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Provides: Manipulation of pixels for image alteration, improvement, and/or enhancement.
Developer: Adobe
Requirements: Mac OS X v10.4.11 or anything newer, G5 or Intel Mac, 2GB storage space, 512MB RAM, (1GB preferred), QuickTime 7.2 or greater.
Retail Price: $699 standalone (upgrade from $199) or at varying prices as part of Adobe Creative Suite 4
As I said in my review of Photoshop CS3, "Photoshop remains the kingpin of the Suite programs. It is the heavyweight contender that tells the 800 pound gorilla where to sit. Each iteration of Photoshop not only has to be better than the last, but has to be significantly better than the last." However, Photoshop continues to move from its primary base as an application solely focused on photographic images to include (as of CS3) movies and animation, to now, in CS4, image manipulation in 3D of 3D objects. In either, you are still manipulating pixels in images, but Photoshop is expanding to move far beyond what could even be considered just a few years ago. The good news is that even if you never go near animation or 3D, there is still a lot to like in this new release.
However, before I start with the great stuff, I need to rant, so here goes:
Photoshop,
like most of the Adobe Suite applications (except Acrobat), is
firmly entrenched in the new OWL 2 interface. There are many advances
(such as now you can have more than one collapsed panel open at the same
time), and a few less than good (such as the the Application Frame). In
theory, the Application Frame should be a variation of the Full Screen mode
(which still exists by pressing the "f" key (once to get into
it with a gray background, once again for a black background, and a final
third time to get back to the normal view)).
The intent of the Application Frame is to create a "windows-like" environment for both Windows and the Mac. The good news for Mac users is that we can opt in or out of the Application Frame by selecting it in (toward the bottom of) the Windows menu. Because the initial contact with the Application Frame can be so overwhelming to Mac users, Adobe chose to start with the Application Frame off by default on the Mac platform. You can turn it on by selecting it in the Windows menu.
The purpose and benefit of the Application Frame is that it hides most everything else on your screen. That is, it allows you to close off any diversions and/or color contamination from any and everything else on your screen. This is a good thing. Where this breaks down is if your workflow is constantly flipping back and forth from Photoshop to InDesign, Bridge, Acrobat, the internet, etc. and wish to deal with these other applications on a page by page basis.
For those who've been using the Mac since before OS X, one of the dynamics of pre-OS X times was that each window in each application was linked to other windows in that application like a group. That is, if you had three windows open in Word and were in Photoshop at the time, if you clicked on one Word window, all three of the Word windows would be brought to the foreground. At that time the best solution to avoid having unwanted windows in the way was a shareware program called Window Shade. It was so popular that Apple made it part of the OS. (WindowShade is still available as shareware and works in OS X.) If a window was in the way, with WindowShade you could double-click the title bar of the window to collapse the whole thing down to the title bar. Double-clicking a second time would expand the full window. When OS X came around, the whole dynamic of windows being separate entities was strange at first, but what it allows is to bring up (say) one window from your browser to look at information, while ignoring the other 8 pages and letting you look at one browser window and one Photoshop window side by side. This is specifically what the Application Frame prevents you from doing. What you can do is click on the browser icon in the Dock and all of the browser windows come to the front and then click on the Photoshop icon and all of the Photoshop windows come to the front. But side-by-side comparison of different applications is only possible if you turn the Application Frame off.
Another new feature is tabbed windows. In many ways, this is a great feature and is assisted by the option for the user to drag an image off the tab bar and let the image be free floating. Unfortunately, despite the history of tabbed windows in browsers, Adobe chose to not follow their cue. Specifically, if the document names are long to begin with, Photoshop still adds the bit depth, color mode (e.g., RGB), and the layer you are on (plus an asterisk if the document had not been yet saved). If the available space is not sufficient to display all of this across all of the open documents, then tabs just disappear. Below I have four documents open, but only two of the tabs display. If I want to access the other two documents, I have to mouse-down on the upper-right hand dropdown menu and select the desired image from the list (assuming that I can remember which one it is by the name). Tabbed documents would have been significantly better if there was more intelligent shortening of the document's name as well as NEVER REMOVE OR MOVE A TAB EVEN IF THERE'S NO SPACE FOR TEXT. I my not know exactly where a document is even if I can't remember the name. The biggest problem with tabbed browsing in the Adobe applications is that the order of the documents in the tabbed bar changes as you select them. This just adds to the confusion and frustration. (Pant, pant pant...)
By the way, here's an interesting dynamic with the Application Frame: if you drag an image off of the tabbed interface while in Application Frame, then click on on the body of the Application Frame, the Application Frame will come to the front but any free floating documents will lie behind the Application Frame. Fortunately any such "hidden" documents can be brought back to the front after selecting the document from the Windows menu.
[The ability to have images collect on a tabbed interface exists whether you are in the Application Frame or not. (You can turn this off by going into Preferences, selecting the "Interface" tab, and unchecking "Open documents as Tabs.")]
Continuing on with tabbed document issues is the dynamic of copying and moving Adjustment layers around. In the past, if you made an image correction in an adjustment layer and wished to apply it to another image, all it took was dragging the adjustment layer from the Layers Panel over the image you wished to receive the adjustment layer and let go. This still works in CS4 if the images are not tabbed.
If the images are tabbed, it's a bit different. For one thing you cannot drag from the Layers Panel directly to the 2nd image. Rather you need to first click on the Adjustment Layer in the Layers Panel (to make it active) and then click onto the body of the image (if you have the "Move" tool selected, you are good to go; if not, you can press the Command key to access the Move tool). Then drag this layer to the tab of the image you want to have the same Adjustment layer, then wait. After about 1-2 seconds, the view will shift to the 2nd image, and at that point you can let go of the transferred Adjustment layer to apply it to the 2nd image.
In other words, something that was very straightforward and easy is now more complex and much more time consuming.
The Good News: It doesn't have to be bad, and there is a mechanism to go back and forth from the old, easy, good approach to the new more orderly approach: The Application Bar. Just under the Options bar (underneath the Menus), is the new Application Bar. There, you will see the only colored icon in Photoshop—it doesn't do anything, but it's colored. Next is the Bridge button (takes you to Bridge), the "Show Guides" and "Show Grids" menu, a dropdown menu for a specific zoom range, a Hand icon so you can push around the zoomed in image, a magnifying glass so you can zoom in or out, a rotate icon (more on that in a few moments) and the very wonderful Arrange icon.
In the past, the Window menu offered the option of Cascading and Tiling (still does). What the Arrange menu provides is the ability to select how you want the images to distribute on the screen. Once in any of these views, the images are not tabbed and will work as they have in the past. Once done with moving Adjustment layers around, you can return to the tabbed interface simply be selecting the upper-left option if the single screen.
Better than the existence of the Arrange icon is the fact that you can remove the Application bar altogether if you are short on vertical space on your computer. When it gets right down to it, with the exception to the Arrange menu, the Application bar is redundant and less effective than the original tools themselves. For example, if you double-click on the magnifying glass in the Tools Panel, your image will go to 100% zoom. That doesn't happen in the Applications Bar. Similarly, if you double-click on the Hand icon in the Tool Panel, your image will zoom to as large as it can fit in the available space on your monitor. That doesn't happen in the Applications Bar.
In other words, there's nothing that can be done as well or better in the Applications Bar as can be done elsewhere in Photoshop, with the exception of the Appearance menu icon. Like I said, Mac users can turn this off in the Windows menu. [Note: if you have the Application Frame on, you cannot turn the Application Bar off.]
Oh, by the way, if you have 2+ images open as tabs, and you click on the Mac "close" (red) button, any images you really didn't want to close will close unless they needed a save. If you forget and the image didn't need saving, it's closed. The good news is that you can always re-open the image by selecting it from the Recently opened... selection in the File menu. Here's another situation where Adobe should have looked at the dynamics of how browsers work. I switched from Safari to Firefox mostly because (at that time) Firefox warned you that you were closing a collection of tabs.
Rant over, now to some great things...
Without a doubt, the biggest new feature in Photoshop is the new 3D capabilities. [Note: this is very processor intensive. To get the maximum enjoyment, you really need an Intel Mac. I've used this on my G5 Mac and it's somewhat painful, but it does work.]
For 3D novices like myself who want to at least play with 3D, Adobe has included some 3D basic models available from the new 3D menu to "New Shape From Layer." Below shows the possible options. Things like Soda Can and Wine Bottle provide for your image to be wrapped around the cylindrical region.
Once you've created your shape, manipulation of that shape is done via two new tools located just above the Hand/Rotate View Tool shown with their variations below. The tool just above the Hand/Rotate View Tool is the 3D Rotate Tool, and above that is the 3D Orbit Tool. The difference? When you are working with a single object, not much at all. But let's say that the ring shown below is sitting on the floor and there is an object next to it. When I operate the rotate tool, the object rotates. When I operate the Orbit Tool, my perspective of the image moves. That is, if I rotate on the X axis 30° to the right, the object will rotate 30° to the right. If I use the Orbit tool, it's as if I walked 30° to the left to change my perspective of the object.
Meanwhile, to have something to display, I chose the ring. To view it at different angles, you can select the appropriate tool from above and select which angle upon which you wish to manipulate the object. To the left, the arrows and rings display how you orbit, scale, and move the object in 3D space.
Without a doubt, the main reason to use Photoshop for 3D work is that you can work on the pixels of the 3D object in 3D. Below is a view of painting on the ring above with an orange brush. Note the size of brush I'm using and note that the paint is ONLY on the object. That's because the white is not canvas, but rather empty space where there is nothing else there. The ring is the canvas.
This just touches the basics of Photoshop's 3D capabilities. If you do 3D work at all, Photoshop will be indispensable.
Earlier, I mentioned the Rotate tool. It has replaced the Hand tool in the Tools Panel as the default tool (this is sticky, so if you do flip to the Hand tool, it will stay there until changed). Here's where it's cool; if you take a piece of paper and place it on a desk, you will rotate the image counter-clockwise a bit (if you are right handed) or clockwise (if you are left handed) so that you can more easily work along a straight line based on the rotation of the arm from the elbow. Well now you can from Photoshop, but there's a trick:
You need enough processing power in the video card in your Mac to support OpenGL. You need to go into your Photoshop Preferences and go to the Performance tab, and if you can select the "Enable OpenGL Drawing," great. If this is grayed out, some of the features of Photoshop will not be available to you unless you either upgrade your video card (if possible) or upgrade your computer (if possible).
So, if we are still good with the OpenGL, go back to an image, click on the Rotate View Tool, move the mouse over the image, click down and move the mouse up or down. Watch the image rotate. The worst thing about this is you will be bugging everyone near you for the first week as you have to show them again and again how you can rotate an image. The important thing to point out here is that this is not re-sampling the image as you'd be doing if you actually were rotating the image. Rather, this is rotating the View of the image, which means that this is not damaging the image in any way. Now, either with the mouse or with a Wacom stylus, you can work on an image just as you'd do with a piece of paper. [Note: To return the image back to its normal position, just double-click the Rotate View Tool.]
As long as we are at the Rotate View Tool, let's mention something about the ol' standard Hand Tool. With OpenGL activated, now when you "flick" the hand tool in one direction or the other, the image will continue to "float" in the flicked direction, gradually slowing down in a moment. [Note: a second click and hold will stop the floating image in its tracks.] This is one of those real cool visual treats that I have to admit is not essential, but very cool.
Not only cool, but essential, one of the other treats with OpenGL is that now you do not have to have zoom-multiplication of your image in percentages of 25-50-75-100-200% to not see pixilation that you used to see at 33 or 66% on an angled item. That is, if you have a telephone wire dragging across the sky, as it changed from either the vertical or horizontal angle, this would appear very pixilated at odd percentages. Now, that problem is gone with OpenGL on.
For me, one of the updates I'm enjoying the most is the new Adjustment Layer Panel. While you still can do adjustments on the image directly and you can still initiate adjustment layers from the bottom of the Layers Panel, this new panel (seen on the left side below which I'm calling the primary view) provides access to all of the traditional adjustment layers plus the new Vibrance adjustment. The reason why I like this so much is that whenever you select any given adjustment layer, the panel switches directly to the controls of that adjustment. Once done, you can either click on the Trash can (bottom right), to remove the adjustment layer if it didn't work as desired, or the Return command (the arrow on the bottom left) to get back to the primary view to select an additional adjustment layers. In the base mode there also is a broad collection of various Presets for all of the adjustments just in case you are not sure which to use or how. Any of these Presets are available within any of the adjustments in a dropdown menu on the top. By the way, Adobe has placed the Adjustment Layer directly on top of the Layers Panel as its default position. I've found this to be a great location, and have left it there despite a lot of other customization of the Panels locations.
Also of note in the Adjustment Panel is a funny looking icon on the bottom right of the primary view and a different icon that does the same thing (3rd from the left within any given adjustment). This is the Clipping Mask tool, so that when clicked, the adjustment layer will Clip to the layer below. [The Option-click between layers still works as well as the selection in the Layers menu.]
Have you ever created a layer mask and (for example) ran a Gausian Blur on the mask, but guessed how much of a blur you'd need and didn't like the result? So you Undo and try again, and again if necessary. If you use Masks and have been frustrated as to how challenging it is to make subtle adjustments to them, it's time to rejoice. In the new Masks Panel, you can change the density (consider this to be Opacity) and feather a mask directly. You also have direct access to the Color Range Selection window that has also been significantly improved. If that's not good enough, you can bring up the Refine Mask Panel, which looks remarkably like the Refine Selection Panel introduced in CS3.
One common addition to many of the Adjustment layers that allow for interactivity with the image itself are scrubbies. For example, in previous versions of Photoshop, if you wanted to place a point on a Curve from the image, you'd Command-click on the image and a point would appear on the Curve, you could then grab this point and move it around as you found fit. While this approach still works as is when doing a standard Curves adjustment, if you are doing an Adjustment Layer, in the upper left of the Adjustment window is a little hand slider. First click on that, then click on the image where you want to adjust something and slide (in this case) up and down and the curve will move with your mouse while the mouse is over the image. This adjustment feature is available in a number of the Adjustment layers selections.
New with CS3 was the Clone Source Panel. It provided an extensive range of improvements and benefits for the Rubber Stamp tool but there was one dynamic that was terrible: when you had the Show Overlay option checked, there was a duplicate of the entire image that was sliding around on your cursor as you tried to match up and align the image for placement. This whole thing took a lot of horsepower, meaning that the image often moved around herky-jerky leaving some with full-blown motion sickness. Everyone felt it should work like the Rubber Stamp tool in Vanishing Point.
Now it can. There is a new checkbox in the Clone Source Panel called "Clipped." Check that and you will see what is shown below on the left, with a ghost image filling up the region of the Rubber Stamp brush. On the right below is a view of what you see if you have the Clipped turned off. Any questions?
While the Clone Source Panel update/correction has only been an issue since CS3, the Dodge/Burn tool has had the same problem since they were first introduced in Photoshop; they lightened or darkened the image with no regards to any changes in the tones of the image being effected. Well, now this has finally been fixed. As shown below, in the Options Bar, there is a new checkbox called "Protect Tones." When this selection is checked (the default option), when you use the Dodge or Burn tool, any tones are protected. Below is a screenshot where I use both tools and use them with and without the Protection.
The Dodge and Burn operations are direct processes from the dark room. When Dodging, you'd hold a protective shield over regions of the print paper to limit the light exposure on a given region on the image. Burn was just the opposite, and you'd expose the desired regions longer than other regions. In Photoshop, the problem has always been that there's a trashing of tones doing either. Now, you are good to go.
If any feature stands out as something special, it has to be Content-aware Scaling. This falls into one of those special categories of features that will always elicit an "Oh Wow" when it is shown (and deservedly so), but in reality has somewhat of a limited use. That's not to say that it doesn't have uses, it does. It's just not the kind of thing that is likely to be used all the time. However, when it's needed, it's spectacular.
Consider the images below. The first image is the original image. On this image I saved a simple alpha channel selection of the tree and the truck, then using Content-aware Scaling, I decreased the width of the image considerably, as seen in the second image below. To show you why this is special, look at the third image below to see what happens when one does a simple Transform and decreases the width the same amount. Notice how the truck and tree have gone on an extensive diet.
[To create the alpha channel selections, I took the marquee tool and made a rectangle around the truck, and an oval around the tree. Then, at the bottom of the Select menu I saved this with "Save selection…" When making the Content Aware Scaling, there is an option to Protect and I chose from the dropdown menu the alpha channel I had just saved.]
Who would use this and why? Probably mostly those who have to fill a defined region of space in a magazine, website, whatever, and their images do not have the same aspect ratio as the image size required. Past options were limited to artificially filling in the empty space and/or cropping the image--both of which have significant limitations.
Another spectacular feature that is in all of the CS4 products is the ability to share your monitor screen with (up to) three other people. So, if someone calls you and asks you how to do something, you can show them without leaving your chair. You cannot look at their screen unless they also have CS4, but what an incentive. If you do teaching, want to show a client something, and/or support, this feature alone will justify CS4.
Photomerge was hands-down my favorite feature in CS3. Improved in CS4, now Photoshop can automatically remove any vignetting at the corners of the image as well as remove any geometric distortion for better alignment with adjacent images. However, this is just fine tuning a few details from the previous version. New with CS4 is the ability to merge images with different depths of fields.
One of the problems in photography, and more in any macro or extreme close up photography, is that you can focus on only a narrow depth of field, especially as your f-stop decreases. If the subject's depth is greater than the depth of field, than some part of the subject will be out of focus. There are several ways around this, such as multiple shots and multiple layer masks and very skilled brush technique. Alternatively there are third-party software solutions for this problem, but now you can do it in Photoshop's photomerge.
Below are four images, the top three of which are photos of the same cup of pens, pencils and short rulers. I've circled regions in each three that are in focus. Notice how the rest of the collection is out of focus. Now, look at the bottom image and see that all are in focus. Neat huh?
There is a small issue with this feature in that you have to uncheck the option to Auto-Blend the images when setting up the files for the Panorama. Once the images are all assembled into layers in a single document, select them all so they are all active, then use Edit -> Auto Blend Layers but make sure you've selected "Stack Images" instead of "Panorama."
One of the disappointments in CS4 for Mac users was that Adobe had to drop 64-bit support for the Mac. This wasn't Adobe's fault, but rather because of a decision of Apple's to not make a 64-bit version of Carbon as they had promised. The upcoming new OS (Snow Leopard) will be 64-bit Cocoa and Adobe is planning on a 64-bit version of Photoshop for that.
The good news is that this limitation only effects those who use very, very, very, very, very big images so Photoshop can access more RAM. The vast majority of Photoshop users are not likely to encounter that much difference.
The bad news is that things that affect Windows users also affect Mac users. In this case, a small number of the plug-ins we are used to seeing in Photoshop have a been dropped because Adobe chose not to put the resources in to make 64 bit versions. So, when you open Photoshop, you will not see Extract, Picture Package, Contact Sheet, Web Photo Gallery, PDF Presentation, and TWAIN. This last one means you cannot scan from within Photoshop anymore. You need to use your scanning software outside of Photoshop, save the images somewhere and open the images separately.
The good news is that Adobe has provided Mac users access to these files. If you haven't saved them from your copy of CS3, you can download the Mac version of these files. Instructions on where to place them are included as PDFs in the download. [Note: there are different PDFs for different items, so be sure to look for different instructions and follow the appropriate instructions for the different plug-ins.]
Before I forget, one more rant of sort: Help. For a long time, to their credit, Adobe has been trying to make Help better. For financial reasons, they dropped printed books after CS, and had a custom Help Application in CS2 and CS3. Now, they've gone to a web-based Help system that—to put it politely—sucks. Here's a trick: when you first go to the web based Help, look in the upper right or upper left corners of the screen (depending on which CS4 product you are looking at) and you will see a link to the PDF of the Adobe product. These are large files, the Photoshop PDF is 40 MB, but worth it if you want a manual of any kind on your computer. Remember, if you want to view the PDF and a Photoshop image side-by-side, be sure to turn the Application Frame off.
To keep this review somewhat short, let me mention that a Flash based panel of Illustrator's Kuler is now part of Photoshop (see http://kuler.adobe.com/). Here, you can access the tremendous collection of color sets from the kuler website as well as create your own. Unfortunately this is not as feature-rich as Kuler is in AI, but there's enough there to satisfy most users, and it's certainly better than trying to go back and forth from Photoshop and the kuler website. Lastly there's the Configurator. In short, the Configurator is sort of a catch-all of whatever you want it to be. For example, I have created a custom panel of all of the tools I almost never use, and therefore I can't remember where they are located. For example, where's the Paint Bucket? I always have to go digging. With the Configurator I do not have to, it's always at hand. To comment on all that the Configurator can do would double this review. I suggest you check it out on your own.
Admittedly I am neither an animator nor a 3D image expert. I am a photographer, and when I open Photoshop, that's what I'm looking for. Please note that I've barely touched all of the features in CS4; rather, I've focused on most of the issues that effect me. Overall, I'm impressed, but not knocked over by Photoshop CS4. If anything, I'm profoundly unimpressed by the Application Frame and the dynamics of the tabbed documents, but you probably already guessed that. The good news is that you can turn it off if you are on a Mac.
In short, this is both an update and a revolutionary update. However, which one it is for you will depend upon your work. If you do 3D work, this product is spectacular and will provide much that you've been waiting and looking for. If you do primarily photographic work, this is a great update with some very important tools and improvements. Whether it's a "must have" or not depends on your workflow as well as needs and demands.
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___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.
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