We earthlings can generally count on the sun to rise and set every day, the moon to go through its cycle every month, and Adobe to release a new version of its graphics software lineup almost exactly every 18 months. The newest version is Creative Suite 4, which should be shipping by the time you read this. Since Photoshop is the most well-known app in the suite—and arguably the most commonly used—even among non-pros—we wanted to give you a first look at Photoshop CS4, so you know exactly what’s new and cool, what Adobe still needs to improve on, and whether it makes sense to spring for the upgrade—which will cost at least $199.

In this release of Photoshop, there are lots of tweaks and a few truly cool new toys and tools. While Photoshop CS4 does not signal the dawn of a new age, it’s worth knowing what to expect if you do make the jump up from an earlier version. We put the gold master—that is, the final beta version of Photoshop CS4—through its paces to bring you this comprehensive first look at Adobe’s flagship app.

Interface Overhaul

One of the best new interface innovations is the ability to instantly and visually organize lots of open images.

When you launch Photoshop CS4 for the first time, you’ll find a number of interface changes that may or may not make you happy. In a move to standardize interfaces across apps and platforms, Adobe has created a new method for organizing documents and palettes, in an “application window,” a familiar construct for Windows users and something we’ve already seen in Photoshop Elements 6. As you create new documents, they are all contained within a single floating window and automatically appear onscreen as a line of tabs, just like in a Web browser. There are new options for arranging multiple open documents in the main window, a feature we quickly grew fond of, especially when working with a half-dozen or more images at a time. Resize one image window, and the others automatically shrink to make room. We were skeptical about the tabbed window approach when we got started with CS4, but after a few days, we found that it was tough going back to the old overlapping windows approach. We also discovered that it’s easy to spawn any image window off into its own old-style floating window, mixing the best of the old- and new-schools approaches. Overall, we came to like the overhauled interface, but there’s also a way to turn it off in case it confuses or frustrates you.

Another major interface addition is new panels for adjustment layers and mask controls, which make access to them more convenient. Instead of invoking a floating control palette for Curves, for example, you simply select the Curves tool in the new Adjustments panel, and a miniature (and fully functional) Curves control shows up in the palette, and a Curves adjustment layer appears in the Layers palette. It’s really easy to get used to this streamlined approach, especially when you realize that there’s a way to click on the current image and have your dragging motions translate directly into Curves control points. All this makes the process of doing interactive color correction faster, and it’s a subtle change that makes it harder to revert to earlier versions of the app.

Adobe says these interface tweaks allow users to significantly streamline the creative process, but the fact is that advanced Photoshop users who have been comfortable using keyboard modifiers and Actions to customize the overall interface and create procedural macros (such as automatically opening a Curves adjustment layer and applying a predefined preset), might be less impressed with some of the interface enhancements. If you’re new to Photoshop, however, you’ll definitely like what you see. We grew to appreciate the changes after a couple of weeks of working intensely with Photoshop CS4 and now find it a challenge to revert back to CS3.

Digital Darkroom...or Lightroom

Photographers are likely to be thrilled with CS4, especially if they use—or are considering using—Adobe Lightroom (4 out of 5 stars, Nov/08, p52). The Camera Raw import module in Photoshop CS4 offers a totally cool adjustment brush and gradient filter that’s lifted right out of Lightroom, allowing you to apply nondestructive, localized exposure, sharpness, saturation, and other tonal effects to selected areas of an image before importing it into Photoshop. The original RAW or JPEG file remains unaltered, while the modified image with the painted-on corrections opens in Photoshop. This is certainly a useful new tool, but we wonder why Adobe chose not to implement it inside Photoshop as a new type of nondestructive adjustment layer. On a more subtle note, CS4’s Dodge and Burn tools have a very smart Protect Tones mode, which keeps the lightening and darkening effects from going too far one way or the other. The Sponge tool sports a Vibrance switch for smooth saturation control.

Better Scaling and Stitching

Localized Color Clusters make sure your mask stays in the region you want, instead of all over the document.

One of the most striking new tools—and for some, a significant reason to consider upgrading—is something called Content-Aware Scaling, a bit of software magic that we saw demonstrated on YouTube long before it found its way into Photoshop (Adobe snapped up the coding genius who created this wonder). It’s one of those features better seen in action than described in words, but essentially it allows you to stretch images horizontally or vertically, keeping things like people and buildings relatively undistorted, while stretching uniform backgrounds (think sky, fields, grass, and so on). You can also manually mask off specific elements that you’d like to “protect” from the scaling effect, for fine-tuning your overall results. It’s simply amazing in action and will truly impress anyone who has had to do the complex masking required to accomplish this type of work the “old” way.

The panorama-stitching prowess of Photomerge has undergone some refinements and is now much better at blending the edges of overlapping images when creating panoramic images. If the pictures have been shot with a wide-angle lens, there’s some mojo that fixes some of the more problematic image distortions when creating stitches and even applies some basic color correction to the stitched images to make them match up better. If you regularly stitch together images to create panoramas, chances are you’ve already discovered the amazing Autopano Pro (4 out of 5 stars, Oct/08, p62), which blows everything else—including the newly updated Photomerge—out of the water.

Another cool innovation in Photoshop CS4 is Extended Depth-of-Field, an option within Auto-Blending that does some slick magic with a series of photos shot with different depths of field. With the same basic idea behind HDR (high dynamic range) images, Extended Depth-of-Field takes a group of pictures shot together—preferably with a tripod—with different aperture settings (where some images show objects in the foreground in focus and others show the background in focus) and blends them together to create a single, completely sharp picture, while automatically color-correcting images to ensure consistent color in the final blended picture. It’s one of those things that hobbyist and pro photographers alike will instantly understand—and deeply appreciate.

Masking Marvels 

The Adjustments and Masks panels give you direct access to many color-correction and masking controls.

One of the most elemental aspects of using Photoshop is the process of masking, which involves isolating a portion of an image in order to make changes in just that area. For example, changing the color of a single apple in a shot of a fruit basket involves selecting the apple you want to color shift and leaving the surrounding oranges, grapes, and bananas alone. There are a variety of tools and techniques for accomplishing this, and the implementation of Layer Masks that’s been a longtime feature in Photoshop allows each layer of a multilayered image to have its own specific mask, essential for precisely blending layers in the final image. In Photoshop CS4, Adobe gave Layer Masks a massive injection of steroids, resulting in an entirely new behavior that makes the layer masks “smart.” So instead of having static, pixel-based fixed feathering and density, these and other mask parameters are now constantly editable and nondestructive, mirroring how masks are handled in After Effects, the masking leader in Adobe’s software stable. If you’re an advanced Photoshop user, this is the killer reason to upgrade because it’s a major step forward that provides huge flexibility for the most demanding compositing and masking techniques.

There’s also a subtle but highly useful addition to the Color Range command, which is used to create masks by specific colors or selected colors from the image. The Localized Color Cluster checkbox, which sounds somewhat daunting, is really sweet, allowing you to limit the currently masked area to a localized region of the image. This might sound a bit difficult to wrap your head around, but it’s one of those things that will make anyone who’s ever used Color Range shout, “Eureka!”

And speaking of masking, Smart Objects can now contain layer masks, which is very, very nice. We’re also thrilled that Smart Objects can be edited with all of the Transform tools, including Distort, Skew, and Perspective. We really appreciate the fact that Adobe has not sat on its laurels with regard to Smart Objects. Everyone who uses Photoshop should learn everything they can about this often overlooked but essential feature.

Work in New Dimensions

Photoshop Extended has some neat 3D effects, including built-in shapes and texture mapping.

Until CS4, Photoshop did not take advantage of the advanced graphics and OpenGL-processing capabilities of many of the higher-end video cards on the market or the video circuitry on certain Macs, such as the MacBook Pro. CS4 is the first version of Photoshop to make use of the graphics horsepower of late-model video cards with these capabilities, and it shows up in improved performance of certain graphic-intense operations like zooming (which is now an instantaneous, fluid process), as well as scrolling around an image in extreme magnification. Photoshop CS4’s OpenGL mojo extends to some new functionality too, such as the rotating canvas, a feature long requested by artists using Wacom pen tablets. It’s a deceptively simple concept: Instead of creating a rotation effect that alters the pixels of an image, the image canvas can be rotated as a whole, making it easier to sketch, trace, and
draw on the image with the Paintbrush tool from any angle. Then you can rotate the image to its original orientation, once you’re done working with it. It’s a huge deal for digital artists, who until now have been forced to physically rotate the graphics tablets on their desks. The only downside, of course, is that this feature won’t work on a standard MacBook or older iMac that doesn’t have OpenGL support.

The OpenGL acceleration also shines in the new 3D commands found in Photoshop Extended, which lets you load 3D objects into the app, paint on them, and render the results using a decent ray-trace renderer built right in. There’s also a selection of built-in 3D shapes—cylinders, cubes, spheres, and even a soda can and wine bottle. You can instantly wrap your flat 2D image around a 3D shape and change the lighting, camera angle, and a wide range of advanced rendering parameters that might make the typical pixel artist dizzy, but which will delight 3D geeks. Grayscale images can be turned into wild 3D shapes (Google John Knoll and CyberMesh to get an idea of what this looks like) and exported for use in other 3D animation software. We enjoyed taking a 2D image layer and creating a 3D “postcard” from it, by spinning the image around a 3D axis—useful for creating foreshortening effects that would otherwise take more work using the standard Perspective transform tool.

With the right video hardware, you can rotate the entire working canvas, a dream come true for Wacom tablet users.

While all this three-dimensional editing is certainly cool, the simple fact is that experienced 3D artists are probably already using a dedicated 3D modeling and painting program such as Maxon’s powerful BodyPaint 3D, a professional tool with a mature toolset and finely tuned texture-painting abilities. Photoshop CS4 puts some cool stuff out there, but these 3D features need to be fleshed out before they can become anything other than nifty toys for dabblers.

If your Mac lacks the required OpenGL hardware, some of the 3D functionality can still be accomplished, but expect a major performance hit. For example, we found the process of spinning a 10-megapixel image on an axis to be glacially slow without OpenGL acceleration. What stumps us about this is that After Effects has had a similar ability for years, and it works smoothly on machines without high-end video capabilities.

All Together Now

Built in to Photoshop CS4, Kuler is a nifty tool for creating harmonious color sets.

You don’t need us to tell you that we’re deeply immersed in the Internet era. Photoshop CS4 adds some new, highly tempting on-ramps to the info superhighway. There are some cool extensions that connect Photoshop to Adobe’s website, for example. And the très cool Kuler technology is also built into Photoshop CS4. Emerging from Adobe’s labs last year, Kuler lets anyone create compelling custom sets of colors and share them with the Adobe-user community. Kuler also incorporates “color harmony” intelligence that morphs a base color into visually pleasing, multicolor palettes that are extremely handy for real-world design work. If you’re connected to the Net, you can search the Adobe database of color sets and even enter keywords such as “autumn” or “psychedelic.”Finally, you can easily copy any Kuler color set to your local swatches panel for offline use.

If you want to have a Photoshop party, use the ConnectNow feature to share your local Photoshop screen activity with a pair of remote viewers, along with an accompanying audio or video feed, all handled through Adobe’s servers. All your remote friends need is Web access and a browser. This is exactly what graphics pros need for client reviews and one-on-one remote teaching or tech support.

The Devil's in The Details

You can now see where the effects of the Clone tool will appear before you paint, as with a live brush preview.

There are all sorts of nifty new tweaks in Photoshop CS4, in addition to the standout improvements we’ve covered here. There are a lot of small touches that add up to a pleasing overall picture. Have you ever wanted to delete a layer just by selecting it and pressing Delete? You finally can in CS4.

If you have a MacBook Pro or MacBook Air with a gesture-equipped touchpad, you’ll be delighted to discover that Photoshop CS4 supports the two-finger pinch for scaling images as well as using gestures to rotate and zoom.

The Vibrance color-correction control appeared a version or two ago in Camera Raw, and it’s a much more effective way to add color intensity than the venerable Hue/Saturation command. It’s implemented inside of CS4 as an adjustment layer, and you’ll quickly learn to rely on it for adding punch and presence to color objects in a scene, without creating color artifacts in uniform backgrounds.
Serious image retouchers will experience love at first sight when they lay eyes on the new live preview of the Clone Stamp and Healing brush. Support for 16-bit printing adds rich details to black-and-white printing on art paper and makes color images pop on decent color photo printers.

So What's Not to Like? 

One of the things Mac users find irksome is the fact that Photoshop CS4 is not a 64-bit application, meaning that the maximum amount of RAM that the software can make use of is 3GB. If you’re a Web designer or a hobbyist digital photographer, this won’t be a make-or-break issue, but for those who work with very large images with many adjustment layers, this might be the reason you decide not to go for Photoshop CS4. Given that Adobe’s Lightroom is a 64-bit application, it’s surprising that Photoshop CS4 is not, and it’s especially frustrating since the Windows version is a true 64-bit app.

The Bottom Line 

Should you upgrade to Photoshop CS4? It depends on how you use the app and your particular area of professional expertise. Anyone with a point-and-shoot camera, Mac mini, or casual interest in imaging is already using Photoshop Elements and totally happy with it’s many capabilities. There’s nothing for you to see here, so kindly move along.

Professional photographers will absolutely want to consider making the move to CS4, especially because some of the better parts of Lightroom are built right in, and once you’ve used Context Aware Scaling in the right setting, you’ll be hooked.

Anyone who makes heavy use of layer masks will be blown away by the new masking tricks, which are true innovations and worth every penny. Professional designers should probably upgrade, too, especially if they plan to upgrade the entire Adobe graphics suite, all variations of which include Photoshop. This might not be the most radical Photoshop update ever, but as we adjusted to it over the last several weeks, we grew to love the overall picture.

A Bridge Over Digital Water

The most subtle improvement in Bridge—the ability to view the path of the current directory—is a welcome addition.

Over the years, Adobe has taken Bridge from a simplistic image browser to a capable digital media-management system. In CS4, Bridge has some cool new additions that will make your life easier. Our favorite is the Review command, which takes the selected images (or all images in the current folder, if none are selected) and puts them in a pseudo 3D turnstile, a great way to review images with clients or creative partners. You can rate images in the Review interface, as well as create custom Collections of images, which is very useful for cataloging and organizing large image libraries.

The Review command in Bridge CS4 gives you a sweet way to scroll through lots of images.

If you have a collection of pictures that you’d like to turn into a set of Web catalog pages, Bridge now includes all of the Web-creation goodies in Lightroom, resulting in professional HTML—or Flash—files ready to be uploaded to your Web server.

And in the “Small Details Loom Large” category, the simple addition of a visual folder path in the main Bridge window is a minor tweak that makes us smile every time we see it. No more wondering where we are in the sea of folders that is our Mac’s hard drive.

See Content-Aware Scaling in Action!

There are several features in Photoshop CS4 that are better demonstrated live, onscreen than with a static printed screen shot. Content-Aware Scaling (see “Better Scaling and Stitching,”) is one of those features. To see this and other cool new features in Photoshop CS4 demo’d “live,” check out the exclusive screencasts on our website at www.maclife.com/pscs4_screencasts.