cs4
Photoshop CS4
cs4 box
I’t may seem like CS3 was out not so long ago but it has been 18 months since that version of Adobe’s suite of industry standard applications came out. Last week Adobe unveiled CS4 and I find it has many shiny new things (including a ton of changes inspired by Lightroom) that are making me look for a way to upgrade as soon as possible.
Some of them are being shown for their cool factor which is undeniable, and although they definitely are appealing to me, I’m also very interested in experiencing the many changes that have been made under the hood. Those are not flashy or have eye candy but for people who work in Photoshop day in and day out, they are greatly appreciated. In John Nack’s blog (Photoshop product manager) there is a post that mentions all the changes that happened under the hood. Nerd alert- the following is kind of geeky and very Photoshop centric so feel free to check out the flashy Photoshop CS4 here and here if this is not your thing.
So for the stuff under the hood, here are my picks:
Smooth Pixel Rendering
Previous versions of Photoshop had the problem that at certain magnifications the image showed jagged lines that didn’t render correctly. That is finally fixed and images show in perfect detail at any magnification. This has bugged me for so many years, For years I’ve had to zoom in or out to see if what I’m doing is looking right…so glad this is fixed!
Spring Loaded Keys
A great time saver. With this new option you can be for example brushing or cloning an image and temporarily click and hold another key on the keyboard, use its corresponding tool, and then let go of that key and go back to using the original tool.
Adjustment Panel
Some of the most used tools like Curves, Levels, etc. are now found on a panel (used to be called “palettes”) for quick access. Time saver again.
Live Under Cursor Preview
Sounds complex but actually it means you see a preview of what you are cloning or healing as your brush; like in the Vanishing Point tool. Nice for aligning things.
Tabbed Document Viewing & Application Frame
Tabbing as a quick way to move through all open documents instead of going through the Window menu is great for quick file reviews. And finally the Application Frame interface with its tabbed documents at the top (like a browser) makes the upgrade worth its money for me.
tabbed interface
The flashy stuff will be useful too and I really want to test the new content aware scaling, but these changes and improvements under the hood are sometimes more valuable to people who at the end of the day can get their work done faster and in a more efficient way.
So there you have it, my picks for best new features you might not know about in Photoshop CS4.
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