In my Photoshop class yesterday at PhotoPlus Expo in New York, many of the attendees were there to get information for a big decision: whether or not to upgrade to Photoshop CS4.
I showed them the entire workflow with CS4 -- from downloading images to finishing off the best of them in Photoshop. As I suspected, many did not realize that Photoshop comes bundled with so many great tools for photographers: Photo Downloader, Adobe Bridge, and Adobe Camera Raw are the foundation of a modern, easy to use workflow.
Of course, then the question turned to Lightroom. "With all of these great tools in Photoshop, do we need Lightroom too?" Great question. My core answer comes down to volume. If you are shooting thousands of images a month, you will probably want Lightroom also. But for many photographers, the CS4 workflow is plenty robust.
One of the things I suggested, is that they go over to the O'Reilly booth and look at my book, The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers. Now, if I said you should "buy my book," that would have been self-serving. :) But because these photographers were at PhotoPlus, they had the opportunity to take a class, then go browse the bookstore and decide for themselves. I must admit, my devious plan worked, because most of them did spend the $17 for the guide.
So, I'll say the same thing here. If you're trying to decide whether or not to upgrade to Photoshop CS4, consider looking at The Photoshop CS4 Companion for Photographers. In the guide, I show you Photo Downloader, Bridge, ACR, and plenty of Photoshop. Then you can decide for yourself.
My personal opinion? In all honesty, I love this version of Photoshop. And that's regardless if you're interested in the book or not.
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CS4, all apps (except after effects) are the buggiest suite of software i have ever seen. adobe is officially the microsoft of creative apps. i wouldn't pay to alpha test software. i should get paid to do it.
I have been a user of Photoshop since before it was called photoshop and each year i have paid my $199.00 to upgrade to the next version. This will be the first time i am not going to upgrade as i don't see that there is $200 worth of value in CS4, at least for me.
I love Photoshop and use it almost every day but this last upgrade is lacking in new features that i as a photographer will use.
Hi Derek,
To put things in context, this is the first time since Photoshop 2.0, my first version, that I really don't have any urge to upgrade. Since I am now a suite owner (Web Premium), I might find other things that justify the upgrade, but I'm really hard pressed. Fireworks CS4 has way overdue GUI improvements, but that really only is in the "fixed annoyances" category. Flash CS4 has some interesting stuff, but the areas which I wanted fixed haven't been touched (since approx Flash MX...). And the list goes on.
On the other hand, the complete makeover of the packaging (yet again), the huge marketing push, well this clearly needs to be paid for. CS3 still works fine for me, and Adobe in general underpins just about everything I do in front of a computer, but I don't believe I'm the only one out here in the real world that is getting just a little tired of the tip towards style over substance.
I'm working in a small company of mostly young, dynamic creatives (I'm the exeption all counts), and they're just not interested in CS4. Really, I'm not making this up.
Hi David - First, I can only comment about Photoshop CS4, because that is the application I have worked with in the CS4 release (along with its bundled Bridge and ACR).
Second, when I am truly excited about any piece of software, I am going to write about it, and why. Our blogs are designed just for that, for people to give their opinion. I like Photoshop CS4, and that is my view.
As for you, the magic just isn't there. That's fine. Exercise your power as a consumer and don't upgrade.
Well, why should we pay for CS4 to fix things in CS3 that are buggy or badly designed ? CS4 (and not just Photoshop) seems to be what CS3 should have been.
When does this end, really ?
Independent writers, and companies like O'Reilly, should be doing more to keep companies like Adobe honest, not just cheerleading.
Adobe needs to make money. But there's a balance to strike, and seems to me that with CS4, marketing really has declared total victory over design & engineering. Almost all the new stuff would have been classified under "bug fixes" back in the days of the real Adobe, up to about Photoshop 6.
Increasing prices and ever decreasing value - that's the real story.
Oh, and zero useful documentation. I spent a "happy" hour yesterday looking for anything approaching a user manual for Fireworks CS3 on the Adobe web site yesterday. Apart from the fact that CS3 is now dead and buried as far as user support & customer care is concerned, I couldn't even find anything useful for CS4. Just a load of marketing dressed up as tutorials.
But I guess _that_ does O'Reilly no harm at all....
*Older versions* of the tools I've mentioned are in CS3, specifically Bridge and ACR. But they are definitely different. In previous incarnations, I could not recommend Photoshop as a workflow tool because there were noticeable gaps in the flow itself.
Now, in the CS4 version of Bridge, we have Collections and Smart Collections, Review Mode, improved interface, and better performance. In ACR, Adobe has added terrific tools such as the graduated filter. And in Photoshop itself, the Adjustments panel is smart and includes targeted tools in the Curves and Hue/Sat panels.
So, unless you've really evaluated CS4, you need to be careful about inferring that is isn't different or that it's buggy.
The question is, with Lightroom, why should anyone bother with Photoshop any more? I have CS3 only because of native Intel support on the Mac. The only reason I'f get CS$ would be for the RAW support for the 5DmkII, but the fact this is still a 32-bit app (unlike LR which is 64-bit) sticks in my craw. The fact each successive release of CS gets ever more bloated and buggy does not helpp with the convincing.
So,the question remains, why upgrade to CS4 if you are already using CS3? The tools you've mentioned are part of CS3.