I’m delighted to say that Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended, along with the entire Creative Suite 4 lineup, have been officially announced! I’ll have a ton to share over the days and weeks ahead, to be grouped under the new CS4 category, and the big product webcast is due shortly; there’s still time to sign up to watch. In the meantime, tons of good resources are going live as I type:
- The Photoshop User guys have posted a comprehensive set of videos showing off what’s new in Photoshop.
- Imaging Resource posts an in-depth set of descriptions & screenshots.
- Rob Galbraith posts a nice, concise list for photographers.
- I spoke to CNET’s Stephen Shankland about GPU acceleration in CS4, among other things, and I recorded a podcast with ZoomIn’s Aanarav Sareen.
- Uwe Steinmuller of Outback Photo brings his photographer’s eye to the release.
- Former Illustrator PM Mordy Golding has posted a detailed overview of AI CS4. (At first glance I didn’t think they had a lot planned for this rev, but dig a little detail and you’ll find a lot to like. I say this as a very long-time Illustrator user.)
- Deke McClelland has posted CS4 Buy Or Die, “a sassy, no-holds-barred, is-this-thing-worth-buying-or-not review.”
- Colin Smith of PhotoshopCafe has posted a Photoshop CS4 Learning Site.
- Chris Orwig has posted an overview of the release.
- Lynda.com is adding CS4 content, including an effective demo of Content-Aware Scaling.
- Richard Harrington & crew have posted a couple hours’ worth of video training plus other materials at CSFour.com.
I’ll keep updating this list as I see new links appear (and feel free to suggest good ones via the comments).
Hello Jack,
Love the new stuff in CS4.
Can’t wait to use the 360 pano
On track to to get
Kind regards
Ken in KY
Photography Review has a review of the beta up at: http://reviews.photographyreview.com/blog/photoshop-and-bridge-cs4-preview/
innovation? or gamer copycat?
hmmm
thanks for increasing the box price… but most of us will not be downgrading to vista for adobe suite. You best be looking at other OS options!
on the upside I’ll have another gaming rig to tempt me to work less
Now if only your flv rendered videos would play on open souce video players (built on xul) and open source video libraries like
Miro (getmiro.com)
or free video distribution services like blip.tv
maybe in CS7?
Keep an eye out for new tutorials at creativementor.com.au
I work at a hotel in Prague, and we are considering upgrading to CS 4 in the future. The new features look great, but I’ve read a lot about the differences in pricing for American customers and European customers. My only complaint is that it may be hard to justify spending so much more money just because we are based in Europe. Does anyone else work for a company that sees the pricing structure as a major obstacle Adobe needs to overcome before this is widely used in Europe? Or will most companies just pay the extra price because of all of the added functions in CS4?
Wow, John, thanks for sweating ALL the stuff, big and small alike! It feels like Xmas eve today! 🙂 Do you have any news for us regarding when the trial versions will go online?
[Historically announcements occur within a month or so of shipment. In recent years we’ve made progress so that trial versions are available from day 1. –J.]
I bit the bullet and started using the Photoshop CS4 beta in my daily work when I received it a month ago. I figured it would run well enough not to risk losing any client work, and CS4 did work like a charm.
My article detailing my work experiences is online now at CreativePro.com:
http://www.creativepro.com/article/first-looks-indesign-illustrator-and-photoshop-cs4
What about Linux support ? Will Adobe officially relese some version for Linux or declare funcionality through WINE ? Ignoring growing count of Linux users is not very good way.
[Every single request for Linux support talks about the “growing” Linux market, but not one ever–ever–has provided evidence to support that claim. That’s not to slag Linux, just to say that I’m tired of hearing an article of faith repeated as if it’s a business justification. Repetition doesn’t
Anyway, we continue to do what we can (technical advice, software licenses) to support the guys working to enable Photoshop on WINE. I believe they’re continuing to make good progress. –J.]
Hi,
That’s great news, I’m especially happy with all the new 3D features both in PS and AE. But I feel bitter, as a person who purchased CS 3.3 Master Collection just a few weeks ago, which is quite an investment on a freelancers budget. Same thing happened to me when Macromedia announced Studio 8, but I’ve qualified for a free upgrade because of ther post-announce policy.
[Try contacting Customer Service; they may be able to sort you out. –J.]
Sigh… I guess this tine i will wait till CS5 will be announced 🙂
Congratulations on the new release!
Michal
I’d buy cs4 photoshop if it would come out on linux, I like what I saw from it so far, but at work we still use cs2, and don’t really need more.
cs4 has a few things I like very much though…
Following the announcement of CS4, there has been a discussion about the GPU acceleration in Photoshop. The debate is about whether or not PS uses CUDA, which I understand is an Nvidia only thing, and that this will cause GPU acceleration to not be available with AMD/ATi cards. Could you shed some light on this subject? Will ATi users be able to take full advantage of their GPU? Thanks.
[You’ll be fine with a card from either company, so long as it meets the basic specs. The more VRAM you’ve got, the more data we can load in there at once (useful for high-res work, 3D, and/or lots of docs open at once).
Re: CUDA, etc., I’d expect Adobe to take an approach similar to what we did for many years with PowerPC vs. Intel: if there’s a way to speed things up by tapping into the unique power of a chip, we’ll go for it, and we’ll welcome any and all help we can get from the chip makers (who’ve been great). –J.]
[Every single request for Linux support talks about the “growing” Linux market, but not one ever–ever–has provided evidence to support that claim. That’s not to slag Linux, just to say that I’m tired of hearing an article of faith repeated as if it’s a business justification. ]
I can totally agree with you there. So, as a Linux user myself, how about this for an idea — just set up an official sign-up form so that ANYONE interested in getting Adobe CS4/5 for Linux can just sign the ‘petition’ (or email optin list) and then you can get a decent count. How about that?
[I appreciate the offer of help, but I’m not sure that this would make much of a difference. What if you got 5000 people to say they’d buy PS on Linux? How does that compare to the several-million units of Photoshop that get sold each cycle on Mac and Windows? What if 10,000 people signed the petition? I dunno; it would be interesting, but I don’t think it would gain much traction.
I’d much rather see data produced by a reputable research firm that indicates a growing number (in absolute & in market share percentage terms) of people using Linux desktops, ideally for creative work. As it is, the numbers I’ve seen always put Linux usage around 1-2%–not nearly enough to offset the cost of a port. –J.]
Would love to buy it…but really, at the current UK prices Adobe has become a luxury beyond most people’s budgets.
It runs out it is cheaper to buy a flight to NY, buy a copy of the suite and stay the night than buy it in the UK (http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/29/adobe-cs4-pricing-plain-wrong) the numbers match! all it does it makes pirates more determined Adobe…at one point people’s pockets wont be able to support you, there is such a thing as killing your own market…..sad (still, well done CS4 team, the new bits are amazing)
[As it is, the numbers I’ve seen always put Linux usage around 1-2%–not nearly enough to offset the cost of a port.]
The market of OSX is about 6.4% the last year. I don’t think the market is one point for not releasing programs for Linux. They can pay a few open source programmers for porting the code (and they can even do it for free). I don’t think the code must be rewriten, OSX is a unix-like system and they have half road walken. They don’t release for Linux because they do not want to. Is not a money problem, and is not a few sell expectations.
It’s a pity. I know a very large number of 2D artists and photographers that are very interested in linux and they can’t port her bussiness systems because the lack of Adobe products. Besides Microsoft released their own creative suite making direct competition. How much time will pass until MS starts with his dirty game? (like iexplorer politics).
Adobe could even release his own linux distribution one day. And I’ll pay for a complete Adobe Operating System.
If I buy an upgrade to CS 3.3 right now (Oct. 3) is it possible to upgrade to CS4 for free later on? I was told that this period, until CS4 is is available is a so called Grace Period. Is this true? Thank you
[I’m not sure, but I’ve sent an inquiry. In the meantime I’m sure Customer Service knows the definitive answer. –J.]
Two concerns: 1) To build a new PC- what are the optimum system requirements for CS4? and 2) will CS4 run on linux with Wine?
A simple answer or set of links that detail the answers would be greatly appreciated. Dr. Jim Watrous
same question -> will CS4 run on Linux with Wine ?
[I don’t think so–yet. –J.]
Will you help WINE & Google guys to put your product suite on Linux ?.
[Already on it. –J.]
Please help us to reject $MS products from our computers.
It’s not about Windows, but many of us loose any beliefs that $MS is capable to understand this world and the future.
We don’t expect anything good from $MS for short and long terms.
…just innovations.
John, I thought for sure that I would see a change to Photoshop CS4 crop tool since it has already been put into Lightroom but haven’t seen anything in the prelease info to confirm or deny it has been added and that is the rule of thirds grid. Photographers that use Photoshop instead of Lightroom would love to see that added. Any hope of that happening maybe in a future fix update before CS5?
[We would have liked to leverage canvas rotation and the GPU to offer a more LR-style cropping implementation, but we ran out of time. It remains on the list of candidate features. –J.]
For those being able to understand German, here is the info about the grace period for CS 3.3 (I was not able to find it in English. grace period from 23. September 2008 to 21. Januar 2009):
http://www.pc-ware.com/pcw/de/de/unsere_leistungen/vendors/adobe/lizenzierung/files/adobe_cs4_graceperiod_info.pdf
Thanks for these links – they proved a valuable resource whilst we were designing our CS4 curriculum’s.
Thanks for these links – they proved a valuable resource whilst we were designing our CS4 curriculum’s.
Regarding Linux market share. Sure it would be nice to be assured of success for your products, but with risk come rewards.
Have you considered that some (unknowable unless you try) percentage of the current Win/Mac sales would go to Linux?
I for one use Premiere Pro on Windows XP. I would really love to upgrade to CS4, but I’m not going to pay for a new windows or mac machine. I would buy CS4 today if it ran on linux and junk my old windows version.
I know there are a lot of cost-conscious designers out there who aren’t in your linux desktop market share because they are *waiting* for photoshop.
Adobe has some great products, they should be brave and take the risk. If not someone else will eventually.
Agreed. Win/Mac sales would go to Linux. There isn’t a large design community on Linux yet because there are no tools to use that compare to Adobe Creative Suite (don’t bother mentioning GIMP and Inkscape). Release CS4 for Linux and watch the Linux design community grow… I’ll purchase a copy right away.
Ugh… Adobe, corner a market. Despite my lack of figures, it is common knowledge that ATI cards lost a lot of ground in the Linux community due to the lack of any open source drivers & support from the company. Remember, the Linux community talks, listens, has HUGE blogs, forums and word spreads quickly. As much as I love free repositories of software, I, and I’m willing to bet a LARGE number of Linux users would cut of a toe to see a native CS4 port. Not hard, minimal programming, testing a breeze with the Open Source Community. If I could run Premiere, Photoshop & Dreamweaver in Ubuntu, then I could just have my Vista install for 1 purpose, games! C’mon Adobe, take a punt, or, it’s paying off for ATI.
CS5 on Ubuntu!!! Yes, please, another helping sir!
Just think of the all Adobe apps I could buy if I didn’t have to pay those OS taxes!! Creative folks run Linux. Don’t let your market run away from you.
Thee problem with linux version of photoshop is that it is a chicken and egg situation. Adobe say there is not enough demand for it but then many PS users say the only thing stopping them converting to linux is because there is no PS!
Like they said about Las Vagas ‘Build it and they will come’.
I love all this talk about Linux and software.. Truth is, large design studios like Dreamworks, ILM, and Pixar use Linux on 95% of their systems. In fact, what they normally do is take a Apple computer, install Linux, and THEN run mac os X under a virtual machine for software that can’t be run under Linux natively. Hmmm.. wonder what software that would be.
The real issue is that software can be made to be portable, if it’s designed with portability form the beginning.
As for WINE, the project started off with the idea of providing a system for testing software before brining it to market. If an application would work under WINE, then it can safely be assumed to work on all Windows systems (save Vista, which is incompatible with it’s self, but that’s another story). The fact that CS4 doesn’t work well under Linux WINE suggests that it could have potential issues with some Windows configurations.
I mean really, when games like Fallout 3, Left4Dead, and Spore run fine under WINE, there really is no excuse.
Blender has already reached a stage that it can compete against popular 3D design packages (say nothing for the price), and the current state of open source software allows for the creation of high quality 3D animated movies, which “Big Buck Bunny” was to prove (www.bigbuckbunny.org)
The thing about the open source community is that they don’t move quite as fast as do commercial development of software, but they do move. Where there is a need, they develop. There’s already work being done to replace Windows with ReactOS (no, it’s a windows like kernel, nothing unix about it), and is nearing beta release.
Not to scare you or anything, but, either support us, or we’ll develop software to replace you a lot faster.
I love all this talk about Linux and software.. Truth is, large design studios like Dreamworks, ILM, and Pixar use Linux on 95% of their systems. In fact, what they normally do is take a Apple computer, install Linux, and THEN run mac os X under a virtual machine for software that can’t be run under Linux natively. Hmmm.. wonder what software that would be.
The real issue is that software can be made to be portable, if it’s designed with portability form the beginning.
As for WINE, the project started off with the idea of providing a system for testing software before brining it to market. If an application would work under WINE, then it can safely be assumed to work on all Windows systems (save Vista, which is incompatible with it’s self, but that’s another story). The fact that CS4 doesn’t work well under Linux WINE suggests that it could have potential issues with some Windows configurations.
I mean really, when games like Fallout 3, Left4Dead, and Spore run fine under WINE, there really is no excuse.
Blender has already reached a stage that it can compete against popular 3D design packages (say nothing for the price), and the current state of open source software allows for the creation of high quality 3D animated movies, which “Big Buck Bunny” was to prove (www.bigbuckbunny.org)
The thing about the open source community is that they don’t move quite as fast as do commercial development of software, but they do move. Where there is a need, they develop. There’s already work being done to replace Windows with ReactOS (no, it’s a windows like kernel, nothing unix about it), and is nearing beta release.
Not to scare you or anything, but, either support us, or we’ll develop software to replace you a lot faster.
And if you still think you don’t have market share for Adobe software for Linux, go and talk to all those folks down at Dreamworks Animation, Pixar, and ILM. Though, they normally develop their own tools when what they need isn’t available to them (and they develop it for Linux– not Windows or Mac).
Oh, as for 64-bit flash player that we’ve been demanding. We’ve got that working now too (as well as an open source Action Script compiler). Thanks for the modivation to do it ourselves!
John, good point about not having evidence of the Linux market. However, rather than ignore customer requests (my request for information last year went unanswered by Adobe), how about a survey on http://www.adobe.com to collect feedback and measure levels of intention?
[We’ve already done that. People largely use Linux because they want to save money & because they hate commercial software. Does that sound like a market you’d target with your pro-priced commercial software?
Also, Linux users tend to have moved over from Windows, so Linux seats don’t represent net growth, merely a switch (which customers would rightly expect to be free, as it is when moving Windows to Mac or vice versa).
I’m not saying that Adobe will never make Linux versions of its products. I’m just telling you why there are a lot of business cases more attractive than this one. –J.]
Alternatively, just keep ignoring the issue and GIMP will get better, familiarity with GIMP will improve, youtube.com videos will offer help to newbies, and Photoshop will eventually dwindle. RK
[A) Fine, bring it on. I’m sick of people wagging their finger in my face about this (as they’ve been doing for 10+ years). Go make GIMP better. B) What, you think if we started selling Photoshop for Linux, GIMP would go away (and not get better)? It’s already available for Mac & Windows, where Photoshop has been available for years.
You guys are always, *always* going to trot out the “My dad could beat up your dad” thing. Fine, come beat up my dad, or quit talking about it. –J.]
Now I understand ..finally your position. I just read the essence :
“People largely use Linux because they want to save money & because they hate commercial software.
Also, Linux users tend to have moved over from Windows, so Linux seats don’t represent net growth..”.
…but those reasons work some ages ago – Linux are cheaper ? I’m not so sure – linux support cost money, good money, I choose linux because I like the platform – like milions of developers and other technical peoples (designers can’t do that because of Adobe / Corel and $MS legacy right now). And I don’t hate commercially software ;), this is a joke, usually I instruct peoples to buy software to get better support (24/7 in some cases) and best upgrades, at least 2 companies nearby buy Adobe suites on my advice. Corel can send me a share taking account on the printing companies where I put Corel Draw (along Photoshop) on my DTP past ;).
But mr. Nack, a lot of linux users love linux because is a strong platform, has a predictable development line, and finally offer a better horizon (at least on our days), for example as a developer you can take a deep look into kernel if you need (can you do that on Windows ?), also on the Linux world users usually talk with developers to get whet they need not what the MS king choose for them – and this is the new economic model mr. Nack (I know Adobe start to do the same on Adobe Labs ..but not with its linux members – see Flex Linux group where from a gray day, Adobe cuts communications with subscribers, they actually speak for themselves now on that list),
The main reason for inteligent peoples to use linux as platform is not because is cheap (heh) but because linux show them the horizon which MS fail to show in many years. Also on the linux side things are moving fast or very fast now – is not like years ago when you wait other years for something to happen. And gradually peoples change and will change the side because linux start to offer more, to become consistent and to have a consience about itself- the same thing happen with the IT industry. Now linux are under heavy hardware support from the big names(Intel and AMD – to name only monsters- on both cpu’s and gpu’s).
Stability, openness, support, and from some time ago Vision. That’s what we see on linux amd not in Windows mr. Nack. That’s why we can’t believe the “cheap myth” – we choose linux because we like that platform – we compare and we choose – and we expect to pay the corect price for the goods.
Maybe on some area things still need to evolve (or Adobe don’t like how things are set… ) but you can help the evolution – tell to main linux actors what is not OK from Adobe point of view and they will move things on the right direction. This is the right way – to communicate. Request what you think Adobe apps. will need from next GTK / Glib / Gnome 3 / KDE 4+ / X.org 7+/ etc, and they will solve problems. Maybe they don’t know right now what bother you.
The problem is not with us, we are humans too – the problem is with Adobe vision and MS legacy. As time as you will still consider the same older reasons – despite our reciprocal respect – things will not go OK (and why ?)
We will miss Adobe products on a better platform that which does not does anything wrong for what reason.
And about all guys that trow with Gimp on you – they are just not enough matured themselves – GIMP dev. team don’t share those stupid opinions (I am on their mailing list). Finally GIMP will gain CMYK support, 16, 32, 48 and xxx bits per pixel, HDR, accelerated canvas, etc, but this will not stay in place of well integrated suites from Adobe. Too bad. It’s a sin. From Linux user view – is a too heavy price to pay only because they use platform of their choice. But looking back into the history, we can clearly see those kind of things are with us from the very beginning.
We will hope anyway on CS5, CS7 or whatever number will be after “CS” – to celebrate together with you, Adobe guys, the beginning of a era of health.
May the God be with you.
P.S.
Until then, please check again and try to understand our position a bit deeper not only at surface ( the “cheap” and “free” are not “reasons” to use linux for many of us – those reasons are for peoples in real financial pain probably and for flame-wars lovers) – and please try this step without any preconception. This side of the world keep valuable minds inside too, scientists, software engineers, hardware companies (Intel, HP, AMD, Nvidia (they all contribute now to the linux subsystems – not only with some new drivers – they are part of linux movement now ), mathematicians, phisicians, teachers, student, more and more public institutions around the world – dont tell me they all are crazzy, they just find a better home [indeed for different motivations]).
You may find on this part of the world a lot of good peoples which choose linux not for the monetary reasons – but because they feel at home (first major barriers was with the drivers but situation is changed – actually the big barrier is that unbelievable resistance [for what reason ?] from few key companies. Adobe and Corel for example in DTP area and.. Adobe only (!!) into web area – where peoples need Dreamweaver and Flash/AIR software to develop their applications “under linux OS” not just to deploy in linux. Adobe Join Linux fundation with a focus on ” …making Linux a RIA platform of choice”. Yes now we have flash player, Adobe Reader and an unfinished beta Flex Builder. Now we will wait for the rest of the tools.
I have an upgrade question…I have Mac CS1 and I’m debating between upgrading to CS3 or CS4. My only reason to upgrade is so that I can work with files from those made in CS3 & 4. My question is, if I only upgrade to CS 3.3, will I be able to read files from CS4? and will I be able to upgrade from there to CS4 at a later time?
Hello,
I am aware that Linux doesn’t have a big share of the market as you Microsoft partners like to call that, but I am sure that you would greatly increase and encourage audio, video and graphic designers to switch to Linux operating system if you would offer a CS package for the Linux distributions. A whole lot of design studios would switch to Linux because it is much cheaper running a studio with ten or more workstations running Linux and CS package then any Mac or Windows based workstation. I just think that Adobe and Microsoft have some kind of agreement not to port applications because they know that when that happens Microsoft will certainly loose a substantial share of their “respective” market share. I do not see any other reason why Adobe or any other big software company would be avoiding porting their software for Linux. If Nero has profits from their suit why shouldn’t Adobe?
Greetings from Serbia.
Petar Lončarević
[Every single request for Linux support talks about the “growing” Linux market, but not one ever–ever–has provided evidence to support that claim. That’s not to slag Linux, just to say that I’m tired of hearing an article of faith repeated as if it’s a business justification.]
To be honest: the only thing keeping me from deleting Windows, installing Linux and never looking back is the adobe suite.
Linux has nothing but advantages over Windows, the only thing better about Windows is the software.
(Small example: I installed, updated and configured my pc in Linux in about half an hour. I installed, updated and configured Vista in about 15 hours!!)
I don’t buy the argument that Adobe can’t afford porting Photoshop to Linux. That’s just a tired excuse, which, however true in the eyes of managers, is the result of a shameful, uninspiring corporate culture. Adobe shouldn’t have to cast the whole Linux debate in terms of finances because it’s really a debate that should be had in terms of philosophy. There’s no way that I can believe that Adobe can’t hire a small team of developers to START porting Photoshop to Linux. There’s too much concern about money. There’s really no “grassroots”-level excuse.
All this Linux advocacy seems to show a basic misunderstanding of the business needs of a for-profit corporation, even a prosperous one.
There’s no question that Adobe, being a large and profitable software company, could afford to put 5 or 10 people on a Linux port on Photoshop. The question is not “could Adobe afford it”, but rather, “what other things could those 5 or 10 people be working on, and whether those other things would make more money or be more strategically valuable.” It needs to make sense *as a business decision*.
Flash Player on Linux makes tremendous sense as a business decision; a big part of Flash’s value to customers is ubiquity, and making it work on Linux is a big part of making it work beyond the desktop as well.
Flex Builder on Linux makes sense because it’s a lower-impact project (Flex Builder is built on the Eclipse core, and large parts are therefore portable Java), and because the developer community, FB’s target market, has disproportionately embraced Linux as a platform.
Deriding the validity of decision-making based on business priorities because of “philosophy” ain’t gonna get much traction given the above.
Advocates for a Linux port need to argue a case in those terms. Otherwise they’re just wasting their time.
-Iván Cavero Belaunde, Adobe
Are you aware that the WHOLE government of China is using Linux. The whole government of Korea? And there are a growing number of other countries’ governments looking into it. The Singapore governments Ministry of Defense has switched to linux also.
hi
i use a system by:
cpu: AMD Phenom II X6 – 3.2
Main: Asus corshair IV
VGA: ATI Radeon HD 5850
Do you recamen the system for Primier CS 5?
I think that Adobe should port to Linux to combat Apple’s recent decision to not support Flash on the Mac. Moving adobe to linux would not be about selling more copies of CS5, it’s more about public relations and chipping away at the market share of its competitors. Adobe alone could exponentially increase usage of linux, and could most likely change their business model a bit to make that entirely profitable for them. I think they could actually push linux into critical mass and do tremendously well to secure their technologies from that. In my opinion, good luck to anyone with an expensive OS who wants to shut down flash then… I realize I have a layman’s opinion, but I just want it to be true! 🙂
I am a Windows 7 user and a flash developer. Most of my friends are flash devs and use either Windows or Mac. I finally got them to install ubuntu on their old machines to try it out and they like it, it’s unanimous among the senior techs and the junior techs are teetering. Often the ONLY reason we as devs do not use ubuntu or some other linux derivative as our primary os, is Adobe and I don’t know a single dev (in my circle) who would not consider switching. Adobe professes to be an advocate of open source, and to a large extent they are. I bet they would get tremendous support if they pulled an IBM and started marketing linux.
All pranking that the Adobe customers gives doesn’t matter!
Adobe gets bribed by Microsoft to help the monopoly spread.
So I support Gimp instead and suggest people to quit Adobe products.