. Photoshop does have some remarkable additions, such as Save for Web and Extract Image. But my favorite addition to Photoshop is the inclusion of a Web palette. Silly but it has been a long time coming.

More information on Photoshop 5.5 can be found here from Adobe's site.

InSummary: If you produce graphics on the Web, buy this product. It's as simple as that. If you find yourself eliminating foreground images from backgrounds often, think about buying it. If you only produce images for print and hardly ever extract elements from backgrounds then wait for 6.0.

Rating: 8.2 out of 10
Web producers unite and take over.