Why upgrade photoshop?

[Bigtree]

Since Adobe's main thrust of it's new upgrade to Photoshop is written for windoz CPU, and only a couple of new features. Why upgrade?

I can't recall; if I don't, will I have to pay for a full version, next time?

Are we Mac owner's held hostage? I want to protest.

 

[bertpalmer]

Apple uses the same CPU as Windows - the difference is in the programing language only allowing 32 bit - this isn't problem for photographs unless you're dealing with huge file sizes.

LR is written for 64 bit now so use that...

If you have CS3 then you can still upgrade to CS5

No, we are not being held hostage. If you don't like it buy a PC...

 

[termina3]

I want to protest.

Go for it. Don't forget to toss in the "waaaay to expensive" bit too.

 

[GoCubsGo]

While I would have hoped that CS4 took advantage of the 64-bit chip further pressuring Apple to take advantage of their own technology, I don't think it's much of an issue overall. Should you upgrade from CS3 to CS4? I can't see any compelling reason myself, but others may really like the fact that they're going to make use of the GPU more.

Are you being held hostage? By what?! While Lightroom is not a replacement for Photoshop, you can easily use Adobe Elements and Lightroom together and be happy about it. If you need to be able to say that you use Photoshop then I can't help you there.

Protest? Seriously now. I agree with termina3, be sure you mention something about it being too expensive.

 

[ChrisA]

Since Adobe's main thrust of it's new upgrade to Photoshop is written for windoz CPU, and only a couple of new features. Why upgrade?

I can't recall; if I don't, will I have to pay for a full version, next time?

Are we Mac owner's held hostage? I want to protest.

It will cost you $199 to upgrade. For that you get a better zoom feature that should look good at odd scales and something new, rotations. You can rotate the image and draw on it. Many of us do this when drawing on paper. If you use a graphic tablet this might come in handy. Adjustments are non-destructive but CS3 had adjustment layers that did this. I guess the new way saves some work and mouse clicks
Their are some other minor changes too and some changes to the user interface.

If you use PS CS3 a lot then $199 is not much money. But ifyou use it only now and then you likey should have bought "Elements".

 

[yrsonicdeath]

I only bought CS3 a few months ago, I will definitely not be upgrading.

 

[troyhark]

Since Adobe's main thrust of it's new upgrade to Photoshop is written for windoz CPU, and only a couple of new features. Why upgrade?
Are we Mac owner's held hostage?

Not at all, the new version of PS is much nicer to use in a lot of ways, with some very neat new tools, improved workflow and many subtle refinements over CS3.
Plus Bridge CS4 is now very usuable and a delight to use, whereas, Bridge CS3 sucked.
The only realistic way in which the new Mac version is not as good as the new PC version, is in how the new toolbars are arranged at the top. It's somewhat cludgy on the Mac and less space efficient than on the PC - the height wastage being more relevent when using a laptop.

The 64 bit version is Windows only as Apple changed how 64 was done on the Mac and there wasn't enough time to recode for CS4.

 

[Bigtree]

Some GREAT replies! Thanks.

I need new tires, which is a lot more important than rotating an image and drawing on it. Soooo.... tires come first or you'll see a image of an Jetta rotating on the snow!!!!!

 

[LaJaca]

I'm passing; the $199 is too steep for me for not a lot of improvement.

Seriously, Adobe, $199? I guess the pro market will fork it over.

I guess that means I'm not a pro. Oh well.

 

[Mike Teezie]

I'll upgrade, only because I have a big mean MacPro and GPU acceleration seems nice to me. That, and the odd zoom percentages looking clean now.

And, because I'm a sucker.

 

[onomatopoeia]

It will cost you $199 to upgrade.

The Adobe site only shows me a $349 upgrade price for CS3. How do you get the $199 price?

 

[dimme]

I always upgrade but this one looks like one I may pass on. There was always new features I wanted but now I think Adobe got abit lazy.

 

[seenew]

This video shows me why I'll upgrade.
http://www.deke.com/content/photoshop-cs4-buy-or-die

 

[wheezy]

If it fixes the completely random, sneaky, overheat your computer Updater then it's $199 well spent. I guess the other features count too. Yet again this afternoon, I open Photoshop, start working on one RAW image and suddenly my fans are screaming, and I think to myself 'What in the hell is my computer thinking about?' Sure enough, the Adobe Updater was racking up the CPU cycles.

 

[nick9191]

Go for it. Don't forget to toss in the "waaaay to expensive" bit too.

+1

If they kept it at a reasonable price people might actually pay for it instead of downloading it illegally or just using GIMP.

 

[Mike Teezie]

This video shows me why I'll upgrade.
http://www.deke.com/content/photoshop-cs4-buy-or-die

Thanks for that. Content aware scaling looks pretty amazing.

 

[Westside guy]

I don't see anything compelling in this release, so I'll be skipping it. I'm also a bit tired of Adobe's "you need to pay us more if you want bug fixes" attitude.

Has anyone ever actually wanted "content aware scaling"? It looks cool, but I can't think of a single time when I'd ever have wanted or needed to use it.

 

[Mike Teezie]

I don't see anything compelling in this release, so I'll be skipping it. I'm also a bit tired of Adobe's "you need to pay us more if you want bug fixes" attitude.

Has anyone ever actually wanted "content aware scaling"? It looks cool, but I can't think of a single time when I'd ever have wanted or needed to use it.

It's just another one of those incredibly specific tools that most iwll never touch, but for some us, can be a life saver.

For me, I'll be able to put it to work in my album layouts when an photo I have is landscape, and a portrait orientation would work better.

 

[rasmasyean]

It's for people that need some really powerful processing capability to do hard-core work.

What are the advantages of 64-bit computing?

In early testing of 64-bit support in Photoshop for Windows®, overall performance gains ranged from 8% to 12%. Those who work with extremely large files may realize noticeably greater gains in performance, in some cases as dramatic as ten times the previous speed. This is because 64-bit applications can address larger amounts of memory and thus result in less file swapping — one of the biggest factors that can affect data processing speed.
http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/faq/?promoid=DRHXB​

This is what Windows can do in 64-bit...

...all 64-bit versions of Microsoft operating systems currently impose a 16 TB limit on address space and allow no more than 128 GB of physical memory due to the impracticality of having 16 TB of RAM. Processes created on Windows Vista x64 Edition are allotted 8 TB in virtual memory for user processes and 8 TB for kernel processes to create a virtual memory of 16 TB.
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/5709​