Customer Reviews

Adobe Photoshop CS4 Upgrade [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Warning before upgrading from an earlier version of Photoshop: Download the trial version first. Many many people, including me, are experiencing major performance problems related to the new use of the graphics card GPU. Huge lag when drawing or moving windows around, brush cursors disappearing, buggy color management and many other issues which make this release unusable. Disabling GPU acceleration, or trying some of the other workarounds suggested by Adobe, improve performance but not completely.

Not everyone is experiencing this problem, and I'm sure eventually Adobe and the graphics card makers will come up with a solution. But for now, you should first check the Adobe site to whether your graphics card is on Adobe's list of tested hardware (mine is, but I have the performance problems nevertheless), make sure all your drivers are the latest ones, and either try out the trial version first or wait until you see that Adobe has released a patch.

** UPDATE VIDEO CARD DRIVER:
Right off the bat I had a problem with my brush cursor only showing 1/4, 1/2, and even sometimes only a 1/5 of the cursor when I zoomed in. Found out from Adobe that I needed to install the latest video card driver. I had done this only a few weeks before the program was installed, but went to the EVGA site and re-downloaded the driver and re-installed it. It fixed the cursor problem upon restart. No mater what, go to your video card's website and download the latest driver, even if you think yours is updated.

** GPU and OpenGL Features and Limitations in Photoshop CS4:
Upon start-up, PS asks if you want to go to this website to review the tasks CS4 asks of the video card. I HIGHLY recommend you review it:

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb404898

Very smart in how they are now tasking the video card to offload some of the processing from the CPU. If you turn off the GPU processing support (edit > preferences > performance) you will notice a small drop in performance. Read the list on the website above and you will see why you need a good fast Video card.

** 3D FEATURE NOW ADDED TO PS!:
We now have a powerful 3D rendering feature, just like Illustrator does. (But, not so powerful if you video card is lagging behind.) Turn off GPU processing, and use a weak CPU and you will find yourself making coffee during 3D rendering.

** WORKS WITH CS3:
I have both CS3 and CS4 installed at the same time. No problems using both, only you can't use them at the same time.

** NEW USER INTERFACE... UGLY:
I don't know whw picked the font for the UI in CS4, but they should never be in charge of that part again. Horrible chunky font used throughout the interface. Why change from CS3? And the pallets are squared off. CS2's pallets were so nice; why change?

** Tabs and Arrange Documents:
Kind of like Dreamweaver, PS now has a tabs layout where you can see all of your open projects. So, no more hidden windows behind your project, for they are all lined up along the top of the workspace.

Arrange Documents feature: You can now quickly arrange your open projects with the click of a button at the top menu. It even has "Match Zoom", "Match Location" and "Match Zoom and Location". Cool.

** SMOOTHER:
Zooming in and out (Ctrl-/+), moving the workspace (Spacebar+click) and menus opening and closing are all smooth. Almost like a Flash-menu in the way it works.

** NO FILTER UPDATES / ADDITIONS:
As another user mentioned, we see no real additions in the bundled filter category.

** SMALL DETAILS:
Some of the small things I noticed so far:
1) PS now allows you to select "Zoom Clicked Point to Center" much the same way InDesign does automatically. Nice!
2) you can 'flick' the workspace around (called "Flick Panning"). In CS3, the workspace moved, but it certainly didn't slide to a stop as if it were floating on an air hockey table. (just a cool thing, but not a program improvement.)
3) you can assign colors to the menu options. So, now your "Save as" menu item can be green or red, and so on, if you want. You can assign a color to any and every menu item, even remove some from the list.
4) the Tools pallet stacks more items under one button (i.e. Crop and Slice tools are under the same button.) This is to accommodate the new 3D buttons on the Tools pallet.
5) I notice more changes in the "image" drop-menu than others. The 'auto' controls have moved, and some are now in the pop-up window (i.e. "auto levels" is now in the "levels" pop-up window. We now have "auto tone", "auto contrast" and "auto color" one level up from where they were before.
6) They moved the one button I used the most, Screen Mode (F), from the Tools pallet to the top. Oh well, "F, F" it is, until I get used to the new button placement.

I don't notice it taking up any more memory at idle that the CS3 edition did. It also doesn't seem to have the dreaded memory leak that plagued CS3's Photoshop. If it does, I don't notice it.

I'll keep updating this as things arise. Overall, the program works well, and has yet to crash on me.

I took the suggestion of others and downloaded the trial version before purchasing and I'm glad I did. Installed on a 2.4 GHz dual processor Windows XP computer with 3+ GB of memory this CS4 is noticeably slower than CS3 during panning, zooming and other graphics functions. (probably need a graphics board upgrade, I guess, but you would think that the software would detect my configuration and at least not degrade things) And it appears to be buggy, with several cliches including not always updating the icons in the layers pallet and not always updating the photo after making modifications. Also, for some reason, the wheel on my mouse no longer makes the photo zoom in and out as it does on earlier versions of Photoshop - and it's a microsoft mouse - never had problems before. Of course it may be user error and I suppose I ought to be thankful that the software installed without problems. Perhaps when I get more used to some of the differences I'll be happier and actually purchase the upgrade but I think that Adobe needs to patch this product first.

If you really need some of the functions of this upgrade, such as RAW for a newly introduced camera, then I can see trying to use this product, bugs and all. But if you are just planning to upgrade for upgrade sake I would recommend waiting until more users indicate that this program is ready for prime time. I know that's what I'll do.

Update: Under CS4 preferences I found a place where I can select using the scroll wheel to zoom so that problem is fixed. But the issues about updating the photos and layer icons still exist even after I made sure that I am not using any GPUs (Graphics processing units) so any issues regarding hardware and drivers should not be present. Too bad since the Adobe site does show some interesting improvements in CS4 over CS3. Hope they release their revision soon. Meanwhile I'll continue with CS3.

Second Upgrade: I've had much better luck with this product lately. First, on one of the user forums I discovered that those with the Nik software plug-ins were having troubles like I've described but that Nik had released a fix. I use their products and installed their updates, eliminating many, but not all the issues with disappearing icons, etc. Then I called Nik and they gave me a work-around for the remaining issues. I felt that CS4 still runs a bit slower than CS3 but I bought the upgrade and later I purchased an Nvidia 9500 GT graphics card (inexpensive but it works with Photoshop CS4). I've been using CS4 for about a week now and believe that there are some nice new features. Many of them are in camera RAW (not helped by the graphics card) which is now a more full featured editor with selectible adjustments. Scott Kelby's new CS4 book really emphassizes Camera RAW as the main photo postprocessing software and it seems that Adobe is probably going to put more development work here. In photoshop itself the adaptive scaling is also a nice feature as is the preview in the clone brush. All in all CS4 has some non essential new features (unless you shoot in RAW with a camera not supported by CS3) but once you get used to these going back to CS3 feels restrictive.

You'd better download a test drive from Adobe first and see if this works. 1) took two days to get it installed. finally had to copy DVD to the hardfile and then start install. 2) Install completed, but now the brushes don't work at all.. My system meets the requirements per the box. I have Pentium 4 3.2ghz, 2g RAM, gobs of open hardfile space, but it appears my video card may be inadequate. I've read the Adobe forums for help, but it appears this is a wide spread problem and a new video card MAY fix it, but not for sure.. There was even suggestions in the Adobe forum about doing a scratch install!! I didn't feel like spending another $150 on a new video card in the hopes of it working, or spending a week reinstalling windows and all my apps, so I've returned CS4.. I'll wait till the dust settles before getting this upgrade.

I am an amateur photographer who competes in competitions internationally. Years ago, I only used Photoshop to make small tweaks to my photos like shadows and highlights. However, these days, judges expect the photographs to be technically perfect. I have been using both Photoshop CS2 and Lightroom 1 for several years now to perform the manipulation. By using both Adobe applications, I had good success with the images, but still had difficulty in targeting specific areas of the photograph to make changes. I actually preferred to use Lightroom because there was a clear list of the changes that you had made so that you could change the saturation, for example if you didn't like the effect. In Photoshop CS2, if you closed the file, you lost all record of what adjustments you had made unless you wrote them down.

I upgraded to Photoshop CS4 four months ago and really regret that I didn't upgrade a long time ago. The jump from CS2 to CS4 is huge because you now have adjustment layers at your disposal. The adjustment layers combined with masks allow you to make changes to specific areas of your images and the adjustments are changeable. You can close and open the file and all of your adjustment layers are still there and editable. You also have access to smart filters which allow you to apply adjustments such as shadows and highlights that you can later go back and change if you like. The only downside is that when you save the layers in a TIFF or PSD file, the file size can become quite large (I have files with dozens of adjustment layers that are in excess of 1Gb in size).

The only downside to the upgrade is that it is a memory hog. Your combination of graphics card, disk space and RAM will affect the performance of the software. My graphics card was fast a few years ago, but not up to Photoshop CS4 standards. I have 2 Gb or RAM in my laptop and so I am heavily dependant on scratch disk space. I attach a 250 Gb external drive to my computer and tell Photoshop to use it as scratch space. By doing so, I can avoid problems like the lag that others have written about. There may be other fixes as well, but this is what works for me.

Photoshop is the industry standard and the upgrade or new version is not inexpensive. However, in my opinion the layers and the ability to edit them in CS4 were definitely worth the cost of upgrading if you are using Photoshop CS2 or lower. I certainly recommend the upgrade. I also recommend the training offered by Lynda.com, or the Lynda DVD's (Photoshop CS4 for Photographers is one of the titles) to learn about the new features of Photoshop and how to use them. Great training for the beginner or the more advanced user.

My spouse purchased Adobe Creative Suite Premium several years ago. The package included Photoshop CS, GoLive, and other compatible programs. She recently decided to upgrade to Photoshop CS4 since her Photoshop CS showed as a stand alone program on her computer. She verified that she was eligible for the Photshop CS4 Upgrade with an online chat with an Adobe rep. When Photoshop CS4 arrived it would not load even though she had a license for her earlier Photoshop CS. Upon contacting Adobe, we learned she is not eligible for the upgrade because the original Photoshop CS came with A BUNDLED PACKAGE! This was not clear in the eligiblilty requirements shown on Amazon and the Adobe site, and seems a touch unfair considering the original price of the Adobe CS Premium. So beware if you are considering the Photoshop CS4 Upgrade.

As usual, Amazon came through like a champ with quick shipping and a great price. And to Adobe's credit, they are refunding the cost due to the misunderstanding, even though the software package was opened (as most of you know, Amazon cannot refund for an opened software package).

3 stars not for the program, or the performance of Amazon and Adobe, but because the eligility requirements are not clear and somewhat misleading.

Attention, do NOT buy this upgrade if you own Adobe Creative Suite. Although Photoshop is part of the Creative Suite, the standalone upgrade of Photoshop does NOT work to upgrade this component. I had to learn this the hard way and wasted lots of $$$. Adobe customer support really sucks!!!

Pros:
I do really love revolutionary Content Aware Scale(recently bought from... well... I forgot the name of a company). Rotate View Tool (finally copied from Painter's original). Exceptional Dodge and Burn Tools improvements - that's what we expected for a long time! Great addition to Adjustment Layers is Vibrance. New Mask Palette is really good, etc.

Moderate Thoughts:
Still unsure about User Interface changes - do we need rearrange furniture when we have pales of garbage in the middle of the dining room? As a graphic designer I don't really understand necessity of the Analysis Menu and its contents. 3D Tools still needs a lot of improvements - still weak and rather for wasting of the time.

Cons:
During last versions Photoshop UI changed dramatically, but for years Adobe ignores upgrades of what suppose to be powerful Photoshop weapon - Filters. Since version 3.0 Filter Menu haven't changed a bit. Still the same useless Blur, Blur More, Sharp, Sharp More. Still the same from grandmother's chest Distort Filters - Pinch, Polar Coordinates, Shear, Spherize, Twirl, Zig-Zag and many more. Photoshop can not be comparable Corel Painter's brushes sets and their options and especially with Image Hose stuff - Photoshop Stamp Tool from the XIX century.

F. Dobrin - Photoshop3d.com

The upgrade box costs more with every upgrade but there is less in it. Amazon frequently shows what's in the box, not here, however, probably because the only thing in the box is the CD/DVD. No more printed manual. Adobe is staking back on what it delivers. Some new features, but hardly worth the price.

This is a from the hip review, since I've only been using the CS4 upgrade for a few days. But folks, once again Adobe has hit the ball out of the park! I'm a longtime Photoshop user and each upgrade so far has been an improvement. This one excels primarily in its workflow improvements.
One of the simplest and most basic upgrades is that you can now keep multiple documents open as tabbed items in your window, just like on a web browser. Its easy to shift between tabs to work on multiple documents. You also have access to icons which allow you to shift between tiled windows (still in tabs!) which makes dragging and dropping images from document to document easier and more efficient.
For the artists out there, there is a new function to the hand tool. Instead of just moving your document back and forth, up and down, now you can rotate it using the hand tool as well, which makes drawing and painting much more intuitive and natural.
The entire program works more quickly and smoothly. CS3 used to hang up for awhile while loading fonts for using the text tool. CS4 does this quickly and effortlessly.
Other improvements include a simpler and more interactive bridge, improved compatibility with InDesign CS3 (which has some much more impressive and substantive improvements of its own - but thats another review!)
support for more file options.
I'll update this review as I get more into the deep changes in the program, but from this early taste I'll say its well worth the investment.