Photoshop CS6 vs. Photoshop CS3/CS4

[neil poulsen]

One can still find copies of Photoshop CS6. But I'm wondering, is the cost really worth the advantage of PS CS6 over those of PS CS3/CS4? (I have both PS CS3 & PS CS4.)

One advantage I've heard about is the improved noise reduction in CS5 and after was much improved versus noise reduction available in my versions.

Right now, I don't want anything to do with the Cloud. I like having my own copy, versus accessing Photoshop through a subscription.

[Greg Miller]

Content-Aware was introduced in CS5. This greatly improved the spot healing brush. That by itself is probably worth any added cost.

CS6 introduced background saving. With this you can save a document and then continue to work on it, or another document, while the saving happens (you don't have to wait anymore). This helps a lot with large files that can take several minutes to save. This feature also has an automatic background save feature. While you are working on a document it save your work to a temporary file. So if Photoshop crashes, or the computer crashes, you won't lose all of you work. When you re-open Photoshop, Photoshop will automatically open the temporary file.

[bob carnie]

I use CS3 at work and CS6 at home , they both do the job for me.

[Harley Goldman]

I went from CS3 to CS6. As Greg said, the spot healing brush feature is really nice, but not sure it is worth the cost. CS3 worked just fine for me.

[Robert Brummitt]

I use CS3 at home and CS5 at work. I am with you and not subscribe to CC. As to noise reduction I find Lightroom 5 to do a pretty darn good job. Since I don't ever print anything larger then 11x14 it works.

[Oren Grad]

Other than gaining compatibility with late-model digital cameras in ACR, the only meaningful benefit I've found for my purposes in CS6 compared to CS3 is that the tone controls in the latest versions of ACR are more flexible and allow more subtle control of deep shadow and extreme highlight values. As this is a never-ending headache in converting digital captures, this tweak of the ACR controls has made a real difference for me. But I can't think of anything else unique to CS5 or CS6 that I really care about.

[Kirk Gittings]

Too old to remember..........

[neil poulsen]

Other than gaining compatibility with late-model digital cameras in ACR, the only meaningful benefit I've found for my purposes in CS6 compared to CS3 is that the tone controls in the latest versions of ACR are more flexible and allow more subtle control of deep shadow and extreme highlight values. As this is a never-ending headache in converting digital captures, this tweak of the ACR controls has made a real difference for me. But I can't think of anything else unique to CS5 or CS6 that I really care about.

Thanks for your insight on this. I'm thinking that this capability is probably also included in Lightroom. A senior Adobe Photoshop trainer I met one time described Lightroom as a raw image processor. I've heard that Lightroom has the same capable noise reduction capabilities as Photoshop. If Lightroom continues to be available in the boxed version, one won't need Photoshop to convert raw files for newer cameras.

[Oren Grad]

Thanks for your insight on this. I'm thinking that this capability is probably also included in Lightroom. A senior Adobe Photoshop trainer I met one time described Lightroom as a raw image processor. I've heard that Lightroom has the same capable noise reduction capabilities as Photoshop. If Lightroom continues to be available in the boxed version, one won't need Photoshop to convert raw files for newer cameras.

Photoshop and Lightroom are different animals - to oversimplify, one is a heavy-duty editor, while the other is a fancy catalog which happens to have a less-powerful editor built in. I'm not interested in Lightroom's catalog functions, at all, and I'm not interested in having to wrestle with them just to get access to ACR. It doesn't matter to me that the editor functions added to Photoshop since CS3 don't add much of value to me - I'd still rather use a Photoshop-type program. If and when CS6 breaks and takes ACR down with it, I'll probably go to a freestanding raw converter plus a separate editor (for example, Raw Therapee plus PictureWindow Pro) rather than adopting Lightroom. YMMV.

[Greg Miller]

Thanks for your insight on this. I'm thinking that this capability is probably also included in Lightroom. A senior Adobe Photoshop trainer I met one time described Lightroom as a raw image processor. I've heard that Lightroom has the same capable noise reduction capabilities as Photoshop. If Lightroom continues to be available in the boxed version, one won't need Photoshop to convert raw files for newer cameras.

Lightroom uses ACR to do the RAW conversion. Putting Lightroom's other functions aside, you can think of Lightroom as a GUI on top of ACR. So whatever camera model ACR support, the exact same models will be supported by Lightroom.

[neil poulsen]

Is the noise reduction capability "in" Photoshop actually part of ACR?

[Greg Miller]

Technically no. Once you are in Photoshop, then ACR is no longer part of the equation (unless you opened the image (from ACR or Lightroom) in Photoshop as a "smart Object"). It's possible that they use the same noise reduction algorithms in both ACR and Photoshop, but it is extremely rare for me to have a noise issue, and so I really don't have much knowledge about the noise reduction functions.

[neil poulsen]

Photoshop and Lightroom are different animals - to oversimplify, one is a heavy-duty editor, while the other is a fancy catalog which happens to have a less-powerful editor built in. I'm not interested in Lightroom's catalog functions, at all, and I'm not interested in having to wrestle with them just to get access to ACR. It doesn't matter to me that the editor functions added to Photoshop since CS3 don't add much of value to me - I'd still rather use a Photoshop-type program. If and when CS6 breaks and takes ACR down with it, I'll probably go to a freestanding raw converter plus a separate editor (for example, Raw Therapee plus PictureWindow Pro) rather than adopting Lightroom. YMMV.

I know that for my camera, there are 3rd party converters (e.g. RPP) not from the original manufacturer that do a better job of conversion than ACR.

[Adamphotoman]

I run both 5.5 and 6.
Older versions will not make use of more ram. That speeds up my process a lot. But newer versions will not run some of my plugins such as Pictocolor's "In Camera"
The content aware keeps getting better and there is a significant improvement from 5-6
Grant

[Oren Grad]

I know that for my camera, there are 3rd party converters (e.g. RPP) not from the original manufacturer that do a better job of conversion than ACR.

Exactly. The ACR/PS workflow is very convenient, but if and when the time comes, there should be other good options available.

[SergeyT]

I run both 5.5 and 6.
Older versions will not make use of more ram. That speeds up my process a lot. ...

Make a RAM Drive (18+Gb)out of your free memory above 6-8Gb and make CS-3 use that RAM Drive as a scratch disk. You might be surprised with the speed it gains