Some of us have been eagerly awaiting it, others have been casually disinterested and some have even expressed irritation. The fact of the matter is, though, that this September 23rd saw the official announcement of Adobe’s latest release of their Creative Suite. Here at Psdtuts+ we thought it fair to give fans a taste of what’s new in Photoshop CS4.
The following information and more is available from adobe.com. See the announcement here: Adobe Photoshop Extended CS4.
Editing Power
Two new panels to help you with Photoshop editing.
Adjustments Panel
The new ‘live and dynamic’ adjustments panel allows complete adjustment of your images’ tones and colours, including on-image controls.
Masks Panel
All the controls you need for pixel or vector-based masks in one panel. Live and non-intrusive editing of feathering, density and so on.
Content-Aware Scaling
(Only available with Photoshop CS4 Extended). Described by Adobe as ‘revolutionary’ this feature allows automatic detection of vital elements within an image, scaling only those which you intend. Scaling in this manner eliminates cropping and retouching from the process. Visit the Adobe site and witness the surfers below remain unaffected as the background is stretched across the canvas..
Workflow and Efficiency
Adobe have pulled out all the stops across the CS4 product range to help improve workflow.
Tabbed Documents
The familiar modern way of working with multiple documents or windows. Tabs or n-up views will allow you to switch between and move objects across to other open documents with ease.
Fluid Canvas Rotation
Click to turn your canvas at any desired angle or perspective for viewing purposes.
Smoother Panning and Zooming
Photoshop’s Pixel Grid allows perfect clarity even when zoomed in to maximum depth and new smoothness adds to your level of zoom control.
3D and Motion Based Images
A large number of new 3D and video capabilities for Photoshop.
Revolutionary 3D Painting and Compositing
(Only available with Photoshop CS4 Extended). Paint, apply gradients and wrap images directly onto 3D models, create depth to layers and text and export the results to supported common 3D formats. Use Adobe’s new ray-tracing rendering engine for print-quality output, or animate your 3D objects for video output.
3D Object and Property Editing
(Only available with Photoshop CS4 Extended). An on-image interface allows full manipulation of 3D objects without extra panels and dialogues. Position cameras, lighting, objects, meshes, grids – all with the intuitive mouse axes controls.
3D/Video Support
(Only available with Photoshop CS4 Extended). An impressive addition to Photoshop’s 3D funtions whereby video layers are treated as textures for projection onto a 3D surface.
Efficient Collaboration
(Only available with Photoshop CS4 Extended). High priority for Adobe in developing CS4; collaboration between applications. Use the U3D interchange format to migrate your 3D projects seamlessly with Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro Extended and Adobe After Effects for presentation or production output.
Online Services
Adobe Community Help
Search Adobe’s product help online with improved search facilities. Help contributions from 3rd party community members keep this resource growing and current.
Adobe Kulerâ„¢
Kulerâ„¢, the colour palette feed available from Adobe Labs previously accessible for CS3 users and now a permanent feature of Adobe’s CS4 products, giving you access to colour, theme and swatch contributions from a huge online community.
Now it’s Your Turn.
Let’s hear it then, are you impatiently drumming your credit card on the desk, waiting for CS4 to be made available? Or are you quietly resentful at the thought of investing more hard-earned cash for tools which you’ll rarely make use of? We want to hear your thoughts.
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By Ian Yates
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Absoluety amazing…can’t wait!
Adobe never said they “invented” the content-aware scaling technology….I read somewhere that they hired the inventor (or one of them) for this project. And for those complaining about the price…this is top of the line software here! This is not Corel Draw or some crappy paint program….if you want the best you gotta be willing to fork over a little cash.
Sounds Great as usual. I have to wait a few days to get it.
guys, why are you complaining about the price tag?
its the same price as CS3 was. and we all know that photoshop is the best imaging software; thats what you havr to pay for quality
Broken Product? CS3 Was perfect! I bought it day one and have used it ever since flawlessly it never crashed once for me! In fact, on the same system that I previously had CS2 on, CS3 ran faster and there was no hardware upgrade between the 2 installations. Adobe’s products are expensive because they are good. A lot of work goes into these products, and they are made for professionals.
If you are a student in school, take advantage of the student pricing! God knows I did, and they even extended the licences so that the educational version can be used for commercial work after graduation!
Lets face it one freelance project and your CS4 is paid for!
Some of these features sound cool but I’m still not convinced it’s going to be worth the price.
http://onwired.com/blog/adobe-cs4-broadcast-review/
I’d be curious to see a poll on here of how many people are going to A) upgrade now B) upgrade in a year C) upgrade when it’s pirated or D) Hang with CS3 until further notice. I made a post about the new CS4 suite on my own blog, MakeDesign, Not War, but I’d be curious to see what the PSDTuts community has to say.
i cracked the PS, i dont buy soft, never, ANARCHY
I for one am extremely excited for all of the new CS4 products. I spent most of my afternoon yesterday reading and watching the mini videos on them. Really excited for Illustrator and Dreamweaver though!!
I’ll buy it
Awesome article
I am excited for CS4, because it is only 18 months till CS5. I only upgrade every other release. Come on Feb. 2010.
They always make the new features sound fabulous, but there’s nothing here that makes for a compelling reason to upgrade.
I own CS3, but looks like I’ll hold out for CS5. I can live with what I got for the next 18 months, which is when they’ll put out a new version.
CS4 Master Collection order is in… looking forward to it!
For those baulking at the price tag, there are ways to get a CS package quite affordably. I purchased CS2 Premium when it was superseded by CS3, for only A$280 on eBay (and then did the licence change to my name), then down the track bought the CS3 Design Premium upgrade for A$780 (see http://www.staticice.com.au). So for A$1060 I got Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat Pro etc. Not bad!
Now, for A$1800 I am double-upgrading (CS2 & CS3) to Master Collection via the Adobe Store which will effectively give me the whole Adobe Creative Suite for $170 more than what it would cost to roll up to Adobe today and buy CS4 (or CS3) Design Premium outright.
No matter what the price, I guess, some people will still baulk… but I bet they still like to get PAID when they do work for clients with the ‘tools’ provided, and probably have a whinge or three if things don’t work like they expect.
why get this one when photoshop 6 is coming out soon?
This is kool, I think I will get it as soon a possible….and what photoshop 6? is that old already?
can wait
Hey,
Im doing an apprenticeship as a graphic designer in cologne, germany (you get paid by the company for going to college what is the bomb) however I wouldnt be able to afford the creative Suit CS4. Now since I have my stipendium in Design and I actually earn alot i will buy it. The features are fucking nice.
cheers
bruno
no wonder it’s supposed to run on a 4 gb ram…i’ll stick to cs3 for now
woooooow I can’t wait for this one.
Some nice new features
But why on earth do they feel the need to incorporate more 3D stuff?
PS is an 2D image processor and there are far greater prg’s suited for 3D work. A well, I guess they know best…
gimme gimme gimme!
Can’t wait to test out these new features!
One has to realize where Photoshop came from. It was a program that was predominantly used by graphic houses. The explosion of digital photography has resulted in more users wanting this product.
I can’t recall the number of man years that was put into CS4 but it was amazing. Programming doesn’t come cheap so if all you naysayers think that they should give it away for next to nothing, you are dreaming. I have the pleasure of being in the beta program and I can tell you this thing is amazing. The upgrades are not going to have something for everyone. If all you do is adjust your pictures then Elements will probably suit you just fine.
There are allot of changes under the hood that are not exactly evident to all right away. For those of us that use this product in our business the upgrade price is a small price to pay for the additional functionality and time saving efforts that Adobe has put in it. If a hobbyist can afford this product good for them but I doubt that this is where Adobe has targeted their efforts. There is always the basic Photoshop product for them.
The 3D acceleration is by far the best improvement to CS4. I was in the pre-release program, and it made a huge difference in performance. Just make sure you have a compatible graphics card.
The new workflow changes (adjustment panel, etc.) take a little getting used to, but speed up image processing once you get the hang of it.
I’ll definitely be upgrading.
Yeah, a lot of nice features, but that “just do it button” is still missing
.
But honestly, “1700 person years of development time”, they could’ve done way better (did they count in the handyman’s work as well?!). The UI changes should’ve been there in CS3. They are diversifying too much, too many tweaks and to few improvements.
WHEN WILL THEY LET ME BROWSE BRUSHES?!?!?!??!
WHEN WILL THEY LET ME LOAD MANY BRUSHES AT ONCE!!!!!
I WANT A FONT BROWSER
a large font browser like their the photobridge for fonts and brushes!!
I like the new features but come on!
the basic small features are what needs to be fixed!
I quite like a lot of the new CS4 features, but seriously, adobe jacked up the price on the educational bundles as well. It’s up by 200 from CS3 which really sucks.
I am pretty sure the Content Aware Scaling will be in the basic version as well.
Feature list for basic:
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/features/?view=topnew
Well, interesting. Are they adding any features that aren’t currently available with other free programs?
Nothing really…. new. Disappointing.
Great article!
The new features are cool BUT I don’t think they are worth upgrading (as a webdesigner). When I compare Photoshop CS3 and the “new” features of CS4, the only cool thing is the customizable floating windows which can be created with the upcoming AIR-application “Configurator”. The mask window is also nice indeed but that’s it.
What’s the use of rotating the canvas? The adjustment-panels seem to speed up my workflow only about a second (one more click). Content-Aware Scaling — for some people it’s nice but in general, I don’t need it when designing websites. GPU/64bit-powered filters? I don’t use that much filters when creating shapes/layouts. The 3D-options are quite nice but the 3D-features of CS3 should also do it.
The upgrade fee is quite to high I think. What’s the fresh “brilliant” thing of CS4? With CS3, Adobe has created something MORE brilliant I think.
fingers crossed I win the Lottery ^.^
my pc is struggling to run cs2 never mind 3 or 4
Naaaaaa…I’ll wait for CS5…or CS6… they might come out just a couple of months apart anyway (CS3 was launched April 07 if I remember, not far ago… Adobe just want to cash in designers enthusiasm)
I think this is great. But, the 3D features? I’ll stick with my 3D application like Maya and Cinema 4D where I can make my own 3d models and texture them instead of downloading them. I don’t understand the fuzz about 3D features in photoshop. But I use PS for all texturing and export it back to 3D app.
The other features are cool though. It might be worth upgrading.
I hate the pixel grid. How can I shut it off?
I’ve played around with PCS4 and, in terms of what I would use it to do, I don’t see a significant difference from the earlier versions.
It can now do 3D work, which I wouldn’t use it for beacuse, clearly, it’s been optimised for the 2D environment. So it would never give you the ease and flexibility of Maya, 3DS Max, etc. If you want to do 3D work, do it in a dedicated 3D environment and just render the result to an image file (2D) which you then edit using Photoshop.
It seems as if photoshop has been pretty good for some time and Adobe’s failing about now, just trying to pack in features that don’t really belong there but that get the consumers excited and allows it to bundle in with the latest CS upgrade number.
I would much rather have the emphasis on the 2D side, with an aspiration to making it as easy to use as an artist with a (real world) sheet of paper and a (real world) stick of charcoal.
The rotate feature is important in this regard, and is, as you say, long overdue.
Check out out 2-D environments, like the painter effects in Corel Painter Essentials. Photoshop’s art history brush doesn’t come close.
The Content-Aware Scaling is quite new; I haven’t seen that elsewhere, and depending on how good a job it does, would save me a lot of cloning time.
So what I’m saying in my long-winded way is that there’s plenty to grow into in a 2-D environment without unnecessarily trying to grow 3D too.
Does CS4 work normally with 1GB of RAM ? I’m still in doubt whether to upgrade CS3 to CS4 or not.
thanks
Yes.