CS 4 The Newest Kid on the Block
(Or the arrival of Photoshop 11)
First Photoshop box, version 1.0.0.
I remember looking at digital imagery before Photoshop was born, although
back in the early 1980s, what we thought was amazing wouldn’t get a blink
now. But Photoshop was being born. The creators, the Knoll brothers, called
it Display. It could convert file types and its key was the gamma correction
tool.
Refinements and improvements evolved it into a commercial application called
ImagePro. No one was interested except the slide scanner company BarneyScan.
They offered to include it in a shortterm bundle of software called
Photoshop as a bonus to their slide scanner buyers. In 1988 only 200 copies
were shipped.
In September of 1988 Adobe, a postscript language company, became excited
about it. Photoshop 1.0 entered the market in February 1990. It did not do
much and was actually in a crowded field. It was one of the cheapest at just
under $1,000. Hmm 'wonder what that would relate to in 2008 bucks.
($1,667.87 for those curious.)
With each new release we knew what upgrades we desperately needed and would
get a few of them. It was a Mac-only product. Our imaginations bumped hard
against computer power (watches now have more RAM than Mac hard drives did
then) and software ability. Now, 18 years later, the latest Photoshop
arrives; bundled again. For those counting it’s actually Photoshop 11. But
you’ll probably know it better as CS4.
There are some cosmetic changes, some of which will annoy power users. There
are some under-the-hood changes, stability and speed. You will find some up
to Lightroom speed changes and some cool stuff. The thing that thrills me is
the new stability. My CS3 Photoshop and Bridge often lock up so that is big
for me. When Dan Margulis visited he confirmed the buzz; they got it right.
Dan not so much road tests software as road kills it if it’s got a weak
point. That will be worth the price of the upgrade alone. Speed is up too.
Not sure if it’s leaner (probably not), better configured or taking
advantage of newer hardware. It’s faster so that’s better.
The PC version is 64 bit and OpenGL accelerated, not so the Mac yet. Not
sure if that will come as a next version upgrade or as a patch along the
way. This came about because Apple dropped its 64-bit Carbon API before
Leopard shipped. So when Apple releases its own API it will probably be
corrected.
CS4 takes full advantage of the faster video cards. They redesigned CS4 from
the ground up to fully dance with the best graphics systems so it’s very
responsive, doing some fancy dance steps.
Interface Changes
While it purrs under the hood, when it first opens you might be in for a
shock. CS3 should have prepared you for this, yep, the interface is changing
again. Not a total revamp, but enough. Some of the tools have been renamed
and moved around so you might be hunting for them. Mostly they are trying to
do two things: marry the user interface across modules (InDesign,
Illustrator, etc) and improve workflow. A phrase I keep hearing is improving
the users’ workflow experience. A program called Configurator 1.0 is going
to alter the way you see your interface. Literally. With Configurator you
create your own tools and commands panels. You can even add in instructions
or videos. It’s a drag and drop application that saves your panel
configuration in the new Photoshop>Plugins>Panels folder. Load up the tools,
commands,
actions/scripts and widgets that you use. Organise the elements for your
quirky approach to workflow, then save. Several different panels can be
created. The original tool panels remain untouched so the full range of
tools is a click away. It’s not part of Photoshop but will be a free Adobe
download.
Back in Photoshop, open it up, then close down all the other tools panels.
Talk about getting personalised! Oh, you can go in later to change or add
tools.
The Zoom and Hand (Pan) tool are revamped. You might recall with the zoom
tool it was only accurate in blocks of 25%. Each click of the magnifying
glass was a jump. The new and improved one is accurate at any zoom level,
plus it will zoom in smoothly. Zoom in deep enough and you get the pixel
grid. This grid shows you each pixel of the image. Now you can have really
precise retouching!
The Pan (Hand) tool can now throw your image around. Really, it's so cool.
Not sure how useful, but fun. Just take your little hand, drag it fast and
release. The image keeps sliding over. It's called Tossing Physics (honest,
I am not making this stuff up). I believe it came from the IPod Touch. Now
might be the time to upgrade that video card.
Unique to Macs is the multi-touch commands; you can zoom in and out with
pinching motions on a touch pad, rotate images, throw images around and so
on. Everything you see in the IPhone can be done. Tabs have migrated from
the Web Browser to Photoshop. All your documents can now be opened into
tabbed windows. They so want us creative types to be neat and tidy. The new
tabbed interface extends to all aspects of the workspace. Oddly it comes
disabled by default on the Macs.
For artists and retouchers, you can rotate the canvas. Photoshop becomes
aware of the rotation so if you drag down a guide or use a transform command
it all stays orientated to your rotation.
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