Photoshop CS4 64 Bit Initial Impressions

[Noel_Carboni]

Bought the Standard edition download from Adobe.com. Installed it today on my Vista x64 system...

First impressions:

I am not sure I like what they've done with the user interface, and I sure don't like the default that they have set where images open as tabs in a single window. Thankfully that can be disabled via the Edit - Preferences -Interface menu (uncheck the [ ] Open Documents as Tabs box).

On initial testing, all my commercial actions appear to function in CS4 64 and 32 bit, which means they've gone to some length to maintain compatibility. This is VERY good news.

I can't say for certain, due to the odd way I have things set up right now, but it appears the graphics acceleration Adobe has been promising is only available in the Extended edition. The message "No GPU options available with Photoshop Standard" appears in the Performance preferences, and [ ] Enable OpenGL Drawing is grayed-out. This made more sense with CS3 as the video accelerators were really only capable of helping the 3D features, but with the new things they've shown in CS4 that's not the case. I hope it's just the fact that I'm running my tests through Remote Desktop that the acceleration functions are disabled.

Most of the menus and palettes we've come to know seem to be intact and where they are expected to be.

All in all I haven't run across much that differentiates CS4 from its predecessor other than UI changes that mostly I don't find positive. I'm sure I'll discover things as I use it.

More as I learn it!

-Noel

[KevinStecyk]

Elsewhere, I am reading some grousing about the user interface changes.

Question, on CS3, you can control/command click on the image while viewing a curve dialog to put a point on the curve. For example, while the curve dialog is open on the red channel, you can control/command click on an image to set a point on the red channel curve. Similarly, using CS3 you can shift, control/command, click to put that point on all three curves (RGB). Apparently that has changed with CS4? That is, the control/command click and the shift, control/command click commands have changed?

[Noel_Carboni]

Ctrl-Click on the image still appears to put a point on the curve in the Curves dialog.

The look and feel has gone to a "drab gray" effect. I guess look and feel changes are what make marketeers happy and users think they've gotten something new, but frankly changing all that stuff just serves to confuse more than anything. In revamping the main window display they've moved more controls onto the top of the window, which at first seems like a good idea, but I was comparing sizes and frankly with some crafty adjustment of the Windows settings it was possible with the old one to actually have less "chrome" on the window - yielding no less space to work! For example:





-Noel

[KevinStecyk]

Originally Posted by Noel_Carboni

Ctrl-Click on the image still appears to put a point on the curve in the Curves dialog.

What about Control Shift Click?

[Noel_Carboni]

Ah, you must be talking about when you're changing the curves in a curves adjustment layer... That's not what I did before.

To be clear:

Ctrl-Click puts a point on the curve if you're running Image-Adjust-Curves on RGB channels. Ctrl-Shift-Click puts a point on a curve if you're running Image-Adjust-Curves on a particular color channel.

When editing a Curves adjustment layer, the curves dialog is not shown, but rather a palette called "Adjustments", which is a little smaller. No combination of ctrl-shift-alt-whatever causes any points to be placed on the curve shown there.

And the damned "Little Curves" adjuster isn't even 100 pixels wide, so there are some values (e.g., 101) that you just can't land on!

I guess Adobe thinks this is somehow better than it was. :-/

It doesn't bother me much, though, as I still believe in editing the pixels, rather than trying to be non-destructive. Call me the Pixel Destroyer!!!

-Noel

[Randy_Vestal]

Noel:

What is your machine spec for Vista 64?

Thanks

[KevinStecyk]

Originally Posted by Noel_Carboni

To be clear:

Ctrl-Click puts a point on the curve if you're running Image-Adjust-Curves on RGB channels. Ctrl-Shift-Click puts a point on a curve if you're running Image-Adjust-Curves on a particular color channel.

Actually on CS3, control shift click points a point on all three curves (red, green, blue) when you are on any of the particular color channels. In other words, if you want to adjust a point on the image in all three colors, control shift click sets the point down. Now, I understand that is no longer the case?