Did you upgrade cs3 to cs4?

Yes, I did, as I am one of those individuals, who, always has to have the up-to-date play-thing.
Anyway, it is basically the same. Most of the new stuff is on the 3D side, which I have not yet used. I do enjoy a new tool, located within a new sub-menu of the Magic Wand, it is the Quick Selection Tool. It’s a cool idea, and works 90% of the time. Basically, you have a brush you paint over the general area you want selected. It is generally used to select a person from a background, but it is by no means perfect and takes some time to learn corectly, however, if you don’t mind fixing small imperfection in the Marquee, then it’s awesome. Aside from that, the program runs a little bit faster, and handles multipule brushes in your libarey better (it doesn’t lag as much when bringing up the brushes menu) and the new method for tool-bars is pretty cool.
Outside of small changes to the GUI and the “behind-the-scenes” stuff, it really isn’t worth the upgrade, unless you can afford it, or, are like myself, and need the lastest version.
The RAW plugin is pretty sweet too. Oh and it takes about half the time to save a .psd then it did in CS3.

Note: I am on a mac, running OS X 10.5.6, so that might have some stuff to do with my experiences and load times, etc…

Did that help any? I can elaborate more if you like.

I hate the tabs more than anything. Why the hell would someone think tabs in PS is a good idea?

Ah yes, I almost forgot about those little b-stereds! I HATE those so much, I deactivated them the moment I saw them. My apologies for omitting such a gross mistake on Adobe’s behalf.

To elaborate, the “tabs” we speak of, are in the main widows of the files you open. Just as IE, Firefox, and Safari have tabs, CS4 now has them too, however, they have no method to quickly switch between them, and they just all around suck.

I have CS3 at the day job and at home. I have taught on CS4 though at the night job.

Not a fan of the tabs. Also view mode (the last button at the bottom of the tool box) seems to have disapeared in PS.

Yes, it has cprevite, but that is because Adobe subscribes to Apples mentality of “Form over Function.” Apparently more people used the “F key” keyboard short-cut, rather then the button… and by that same logic, those people felt it necessary to say, “Duh, hey youz guyz? Why iz notz uz guys put a dumb feature like teh tabxors in teh APPey?” Then they proceeded to vomit on themselves and then drive drunk, and probably some other dumb stuff too.

You haven’t mentioned if you mean Photoshop or the Adobe suite in general.

Personally I was really happy with CS3 and even CS2. There was not enough of a marketing push to convince me why I need CS4 and I still do not have it. I am happy with the way it works currently. This tab feature doesn’t sound appealing.

I upgraded and love it. It is way faster to move around in now that it draws from the graphics card.

As far as the tabs, you just have to press a button and they are disengaged

They brought the adjustments down to a pallet.

and the view mode button has not disapeared it is now at the top next to the window arrangement button.

There is a vibrance adjustment that is rock solid.

You have the ability to rotate your “canvas” like you would your paper, without permanently rotating it, in order to get better angles.

I have to disagree with the statement is isn’t worth the up grade. And it seems that some of the people making comments didn’t use the program enough to truly learn about that.

@Bri_L:
Well, let us consider this:
Is rotating a canvas, and a vibrance plugin that you can download for free are supposed to be worth 600$ worth of upgrade? I agree with your points, I think you should upgrade if you can afford it, or steal it, as seems to be the custom with most adobe products, but, I just can’t see to many people warranting 600$ for a few new features.
To me, it would be like buying a new car every year, just because they changed it’s color and it’s name, and added one extra cup holder.

However, if you are into the art of 3D modeling, then the entire CS4 suite is well worth the money! They have added many, many, MANY, features for such things. Such as the ability to have Photoshop function in a sort of ZBrush manner (allowing you to “paint on textures” on 3D models. You no longer need to unwrap them.) Premiere Pro makes it easy to export your video strait to 3ds max or Maya now (and probably other modeling programs) One feature I enjoy is the ability to run Premiere Pro, next to 3ds Max, allowing me to edit the footage and the visual effects at once. It is a massive consumer of RAM, but if you have the ability to utilize it, that one feature is worth upgrading for!

It is way faster because of the first point you ignored.

The tab and the view feature button that you ignored as just a move not an elimination is not a problem and actually a time saver.

The vibrance addition is worth quite a lot if you understand the time it saves you if you if you have to achieve the same results with out it and you’ve ignored the time saving benefits of having the the adjustments as a pallet.

Illustrator has the new blob brush tool, live paint bucket tool and multiple art boards

That right there with those two programs alone makes it worth the upgrade wether or not your into 3d.

No flash love!?!? Any complaints with flash CS4?

I like the upgrades for flash as well. Although I had not used Flash for 1 version or so. I do like the way it automatically organizes the animation layers and components. It makes it a lot easier.

okay, well, the Vibrance tool as always been a plugin you could down load, if you really cared about it. Now it is included, fine. Total value of that, .50¢. I did not ignore those features, as I use the keyboard shortcuts to change views, however, the is no keyboard shortcut for switching between windows, or rather there is, but you have to change it in the OS, not the program. I discovered it yesterday (on a mac it is Control+Tab,) so that wasn’t ignored…

So I don’t see how, considering I use those features, that I ignored them. I will admit I did not talk about Illustrator because I don’t use it, I prefer Photoshop for everything, as it can do most everything Illustrator can, in some fashion or another (and yes I know it is a lot more work in Photoshop.)

I do not use the rotate plugin, or new feature, because I use a on-screen tablet, however, I will admit, it is a great feature and I am glad they included it.
I would also like to state at this point, I was at the Mac store today, and saw that the Photoshop Stand-Alone Upgrade is only 200$ So, if you are only looking to upgrade Photoshop, then 200$ isn’t that bad, considering other tools, brand new, that do similar things, are about 200$

As I said before, if you can afford it, get it, if nothing else, the amount of optimized code making it run faster is worth the effort to upgrade.

Um you ignored them by not mentioning them. And looking them up after I said you ignored them, which is what you did, does not change the fact that you didn’t address them.

And still your ignoring the increased speed by using the graphics card.

If you think you can do everything in Photoshop that you can in Illustrator, then you don’t know how to use either very well.

This is proven by this little rant:

“Yes, it has cprevite, but that is because Adobe subscribes to Apples mentality of “Form over Function.” Apparently more people used the “F key” keyboard short-cut, rather then the button… and by that same logic, those people felt it necessary to say, “Duh, hey youz guyz? Why iz notz uz guys put a dumb feature like teh tabxors in teh APPey?” Then they proceeded to vomit on themselves and then drive drunk, and probably some other dumb stuff too.”

It has not been removed. Mmmm you seem pretty sarcastic about it for someone who uses the shortcut key.

The question addresses CS3 and CS4. If your not qualified to answer then don’t.

In the end it has to do with how we use the software. I use After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, In Design, DreamWeaver and Flash. There were easily enough pluses to upgrade for me.

If you only use photoshop to some degree, I guess it isn’t worth your time.

wow, how interesting, that is what I was saying all along. And I guess I work every day with photoshop as a freelance artist because I don’t know what I am doing! Great news everyone! If you have never used a computer, feel free to apply for a job at Current Incorporated, they will, apparently gladly hire you, as they did me.

your just a little to uninformed about CS4 for me to believe you know as much as you think you do.

And your sarcasm is weak.

@ willbrawn – You have my opinion. Sorry for the thread jack. If I can help any further feel free to pm me.

And this why I jumped ship after that little rant you quoted above, Bri_L. Not worth it my friend.

Agreed.