[Daryl Pritchard]

Hello All,

I need to remember that the Photoshop for Windows user forum isn't the only forum in town...I apologize for not sharing this notice here at an earlier date.

For those of you who may use Extensis PhotoTools, I've again remapped all menu items to a new set of toolbars and buttons for the PhotoBars CS Supplement. I've been informed that Extensis has discontinued support of PhotoTools for Photoshop CS, so be advised that we are stuck with any problems that might arise in the use of PhotoTools and PhotoBars. Thus far, I've heard of no problems from anyone but I did encounter the occasional, random case of the Extensis menu not appearing during the course of devleoping PhotoBars CS.

All details regarding PhotoBars CS are provided on my website at http://jazzdiver.com/photoshop/photobars.htm.

Please note that while I am not providing a free update to PhotoBars CS for users of PhotoBars 6 or 7, the remapping fee is a minimal charge of $8. For those who'd rather not pay the fee, you may prefer to just create your own set of custom toolbars if you don't have many buttons to be concerned with. The service I provide is merely one of convenience for those interested.

Thanks,

Daryl

[DannyRaphael]

A quick aside for those who may not be familiar with PhotoBars...

PhotoBars is among several tools in the Extensis PhotoTools product.

If you're familiar with (say) Microsoft Word or Excel where you create custom toolbars and assign buttons to them, PhotoBars provides equivalent functionality, though not implemented quite the same way.

Just imagine only having to click a button (with a unique, easy to recognize icon) to invoke Unsharp Mask or Add a "Hide All" layer mask, etc. If it drives you nuts to hunt through Photoshop menus all the time, PhotoBars is a very attractive alternative.

- - - - - - - - -

Daryl:

Your ongoing support of PhotoBars over the years is greatly appreciated by many, yours truly included.

It probably says on your website, but for the benefit of folks who aren't familiar with your handiwork, what's the minimum version of Photo Tools one needs to apply the PhotoBars CS upgrade.

Thanks again for all your hard work. KEEP IT UP!
~Danny~

[Daryl Pritchard]

Hi Danny,

Thanks for the kudos. To avoid any extra costs, the minimum required version of PhotoTools needed is 3.0. With that version, a user is then qualified to download the most current update from Extensis, which stands as version 3.0.6 and which is the version truly required for use with Photoshop 6.0 and later. To confuse things a bit further, there have actually been two versions 3.0.6 releases because Extensis didn't roll the version number when they updated PhotoTools for some fixes for Photoshop 7.0. The best way perhaps to identify that you have the current version is to simply download it again. But, if one inpects the file properties of the installer and sees the Copyright has been extended through 2002, then that should be the correct version.

Adding to your comments on PhotoBars, I'll add that while I do think PhotoBars is very helpful and one of the best plug-ins ever provided for PhotoShop, the same no longer is true of the rest of the PhotoTools suite due to improvements in Photoshop itself. So, if one can still purchase PhotoTools from Photoshop, it is not truly worth the $150 cost in my opinion. However, if you could find it somewhere for, let's say $50, then I think PhotoBars itself is worth that. The reason I charge only a small fee for my PhotoBars supplment is because I don't have intellectual property rights to the software itself and am simply providing a service of remapping the buttons and extending the toolbar set...which anyone else could do if they wanted to invest the time in that.

Regards,

Daryl