Photoshop CS4!

Adobe formally announced Photoshop CS4 today, as well as a brand new Creative Suite CS4, featuring major updates of all of their main programs. The announcement was expected since Adobe adopted the tactic of how some presidential candidates reveal their intentions by first announcing that there was going to be an announcement (an announcement about the announcement but not the announcement!).

As with the release of CS3, there is a standard Photoshop CS4 and a Photoshop CS4 Extended. The extended version has a boatload of new 3D features, as well as extra goodies for video professionals and those with more technical imaging needs in the engineering, architectural, medical and forensics field.

Here's a quick rundown of my favorite new features for photographers:

Camera Raw 5: As expected, the localized raw editing capabilities that first made an appearance earlier this year in Lightroom 2 have now been added to the latest version of Camera Raw. The Adjustment Brush lets you brush on several types of tonal corrections and enhancements, including Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity, Sharpness, and even a Color Tint. The settings, as well as the area covered by the brush adjustment, can be changed at any time and are completely non-destructive.

Localized edits with the Camera Raw Adjustment Brush
(click in the image for a larger view).

The Graduated Filter lets you apply changes along a gradient. This is essentially like using a graduated neutral density filter on your camera, with the exception that you can affect the same attributes as the Adjustment Brush...Exposure, Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Clarity, Sharpness, and Color Tint.

Camera Raw's Graduated Filter in Action (click in the image for a larger view)

Another cool improvement is the addition of Post-Crop Vignetting: the ability to add a vignette and have it conform to any crop that you apply to the image.

Adjustments Panel. Adjustments Layers have received a significant interface upgrade with the addition of the Adjustments Panel (yes, the term "palette" has been officially replaced by "panel"...go figure). At first this just looked like a rearrangement of existing features rather than something totally new (and in a way it is just that),  and I wasn't too impressed. But the new layout and, in some cases, new functionality is well thought out and now I really appreciate how Adobe has put all the adjustments together in one place.

Clicking on an adjustment icon will automatically create an Adjustment Layer for you and instead of a modal dialog taking over your screen, as in previous versions of the program, the controls for the adjustment (i.e., Levels, Curves, Hue/Saturation, Black & White, etc...) now appear directly in the Adjustments Panel. An On-Image control feature, like the Targeted Adjustment Tool in Lightroom has also been added for Curves, Hue/Saturation and the Black & White adjustment. This allows you to drag directly on a color or tonal area in the image to change that value. Other useful controls, such as the ability to group the adjustment to a specific layer also are available directly in the Adjustments Panel.

The Adjustments Panel. Selecting an adjustment (left) and modifying the control settings (right).
(click in the image for a larger view)

Masks Panel. Essential masking functionality has been added to the new Masks Panel. This allows for easier access to basic mask editing techniques like density, feathering/blurring, inverting, an improved Color Range command and refining the characteristics of mask edges. The ability to dynamically change mask density and feathering whenever you need to is very cool!

The Masks Panel and the Refine Mask dialog (click in the image for a larger view).

Layer Blending. Both Auto Align layers and Auto Blend Layers have been improved and enhanced. The latter feature now allows for extending depth of field when using a series of shots photographed with different focus points.

There are also many other new features such as Content-Aware Scaling, Live Brush Previews for the Clone Stamp and Healing Brush, and some excellent improvements to the much-maligned Dodge and Burn Tools that actually makes them usable (though I would really prefer that they could be used non-destructively as an adjustment layer...maybe next time). The interface has received some new enhancements and improvements (or gratuitous changes, depending on your point of view) and there are also some excellent performance enhancements including real time panning and zooming of super big high-res files.As mentioned above, if you're into 3D imaging, then the Extended version boasts quite a few new features in that area.

In my opinion, just the improvements to Camera Raw and the new Masks Panel make this worth the upgrade price. I'll be posting my thoughts on whether the upgrade to CS4 makes sense for photographers and those with different Photoshop experience levels in a few days.

Colin Smith over at PhotoshopCAFE has a posted a Photoshop CS4 Learning Site, as have the fine folks over at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. Both feature a collection of videos that showcase the new features.

Adobe has a list of the top new features in the Standard and Extended versions at their web site.

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Workshop This Weekend!

Secrets of the Mask:
Selections and Masking in Adobe Photoshop CS3
September 27 - 28, Santa Cruz, California

There are still spaces left in my Secrets of the Mask workshop coming up this weekend in the beautiful seaside town of Santa Cruz, California. The workshop will be taught using Photoshop CS3, but I will be showing some of the new masking techniques in Photoshop CS4, as well as other cool, new features of interest to photographers.

NAPP members and subscribers to my newsletter receive a special discount for this workshop.
Click here for a description of this class and registration info.

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