Official Photoshop CS4 Thread

[Aftermath]

Seems to be a hot subject around here these days so i decided to make a thread about it. If you have it post up your pro's and con's so that others can comment on them.

I have CS4 and so far im liking it alot, the rotate canvas thing is really cool that i dont have to use painter x or other apps to get that feature now, plus its neat to have that feature when working on textures.

Still new to the 3d painting in cs4 but after watching them paint the real time bump map on the model in the video im sure i will have some fun with this new version.

As far as the industry goes im sure the share workspace/screen would be a cool feature to use when working with a team of other artists, you can now send the setup to their photoshop and they can work on it too on their machine and then send it back.

[walrus]

I haven't had any oppotunity to use the 3D paint features or canvas rotation yet, but I'm finding the windows managemnet to be rather buggy. Sometimes the tool windows get hidden below working windows, and sometimes when I have a multiple windows open, they all show up on top of the one that's actually live. And of course there's no "bring window to front" command because Photoshop assumes that the window you're working on is automatically the one in front (except when that feature is broke.) I bring this up because I notice this happening A LOT. But I also find other new window features, like how it's too easy to accidentally drop a window on another window and have it turn into a tab, just annoying. So so far that's across the board my "excitement level" for CS4 now that I'm using it - annoyed. :\

[Aftermath]

I agree the window management is pretty odd, i actually was having a tought time pulling new windows into other windows i was having to use the make to window feature then draging the layer down. Its like the windowed mode is gone or something.

[BigJohn]

I've played with CS4 quite a bit.

The short:
It's CS3 with a couple of nice features. The rotational canvas is long overdue and pretty nice. The sticky/springy buttons are also a very welcome addition. 3D features are pretty much useless.

The long:
The most promising feature I've seen are the 3D tools. Yet they don't solve any problem. I was hoping for something that will replace bodypaint and the likes. I was imagining a solution where I could paint directly onto the model with all of photoshop's painting tools that I have already been using in 2D.

The most obvious problem I ran into is that the model is built into the document. What this means is that not only am I limited by stuff like the canvas size, but I am unable to work with an external texture. You can do a one-time import of your texture, and it applies it to the model, but any changes made from this point on are disconnected from the original file. If you switch from 3D painting to 2D, you're essentially working on an alternative version of your texture, and not the actual texture itself. So if I then want to look at what the model looks like in Max, I have to go through the process of updating my texture through a series of copy/pastes.

The second major problem is that when painting on the model, photoshop translates your strokes from 3D space into 2D space. Which means that you're limited by the texture size and your UV space. This may seem like a necessary thing, but in bodypaint you can paint in real-time projection mode. Which means you're painting on an imaginary canvas parallel to the camera and the program seemlessly projects that onto UV space. This seems like such a no-brainer that I was certain photoshop would have it.

Anyways, I was gonna say this is my 2cents, but I guess it's more like my dolla-fifty. Just my experience with it. Maybe someone knows something I don't and there are ways around these problems.

[cookepuss]

To upgrade or not to upgrade.... Really, when was the last time a new Photoshop version truly changed your work life?

Upgrading my Photoshop has become an issue of habit instead of necessity at this point. Frankly, I'm reluctant to move over to CS4. No sense in me shelling out more money for cool gizmos that I'll probably ignore in favor of familiar work strategies.

For me, the last "must have" release was v7. Newer versions certainly added in cool "creature comfort" stuff, but v7 was probably (imo) the last great landmark version for Photoshop. If I had to roll back to v7, I could probably still get my work done today and not skip a beat. I'd miss some of the new features like smart guides or layer grouping, but those wouldn't be deal breakers. I certainly wouldn't miss online activation. That's for sure. :p

On my laptop, I'm actually working with Corel PaintShop Pro X2 Ultimate. I get in all of my work done there just fine. PSPX2 is missing a couple of the key post CS1 features. Annoying? Yes. Do I miss them? Sure. Does it make my work harder? Not really. The workflow is largely the same.

To be honest, I could easily move PSPX2 to my desktop and get all of my RGB related work done without Photoshop. Save hundreds of bucks too. In part, that says a lot about PSP's growth, but it also says nearly as much about Photoshop's stagnation.

Don't get me wrong. Any way you slice it, Photoshop is king and with good reason. It kicks ass on nearly every level. At the same time, there's so many reasons not to upgrade.

For non-RGB work, there's no substitute. Photoshop reigns supreme. However, if all I'm doing is RGB and print design isn't a priority, Photoshop isn't the only viable product on the market. If I can get 99.9% of my work done on PSPX2 for only 1/10th of the price, the advantage is obvious. Plus PSPX2 (retail) doesn't hassle me with the annoyance of online activation. (Nearly worth the 0.1% worth of PSPX2 annoyances.)

Photoshop stopped growing by leaps and bounds long ago. Where and when it happened will probably define how you view Adobe upgrades.

With rare exceptions, most notably my 3D app, I'm not a fan of upgrading unless I have to. I used to be all about having the latest version of "x" program. Now, unless the upgrade provides me with some feature so, so crucial or revolutionary that I simply cannot live without it... Why bother?

That's the big problem I see with Photoshop nowadays. Suppose my standard for "must have" is something as big as the addition of layers. That's much more than an incremental improvement. That's a game changer. Looking at Photoshop's release history, how many its new features have met that level of workflow innovation? Few. Few indeed.

Everytime I upgrade, I have to ask myself: "Is this a feature I need or one I just want?"

3D features in Photoshop... not a game changer for me. I'm already using BodyPaint3D/C4D and ZBrush. Those programs have already had years to mature in their roles. Adobe's late to the game with anything 3D.

Again, unless it's going to truly change the way you work, you have to think long and hard before spending that cash.

[MM]

i will post what i wrote at polycount but bottom line is i find it more useful than any 3d paint tool out there after trying them all.

i played with for few hours and the painting some what serves its purpose. that is if you want to mainly fix seams and do minor texturing.

i noticed some bugs that stopped me from doing a full blown texturing. the texture connection was buggy. sometime i would paint in the actual texture and go back to the 3d and it would update smart object to reflect all the change i did. same way if i painted something in the 3d view it updated in the selected layer i had in the psd file. but sometimes it disconnects and i would have to reconnect the texture. it also creates a cache texture by itself sometimes in C: drive. i may be doing something wrong too.

the painting is definitely more useful than zapplink, zbrush or new mudbox or even body paint.

whats also useful is the ability to pain bump in realtime and see how it looks, same goes for alpha. i am not sure how the specular works.

painting across seams is working pretty good too.

the canvas is pretty much the viewport, you can navigate around it, change light directions etc. the 3d layer is basically the portal to the 3d viewport and the texture viewport.

also, it has a normal map channel i think and may be using object space normals instead of tangent space.[/QUOTE]

also this is a screenshot of a high res model i imported and was able to paint. the painting is realtime, but navigation is a little laggy.

http://www.fx81.com/temp/gluttonCS4.jpg

pardon the texture, it was a few hours doodling long before cs4.

[Kickflipkid687]

Wait.... so you can paint on the model in CS4 now? That's very interesting.... I use CS3 at home and at work and besides the canvas rotation, I don't see any reason to upgrade besides maybe this.

[Marcus Dublin]

I'm still using Photoshop CS2 but the new tools look too promising to pass up this time around, especially the 3d paint feature. Even though it's not as robust as say Body Paint, it looks like it gets the job done which I'm totally cool with.:)

[Revliss]

you paint on the model right ?

[MM]

yes you can paint on 3d models.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH-8qtRvnD8

btw, the screenshot i posted is a mesh @ 3.59 mil polygons but i was still able to paint on it realtime and the pain feedback and stroke speed was realtime.
when i navigated around teh model, the preview was in points something like what you see in zbrush when u rotate a really high polygon model in a big canvas.

[Revliss]

ok what spec are you run cs4 on ?

[Aftermath]

64 Bit Photoshop and the fact that it uses gpu accelorators now is another few good reasons some should take the plung, i havent really found it to be a huge hog Revliss so i think smaller stations will still be fine.

Somethings that make me enjoy the current version of photoshop is the new camera raw 5 features, the things you can do with it are amazing and since this industry is moving towards photo realistic textures or actual phototextures this allows an easyier transition from the photo formate into the texture format.

Another thing i like about cs4 is they revamped the adjustment panels no more big panels for levels and such in your view port they are all now on sliders to the right of the screen with preview modes.

Here is a few videos i found explaining what some of the new features that make it worth the upgrade check them out please and comment on them.

Camera raw with the adjustment brush and the new adjustments panel

http://www.peachpit.com/podcasts/episode.aspx?e=8BA6E795-6D5B-4902-9B7B-4D574005DE9B

Photoshop CS4 New Features: Window Tabing (lynda.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW-s9YiqF3Y&feature=related

GPU Performance Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qpy0Rp7yiM&feature=related

Photoshop CS4 New Features: Content Aware Scaling (lynda.com) THIS IS INSANE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=019mu8FTy6M&feature=related

3D Painting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODQ4ggulM8g&feature=related

Using the New Vibrance Adjustment Layer in CS4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgoYyOOtK-g&feature=related

[MM]

ok what spec are you run cs4 on ?

my spec at home is win xp64, Q6600 @ 3 ghz, 8gb ram, 8800 gtx 768 ram

also i usually setup a separate hard drive(it has to be a separate physical HDD and not just a partition) for windows page file.
its a must for photoshop scratch disk and it also helps with other tools.

[LowRez]

my spec at home is win xp64, Q6600 @ 3 ghz, 8gb ram, 8800 gtx 768 ram

also i usually setup a separate hard drive(it has to be a separate physical HDD and not just a partition) for windows page file.
its a must for photoshop scratch disk and it also helps with other tools.



8GB of Ram and a seperate scratch HDD theres what you need :P

[Revliss]

ok that not too much but hmm i have not move up the 64bit banwagon yet

[CompanionCube]

Content Aware Scaling is amazing

[Aftermath]

Content Aware Scaling is amazing

oh yea it is, i used it earlier when i was scaling down stuff for a texture sheet overlay.

[Japhir]

Seam Carving GUI can do it as well, so no need to upgrade just for that function.

[elte]

I believe it's not worthy to upgrade yet. Installation is insanely huge.. and the performance seems to slow down. I personally don't really like how the documents are stacked into tabs.. in bootcamp, some features that require openGL like compass rotate and smooth zoom (whatever they called it) are not working. I personally don't think the 3D is mature enough, would rather stick to bodypaint for now :)

[Noddy Jnr]

From what i've seen of CS4 so far, doesn't seem like theres enough improvement and new features to warrant an upgrade yet.
Hopefully in CS5 we will have 3d painting tools that match bodypaint, that also allow you to use all of photoshops painting tools. Thats the dream.