CS4 and the ever changing software

I started getting into photography back when Photoshop 6 was just released. All I had in my possession at that time was a small brick that took photos at around 1 mega pixel and had no view screen. I gave that camera to a friend who now uses it as a door stop. Those where days of technology, when chat rooms ruled the internet and web camming was new and innovative.

Earlier this month Adobe announced that they where going to announce CS4 at a later date (yes they announced that they would be making an announcement) and the world rejoiced (or groaned depending on if you had just bought CS3 the week before). As with any new software upgrade there is a whole swath of advances and upgrades to small insignificant things you will never use or look at. You better not be using that liquefy tool!

Rob Galbraith made a nice little post about the upgrades to CS4 that effect us photographers and will of course be of interest to us.

Leading the list of changes for photographers in the new version of Photoshop for Mac and Windows is a revamped and much improved user interface that replaces various image adjustment dialogs with an Adjustments panel, simplified masking, a new Vibrance control, new panorama creation features and a new depth-of-field blending function plus quicker, smoother navigation of really large photos.

The Mac version gains 16 bits per colour printing, while the Windows version will operate as a 64 bit application for faster performance when large amounts of memory are required to complete a process.

Camera Raw 5, included with Photoshop CS4, adds localized adjustments (by painting or using a gradient to selectively apply the adjustment) and natural-looking vignette filtering even after a crop is applied.

Also included with Photoshop CS4 is Bridge CS4, which offers faster startup, faster browsing of RAW files (by optionally displaying the JPEG inside the RAW file), direct contact sheet and web gallery creation (gallery options include some from Photoshop Lightroom 2) and more.

Thank goodness for my pile of student loans and little card that says I’m still a student as the upgrades will be ship in the fourth quarter of 2008 for $699 ($999 for the Extended version). The upgrade from Photoshop CS and on will luckily only be $199 ($349 for Extended). The rest of the CS4 family will be relased then as well.

Check out Robs site for more info and a few screen shots.

Source: Adobe Photoshop CS4 officially unveiled