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Author Topic: Photoshop CS4's new features  (Read 26323 times)

BernardLanguillier

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #20 on: September 23, 2008, 09:12:55 pm »

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Why as a Mac user is it less compelling? The 64 bit difference [the only fundamental difference between platforms] will be relevent to very few people .
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OK, so you are telling me I should spend 349 US$ of my hard earned cash to buy a software not delivering the feature I was expecting most on the ground that most of my fellow photographers don't need this feature?

I deal with very large files on a regular basis (last one was 6GB last week), and 64 bits would be meaningful for me.

I would have considered buying CS4 had is delivered enough value even without 64 bits, but my first overview of the announcement doesn't mention any single aspect I would beneft from.

The only thing is perhaps better Dreamwaver/PS integration, but I don't think it is worth 349 US$ for me.

Cheers,
Bernard

The View

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« Reply #21 on: September 23, 2008, 09:13:06 pm »

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Video walk-throughs of new features here: CS4 in Action

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Thanks for that link.
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hubell

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #22 on: September 23, 2008, 09:54:20 pm »

Quote
OK, so you are telling me I should spend 349 US$ of my hard earned cash to buy a software not delivering the feature I was expecting most on the ground that most of my fellow photographers don't need this feature?

I deal with very large files on a regular basis (last one was 6GB last week), and 64 bits would be meaningful for me.

I would have considered buying CS4 had is delivered enough value even without 64 bits, but my first overview of the announcement doesn't mention any single aspect I would beneft from.

The only thing is perhaps better Dreamwaver/PS integration, but I don't think it is worth 349 US$ for me.

Cheers,
Bernard
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Bernard:
CS4 includes a new focus bracketing capability for extending depth of field by stacking and blending multiple photos that have sharp focus in different areas. If it's well implemented, this should be very useful. I have Helicon Focus and it works well. Most of the other changes relevant to photographers seem to workflow related but I suspect you aren't having workflow issues so probably no big deal. There are somewhat more detailed descriptions of the new stuff on Adobe's web site.

Dinarius

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #23 on: September 24, 2008, 08:33:43 am »

On the 64bit issue..........

I use Vista Ultimate 64bit.

I have 8gb RAM.

How much more RAM will CS4 be able to see/address than CS3?

Any serious improvement would make it a must for me.

Thanks.

D.
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BernardLanguillier

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #24 on: September 24, 2008, 09:18:36 am »

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Bernard:
CS4 includes a new focus bracketing capability for extending depth of field by stacking and blending multiple photos that have sharp focus in different areas. If it's well implemented, this should be very useful. I have Helicon Focus and it works well. Most of the other changes relevant to photographers seem to workflow related but I suspect you aren't having workflow issues so probably no big deal. There are somewhat more detailed descriptions of the new stuff on Adobe's web site.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=223788\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Thanks.

I also do have Helicon Focus already... and often do it by hand also, which can indeed be time consuming.

So yes, it could be useful to have that in PS CS4 if it is well implemented.

Cheers,
Bernard

Dustbak

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #25 on: September 24, 2008, 09:23:53 am »

There are a few things I think would be usefull;

Focus bracketing/blending (mentioned a couple of posts before)
Better zooming (no longer you have to be at an even % to know for sure what you are looking at)
Better canvas handling (which comes in handy now & than)

Besides that I see few reasons to upgrade to CS4 maybe there are but sofar I haven't seen them. I think I will wait until CS5 for 64bit on the Mac. I have been waiting for CS3 to be able to use PS on my Intel Mac. I had to run bootcamp with XP and use CS2 to be able to get some decent performance and now Mac users have to wait again for the next version of PS to get the same kind of performance as PC users?  

Is this a trend or what?
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Christopher

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #26 on: September 24, 2008, 09:45:26 am »

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On the 64bit issue..........

I use Vista Ultimate 64bit.

I have 8gb RAM.

How much more RAM will CS4 be able to see/address than CS3?

Any serious improvement would make it a must for me.

Thanks.

D.
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If Adobe hasn't messed up. ;-) All of it. Or let's say close to all. (because you need some for the system)

I don't like most of the stuff, but love the 64bit. I'm running a a workstation with 16gb. So CS4 should be a lot faster handling larger pano files.
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digitaldog

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #27 on: September 24, 2008, 09:56:18 am »

There's a nice, to the point write up by Martin Evening about the new photo-centric features on Photoshop News:

http://photoshopnews.com/feature-stories/w...martin-evening/

As for the lack of 64 bit support on the Mac, part of the blame has to go to Apple for pulling the plug under Adobe about two years back. At least we have Lightroom running 64 bit.
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robertwatcher

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #28 on: September 24, 2008, 10:02:00 am »

How many here managed to watch the Live Release between 9:00 and 10:00 yesterday morning?

I registered for it a bit over a week ago and fortunately I remembered that I wanted to watch it at about 9:05 and scurried to get my laptop open to the feed. They had a few high end web and graphics professionals highlighting some of the newer features with the host providing most of the info plus some gags - - - it was a production much like an infommercial.

Among the changes are primarily integration of all their product line and a uniformity with all applications sharing the same familiar interface. Speed is apparently a noticeable difference - which is obviously more efficient use of code and from what I have heard, making use of graphics card power. More use of smart objects and linking to speed things up. Smart image resizing for Photoshop. Many 3D abilities that my Animator friend uses high end specialized applications for, are built into applications of the suit. And some things go beyond such as blending objects on layers into their example of a 3d wrapped sphere - and animating 2d images in flash by drawing the skeleton onto the graphic and having full control over the movement. They stated that their Macromedia product was only partly integrated in previosu versions but has now had 18 months of development to be fully integrated into the Adobe Lineup. The Master Suite includes all of their products (not Lightroom though) for $2500.00 - - - which while expensive, really isn't bad considering many specialized applications cost this much and more.


One thing that I have been playing with for the last year or so, is the content-aware scaling (smart image resizing) developed originally by Shai Avidan and sold to Adobe - - - this is fully integrated into Photoshop CS4 and is something that I will make good use of in my wedding book layouts or page layouts for graphics jobs or commercial clients. I do a lot of this type of thing manually now by selecting partes of images and resizing, but this feature makes it much easier and does a superior job. The cute demo they did in the live presentation, was fitting a "smart" VW van in between 2 other parked VW vans where the space was about half the length of the van - not only was this possible, but the proportions of the door handles, lights and other important details were kept in tact. For any who aren't aware of content-aware scaling, here is one of several videos describing:

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/photoshop-...-cs4-video.html

I skipped upgrading from CS2 to CS3 and am glad I did as this CS4 version appears to have a little more value for me as a result of 2 versions of advancement.

---
« Last Edit: September 24, 2008, 11:30:42 am by robertwatcher »
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PECourtejoie

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #29 on: September 24, 2008, 11:20:08 am »

Other gems were highlighted by John Nack: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/09/cs4_s...tails.html#more

Links to more reviews: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/09/cs4_on_the_floo.html

And another post about CS4 videos by Russell Brown: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/09/photoshop_cs4_v.html
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Raw shooter

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« Reply #30 on: September 24, 2008, 11:46:23 am »

ACR 5.x is enough.  Sometimes I wish it wasn't, but ACR has just become awesome through the years.  Any upgrade is just better.

Hopefully Bridge CS4 is fully re-vamped.  I love the 'promise' of what Bridge could be.  The previews give reason to hope.
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Dinarius

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #31 on: September 24, 2008, 12:06:43 pm »

Quote
If Adobe hasn't messed up. ;-) All of it. Or let's say close to all. (because you need some for the system)

I don't like most of the stuff, but love the 64bit. I'm running a a workstation with 16gb. So CS4 should be a lot faster handling larger pano files.
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Christopher,

Many thanks.

The increased RAM and the simultaneous release of ACR5 (I don't use Lightroom, only Flexcolor and ACR4) are reason enough for me to upgrade.

Hopefully, the dreaded "There is not enough memory" error (specific only to PC users of ACR, as far as I know) will be no more with these changes.

D.
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petermacc

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #32 on: September 24, 2008, 12:18:08 pm »

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Christopher,

Many thanks.

The increased RAM and the simultaneous release of ACR5 (I don't use Lightroom, only Flexcolor and ACR4) are reason enough for me to upgrade.

Hopefully, the dreaded "There is not enough memory" error (specific only to PC users of ACR, as far as I know) will be no more with these changes.

D.
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Hey I am upgrading for the GPU speed bump. I maxed out my macbook for photo editing and repair of photos and still run out of memory when doing applications in CS3!
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dandeliondigital

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« Reply #33 on: September 24, 2008, 12:32:17 pm »

Hi Ron,
After seeing a few of the new "improvements" I'm thinking that you've got it right:

Quote
I'm still thinking the cost of the PS CS4 upgrade will go towards the 5D Mark II. 
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If it were just a Photoshop upgrade it would be a no brainer, but this Microsoft-ish Suites Business Model Adobe has adopted doesn't cut it for me.

Also, I've loved plug-ins since version 2, but you know every upgrade seems to make it more trouble to work with them. With every upgrade you have compatibility and activation problems out the wazoo. By the time you've entered all the 28 digit crypto serial numbers a few times, times up!

I've got better things to do! Time is tight!

So long for now, TOM
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Schewe

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #34 on: September 24, 2008, 02:15:42 pm »

Quote
OK, so you are telling me I should spend 349 US$ of my hard earned cash to buy a software not delivering the feature I was expecting most on the ground that most of my fellow photographers don't need this feature?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=223781\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


Just to be perfectly clear, it's Apple's fault that Photoshop CS4 won't be able to run in 64 bit on Macs...At the 2006 World Wide Developer's Conference, Apple promised to make Carbon (the APIs that Photoshop uses) available as 64 bit libraries when Leopard (10.5) was released...Adobe took Apple at thier word and planned on the development of a 64 bit version of Photoshop CS4 for the Mac using those 64 bit Carbon APIs. At the 2007 WWDC, Apple announced that they decided to kill the Carbon APIs for Leopard and developers had to switch to Cocoa in order to take advantage of 64 bit. You don't just change over 4 million lines of code to an entirely new set of APIs overnight. Apple knew full well that killing the 64 bit Carbon APIs for Leopard would mean that Adobe couldn't release a 64 bit version of Photoshop CS4 for the Mac...

So, if you wanna be pissed at somebody, it's Apple you should be pissed at.

Apple has a long track record of changing their minds and changing their platform and forcing developers to jump through incredible hoops to remain on their platform...they did it when they switched from 68K to PPC, they did it when they switch to OS X, they did it when they switch to Intel and they've done it again when the decided to kill Carbon 64 bit.

And, it's not just Adobe who gets the short end of the stick...any and all developers who develop for the Mac platform are forced through the same hoops. PixelGenius has suffered having to switch OS's and compilers as Apple has forced these changes down our throats. But compared to what Adobe is faced with, taking over 4 million lines of code (and counting) and going from using Carbon APIs to Cocoa APIs, our problems were mild. If you don't understand the implications, just realize it will be tens of thousands of man hours to do the work to get Photoshop CS5 to run under Cocoa and be able to take advantage of 64 bit libraries and APIs. Something Apple could have avoided if they had kept their promise to deliver 64 bit Carbon. But, Apple seem more concerned with advancing the iPhone (which caused a 6 month delay in the release of OS X 10.5) than with providing an optimal platform for 3rd party developers...

Compare that with MSFT and Vista and it's remarkable how much MSFT goes through hoops HELPING developers rather than hurting them.

And understand, I don't like MSFT and I am an Apple fan...I hate Windows. But, if you want to run 64 bit Photoshop CS4 on a Mac, you'll have to install Bootcamp and Vista 64 bit to do so. I can tell you from testing this (I have a MacPro with 16 gigs of ram) the pain of doing so may actually be worth it for people working on large multi-layered files.

So, just be clear whose fault the lack of 64 bit processing for Carbon apps is: Apple.
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Raw shooter

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Photoshop CS4's new features
« Reply #35 on: September 24, 2008, 02:52:25 pm »

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Compare that with MSFT and Vista and it's remarkable how much MSFT goes through hoops HELPING developers rather than hurting them.

And understand, I don't like MSFT and I am an Apple fan...I hate Windows. But, if you want to run 64 bit Photoshop CS4 on a Mac, you'll have to install Bootcamp and Vista 64 bit to do so. I can tell you from testing this (I have a MacPro with 16 gigs of ram) the pain of doing so may actually be worth it for people working on large multi-layered files.
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Be careful, you might like Vista 64
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jjj

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« Reply #36 on: September 24, 2008, 02:58:38 pm »

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OK, so you are telling me I should spend 349 US$ of my hard earned cash to buy a software not delivering the feature I was expecting most on the ground that most of my fellow photographers don't need this feature?

I deal with very large files on a regular basis (last one was 6GB last week), and 64 bits would be meaningful for me.
No I said the major difference between the two is something that would affect few people. If you are one of the few, then yes it's a bummer.
Though there's an easy workaround, install the Windows version.  
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jjj

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« Reply #37 on: September 24, 2008, 03:00:49 pm »

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Hopefully Bridge CS4 is fully re-vamped.  I love the 'promise' of what Bridge could be.  The previews give reason to hope.
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Big improvement. Very nice to use.
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BernardLanguillier

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« Reply #38 on: September 24, 2008, 06:22:37 pm »

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No I said the major difference between the two is something that would affect few people. If you are one of the few, then yes it's a bummer.
Though there's an easy workaround, install the Windows version. 
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Unofrtunately, that is not an easy workaround... it is easy from an IT standpoint, but it isn't from a licensing standpoint.

I have bought PS CS as part of the Creative Suite on Mac, and I don't believe that I could only just swtich PS to Windows while keeping the rest of my apps on Mac. I have no intention to migrate back to PC at this point of time.

Cheers,
Bernard

BernardLanguillier

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« Reply #39 on: September 24, 2008, 06:27:42 pm »

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So, just be clear whose fault the lack of 64 bit processing for Carbon apps is: Apple.
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Jeff,

What I would like Adobe to do to address this situation is to release the 64 bits version of PS on Mac in 2 steps:

1. CS3.5 (or whatever it is called) with the same functionnal scope as CS3 but 64 bits compatible for OS10.5 using the new cocoa API set,
2. CS5 with the CS4 and CS5 new functions on 64 bits.

Point 1 is something they will have to do internally anyway, the cost of the release would only be the industralization of this as a public release. This could probably be delivered months before CS5.

Cheers,
Bernard
« Last Edit: September 24, 2008, 06:28:19 pm by BernardLanguillier »
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