View Full Version : I need a new photoshop??????????
ignatiusjk
6-Jul-2009, 16:30
I'm currently using version 5 and need to upgrade to a newer version which way should I go.
Most if not all workshops and courses that you might be interested in are concentrating on the latest version - CS4.
It is a big chunk of money, but if you are serious about learning it, that should be the most efficient way to go.
jamesklowe
6-Jul-2009, 16:35
go cs3, skip cs4. and wait it out for cs5
Walter Calahan
6-Jul-2009, 16:54
CS4 is already long in the tooth, so don't know if CS3 copies are still around.
There is some functionality improvement in CS4, but if you're upgrading from v. 5, it's inches compared to the miles of improvement from where you are up to CS3. So if you can get a better deal on CS3 go for it. I upgraded from CS3 to CS4, but really only because CS4 has a 64 bit version (much faster than the 32 bit version on my machine).
Cheers!
Bill
ignatiusjk
6-Jul-2009, 17:21
I mainly just use PS for 4x5 film B&W,and color neg. I don't need or use all of the other "stuff" in PS.Does this make any difference? I want to be able to dodge and burn easier.
Steven Barall
6-Jul-2009, 19:04
You have to check with Adobe to see if you can update all the way up from Photoshop 5 to CS-4 all in one giant step. Good luck.
Richard Wall
7-Jul-2009, 05:07
The OpenGL acceleration and brush tip previews in CS4 are worth the price of admission IMHO.
Richard
Bill_1856
7-Jul-2009, 05:39
Gee, and I keep going back to PS Elements 2. Crop, dodge, burn, adjust local contrast and brightness. What more could I possibly want?
I mainly just use PS for 4x5 film B&W,and color neg. I don't need or use all of the other "stuff" in PS.Does this make any difference? I want to be able to dodge and burn easier.
Nobody uses "all the other 'stuff' in PS". Ever. :) That's the nature of the beast. It does many things for many people in many ways and it does them all really well. You can spend years with it and still not even be aware of some capabilities.
Short answer is, if you only want to do simple things easier, get Elements. If you want to do things right and learn as you go, get Photoshop, get the current version of if and take a couple of essential courses/tutorials/books. In the end, only you now which of these two ways is a good fit for you.
Brian Ellis
7-Jul-2009, 09:32
It would be helpful to know what you want from a newer version before suggesting CS3 vs CS4 or Elements. I'm assuming you do things other than crop, dodge, burn, and adjust contrast and brightness because you can do all those things in the version of Photoshop that you already have. FWIW, I recently upgraded from CS3 to CS4 and I'm very happy that I did. No single new feature of CS4 is earth-shattering but cumulatively they're well worth the price of the upgrade IMHO.
Lenny Eiger
7-Jul-2009, 09:46
go cs3, skip cs4. and wait it out for cs5
I couldn't agree more. From my perspective, there was no improvement, and a lot of messing around with how one does things, the curve dialog now needs a click to figure out where something is on the curve, etc. I spend a lot of time cursing at it.
As to the original question, go ahead to CS 3 or 4. Stop bellyaching, pay the money and learn some skills. Burning and dodging is a fairly incompetent (and incorrect) thing to do, unless it's done with a layer, using the Overlay method. Especially if you are doing it for anyone else..
These companies are in the business of doling out a little at a time, maximizing their profits, just like all the computer companies. It's part of the deal. You either are in it, or are out, once you start with a computer, know that you will be paying "rent."
Lenny
Donald Miller
7-Jul-2009, 10:38
According to Adobe CS3 was pulled from availability when CS4 came out. So if you find a copy of CS3 it probably is suspect.
Jim Noel
7-Jul-2009, 18:12
Forget them all. Download Gimp at www.gimp.com
which is free. It does about 90% of what Photoshop will do.
Kirk Gittings
8-Jul-2009, 08:15
Most if not all workshops and courses that you might be interested in are concentrating on the latest version - CS4.
It is a big chunk of money, but if you are serious about learning it, that should be the most efficient way to go.
I disagree from a certain point of view. If you have a marginally adequate computer (as I do) for the file size and procedures you are running (like 60MB files and merging), CS4 runs better than CS3. I think they have solved some of the memory usage issues that caused so many problems in CS3. My machine runs a little slow (as it did with CS3) but flawlessly with CS4 and Bridge.
Patrick Dixon
8-Jul-2009, 08:24
Forget them all. Download Gimp at www.gimp.com
which is free. It does about 90% of what Photoshop will do.
Two things it doesn't do, which are deal breakers for most people, are 16-bit files/processing, and adjustment layers.
Apart from that it's fine.
Lenny Eiger
8-Jul-2009, 08:32
I disagree from a certain point of view. If you have a marginally adequate computer (as I do) for the file size and procedures you are running (like 60MB files and merging), CS4 runs better than CS3. I think they have solved some of the memory usage issues that caused so many problems in CS3. My machine runs a little slow (as it did with CS4) but flawlessly with CS4 and Bridge.
I consider a 60 mb file a tiny file. I have never scanned anything that small. I would disagree about Adobe's efforts. I don't think they have done anything with the memory issues. I think they are quite derelict in dealing with this - a fairly simple issue from a programming standpoint. I think CS 4 is less stable than CS 3. Of course, I am running on a G5 Quad, I can't go to an Intel Mac because of some other software ˆ run - for at least 6 months or so. That might be part of the issue... Regardless, the bean counters appear to be running the show...
Lenny
Kirk Gittings
8-Jul-2009, 08:42
I consider a 60 mb file a tiny file.
I agree from the point of view of my scanned 4x5, but this 60MB file size is the file size that I am running hundreds of a week from my 21MP 5DII through my business and everything has slowed down considerably from running the 12MP 5D files.
Regardless, nothing else has changed aside from slower file processing, yet CS4 is considerably more stable than CS3 was on my machine. The difference is dramatic. I'm not aware of any other changes but the CS4 upgrade. My assistant who runs similar PC's sees the exact same CS3 issues.
Lenny Eiger
8-Jul-2009, 09:50
Regardless, nothing else has changed aside from slower file processing, yet CS4 is considerably more stable than CS3 was on my machine. The difference is dramatic. I'm not aware of any other changes but the CS4 upgrade. My assistant who runs similar PC's sees the exact same CS3 issues.
Aha! Running on a PC... this is the difference between our experiences... I imagine that running it on a PC would be better. Adobe has decided that much of the world runs on PC's, in my view unfortunately, and they need to address their issues, which is good for PC users who deserve a break from the usual PC experience (Vista, viruses, etc.). However, it doesn't do anything for the Mac users out there, who make up more than 90% of the Graphics and Photography market. (Someone will no doubt come up with a more exact figure.) I also don't like having my Photoshop changed to look like a PC app now.... I never did like the Microsoft experience from a graphics perspective. So, from my perspective, they added nothing, changed a few command keys around and shipped a $200 upgrade. I can hope that CS 5 is better, maybe I'm just being naive.
Lenny
I disagree from a certain point of view. If you have a marginally adequate computer (as I do) for the file size and procedures you are running (like 60MB files and merging), CS4 runs better than CS3. I think they have solved some of the memory usage issues that caused so many problems in CS3. My machine runs a little slow (as it did with CS3) but flawlessly with CS4 and Bridge.
Kirk, I don't see where we disagree here - didn't I just say that it would be better to hop straight to CS4?
Aha! Running on a PC... this is the difference between our experiences... I imagine that running it on a PC would be better. Adobe has decided that much of the world runs on PC's, in my view unfortunately, and they need to address their issues, which is good for PC users who deserve a break from the usual PC experience (Vista, viruses, etc.). However, it doesn't do anything for the Mac users out there, who make up more than 90% of the Graphics and Photography market. (Someone will no doubt come up with a more exact figure.) I also don't like having my Photoshop changed to look like a PC app now.... I never did like the Microsoft experience from a graphics perspective. So, from my perspective, they added nothing, changed a few command keys around and shipped a $200 upgrade. I can hope that CS 5 is better, maybe I'm just being naive.
I agree, except that my cost of upgrade is much higher because I'm upgrading the package, not just Photoshop.
There are, in my opinion and experience, two possible aspects to this:
1. Adobe and Apple have historically had a bit of a schizophrenic relationship - they periodically go through these love-hate cycles in which they either come up with brilliant things and concepts (such is a Portable Document Format or PDF, for example) or they end up spiting each other by cutting pieces of their own noses, as was the case with Aperture and CS4 or the entire movie app disaster among others.
2. As a long time user of both Adobe and Macromedia products, it is still unclear to me who acquired whom in that merger of theirs, but whoever it was, I get a distinct feeling they decided to keep the worst aspects of each, including arrogant marketing.
It's gotten so bad that CS4 is the first version I resisted upgrading to so far and will likely skip it altogether. Not because of performance issues, but because of aggressive, arrogant and even ignorant marketing attitude they adopted recently. Since money is the only thing they seem to care about now, they are not getting some of mine that they normally would.
That being said, Photoshop still remains the golden standard among image processing apps and my opinion is that the best way for a beginner to start learning it is with the most current version. If nothing else, because that's what most available learning/teaching resources are concentrating on.
Once one has the basics down pat, it becomes easier to skip a version or two.
Lenny Eiger
8-Jul-2009, 11:24
1. Adobe and Apple have historically had a bit of a schizophrenic relationship - they periodically go through these love-hate cycles in which they either come up with brilliant things and concepts (such is a Portable Document Format or PDF, for example) or they end up spiting each other by cutting pieces of their own noses, as was the case with Aperture and CS4 or the entire movie app disaster among others.
I couldn't agree more. It's so childish. At the Expo's its offensive to hear them whine about how Apple didn't do this or that, both companies blaming each other. They both need to grow up, maybe get a relationship counselor to help them.
That being said, Photoshop still remains the golden standard among image processing apps and my opinion is that the best way for a beginner to start learning it is with the most current version. If nothing else, because that's what most available learning/teaching resources are concentrating on.
You are right, of course. I need to be able to interact with others who will send me PhotoShop files, even if I didn't want to use it myself. It's still the standard. Despite Gimp and Lightzone, which are both fine products, unfortunately with a few essential things missing. I hope they get those extra features in there and give Adobe a run for their money. A little competition would do them a lot of good.
When the guy who invented Photoshop started out, he wasn't thinking about money; he was thinking about making the app do the coolest thing he could imagine. Now the company is run by the bean counters who only want to know how many more boxes they can sell. This type of attitude leads to zero innovation, as we have seen with CS4 (at least on the Mac). I'm pissed, and so are a lot of folks.. Perhaps if they hear it from all of us, they might at least get a different perspective... if not shift a little.
Lenny
I paid over $800 for "Big Electric Cat" or Photoshop 4 way back in the last century.
I figure I own it.
When the guy who invented Photoshop started out, he wasn't thinking about money; he was thinking about making the app do the coolest thing he could imagine. Now the company is run by the bean counters who only want to know how many more boxes they can sell. This type of attitude leads to zero innovation, as we have seen with CS4 (at least on the Mac). I'm pissed, and so are a lot of folks.. Perhaps if they hear it from all of us, they might at least get a different perspective... if not shift a little.
Lenny
That is a great observation. The same thing happens everywhere - as soon as the magic happens and the coolest app start selling, the creative/tech geniuses get bored and move on, while the accountants and marketers start moving in.
Remember Quark XPress? Used to be the golden standard of pre-press. So unique that they started treating their own customers like common thieves and humiliating them at every turn. It's not that Adobe InDesign was better, it's that enough people got pissed enough to flip them a collective bird.
Switching "golden standards" is not like switching cereals - it is hard and painful for the entire companies and once done, there is no changing back. Each company that did it pulled all their affiliates after them, whether they wanted or not. Took about two years and then it was Game Over for Quark.
What the marketing geniuses at Adobe need is another hungry upstart pulling the same trick on them as they did to Quark. I for one would not want that to happen, I have too much time and effort invested in it. But if it does, they will have deserved it and I will be sure to cheer.
yuhang919
8-Jul-2009, 13:35
CS3 and CS4 versions are similar
Andrew O'Neill
8-Jul-2009, 18:22
Forget them all. Download Gimp at www.gimp.com
which is free. It does about 90% of what Photoshop will do.
Isn't this download only available for PC's?
Andrew O'Neill
8-Jul-2009, 18:24
yuhang,
Just out of curiosity, what's with the links to nike shoes??
Tyler Boley
9-Jul-2009, 12:38
while I agree with many of these sentiments, and have my gripes with Adobe over the many years, I do have to wonder what sort of business model would work for any software company starting and staying at the forefront if they got money from us exactly once...
Just a thought.
I'd stay away from 4 right now, it, with Leopard, and the printer drivers... color management (already a public mess) has been severely compromised. That's the one thing they should make sure works. 3 works just fine.
Tyler
while I agree with many of these sentiments, and have my gripes with Adobe over the many years, I do have to wonder what sort of business model would work for any software company starting and staying at the forefront if they got money from us exactly once...
Just a thought.
Tyler
Well Linux seems to be OK. Just keep stealing it ... please.
I've paid once for Photoshop and once for Windows NT 3.51 and for all of id's games.
That's it.
Some fanatics buy a new id game and then boost it online so they can keep the plastic wrap untouched. I go the other way and have to boost em' when I lose the install. ;)
Hopefully I have contributed to the demise of M$ but I doubt it.
SamReeves
9-Jul-2009, 21:44
PS5? Yes it is time for an upgrade! :D
IIRC, the upgrade rules changed with CS3. With CS2 you could upgrade from any version of Photoshop…therefore it might behoove to go search out for a CS2 upgrade on Amazon or eBay. Then that will provide an upgrade path to CS3 or CS4.
As far as CS3 vs. CS4 goes…
If you're working with a single file at a time, CS4 is perfectly fine. If you want to work with several files at once, I'd go with CS3. The flashy GL stuff in CS4 makes it a memory hog when you have multiple windows open.
Wallace_Billingham
10-Jul-2009, 09:27
Aha! Running on a PC... this is the difference between our experiences... I imagine that running it on a PC would be better. Adobe has decided that much of the world runs on PC's, in my view unfortunately, and they need to address their issues, which is good for PC users who deserve a break from the usual PC experience (Vista, viruses, etc.). However, it doesn't do anything for the Mac users out there, who make up more than 90% of the Graphics and Photography market. (Someone will no doubt come up with a more exact figure.) I also don't like having my Photoshop changed to look like a PC app now.... I never did like the Microsoft experience from a graphics perspective. So, from my perspective, they added nothing, changed a few command keys around and shipped a $200 upgrade. I can hope that CS 5 is better, maybe I'm just being naive.
Lenny
Lenny, the problem is that Mac users no longer make up 90% of the graphics and photography market. With the explosion of DSLRs and other digital cameras has come an explosion new buyers for Photoshop most of these folks are not and never will be Mac users. I don't know the exact figures but I can tell you that the growth of Adobe products is with the amatuer photographer buying Lightroom, PS Elements, and the full version of Photoshop CS4, not with Graphic pros upgrading from CS3 to CS4. Since Windows based PCs have around a 90% market share you can bet that 90% of these folks are not Apple users and never will be.
Microsoft has started to play very well with Adobe now and Apple is not playing well with Adobe. If you were Adobe which would you focus on? The Windows/PC market with market share around 90% or Apple who makes things like Final Cut, and Aperture which directly compete with your products at the pro level and only have around 10% of the market?
I honestly would not be surprised at all to see Adobe drop Apple support all together in the next 5-10 years. It will just become to costly to deal with Apple with fewer and fewer returns on the investment.
Kirk Gittings
10-Jul-2009, 09:44
The last survey I saw, by some graphics trade organization (it was awhile ago, I don't think I could find the reference), was only 53% of graphic professionals were using Mac. This was a shock to me as I assumed in that group that Mac use was much higher. I actually use both, PCs in the studio and Macs on location.
Since Windows based PCs have around a 90% market share you can bet that 90% of these folks are not Apple users and never will be.
Apple's share of the market was about 2% back in the 90's, right before Jobs came back. Then it came up to about 5% right before the iPhone. It is 10% today.
The trend seems pretty clear, mostly because lots of folks that you would think would never become Apple users apparently did. :)
I honestly would not be surprised at all to see Adobe drop Apple support all together in the next 5-10 years. It will just become to costly to deal with Apple with fewer and fewer returns on the investment.
If Adobe continues behaving like this, I would be surprised if Adobe survives the next 10 years at all...
Capitalizing on past glory and above all past quality can only carry them so far. They are already bleeding red, the biggest "features" of their newest products are Windows-like bugs and idiosyncrasies, they are cutting their talent and their marketing is doing their best to alienate their most loyal customers... Yeah, it's been kinda obvious they've been buddying up with Microsoft lately. ;)
They will either come back to their senses or they will pretty soon have done to them what they did to Quark not so long ago. It may be easy and natural to discard old and acquire new customers for video games, but for applications of this caliber, every client should be treated as make-or-break. That played a big role in what made them what they are today and it will most likely be a significant factor in what becomes of them tomorrow.
Market Share
Apple is at about 7.4% down from 7.5%. Adobe in the markets it competes in is in the high 90%s except for the video tools. Flash, Adobe Flash now, has a 95%+ market penetration.
Told you it was evil. ;)
Isn't this download only available for PC's?
Gimp runs on Linux, (Unix), Mac and Windows: http://www.gimp.org/
jamesklowe
11-Jul-2009, 07:45
cs4 was released far to early with such little changes.. (and i feel what did change was pretty useless. not to mention annoying having your histograms for levels already inset in an adjustment box).
i've been told from mac operators cs3 is alot more stable for handling large documents. and at this point i'd have to agree.cs4 has crashed several times on me working on a 4.5gb file
also.. whos dumb idea was it to make adobe acrobat 700mb? it takes up the most room. and what does it do? opens pdfs. and that's it.
Photojeep
11-Jul-2009, 12:21
I'm not one to jump onto a company just because others have, but what in the name of all that is holy was Adobe thinking when they got rid of making contact sheets in Photoshop CS4? True, they did post the "update" to put it back into Photoshop, but why on earth did they dump it in the first place?
Or rather, why did they take it out of Photoshop, where is was very easy to use, and put it into Bridge where it was as user un-friendly as a "feature" could possibly be?
I used to think that Adobe was the one software maker that actually listened to their customers but I think they really dropped the ball on that one.
Just my two cents...
Randy
Kirk Gittings
11-Jul-2009, 12:40
Or rather, why did they take it out of Photoshop, where is was very easy to use, and put it into Bridge where it was as user un-friendly as a "feature" could possibly be?
I think you are wrong. Photojeep. They took the contact sheet link out of Bridge (and you can out it back in if you want). If the script was not in PS there would be no contract print in Bridge. Bridge is just a file management program. When you click the link in Bridge to make a contact sheet you actually run the script in PS and the contact sheet is made by and opens in PS.
And I vastly prefer using it through Bridge.
AFSmithphoto
14-Jul-2009, 16:48
For me, the best upgrade for CS4 is not an interface feauture at all, but rather 64-bit code, which allows it to address more than four gigs of memory.
If you ask me, that is HUGE, especially for a large format user. Get a couple of adjustment layers going and you feel the difference of having it on physical ram instead of virtual ram REALLY fast.
Considering the Windows 7 release client is plenty stable for a dedicated machine with a couple scanners hooked up, (Including my old minolta 5400 Elite II for which there is NO support, and hasn't been for some time) 64-bit processing is the way to go. (No Vista! Yay!)
Photojeep
19-Jul-2009, 19:52
I think you are wrong. Photojeep. They took the contact sheet link out of Bridge (and you can out it back in if you want). If the script was not in PS there would be no contract print in Bridge. Bridge is just a file management program. When you click the link in Bridge to make a contact sheet you actually run the script in PS and the contact sheet is made by and opens in PS.
And I vastly prefer using it through Bridge.
They may have taken it out of Bridge, but it wasn't in Photoshop at all. There was, or perhaps still is a link on Adobe's site to download it and put it back. The college I teach at changed over to CS4 after it came out and the contact sheet option was not in Photoshop. They added some sort of function to make a pdf in Bridge. One of my colleagues figured it out, printed an instruction sheet and asked me to try it. Look at this link: http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=photoshop&seqNum=422 and you will see how Matt K shows how to do it in Bridge.
Best,
Randy (Photojeep)
Kirk Gittings
19-Jul-2009, 20:11
Odd, it is in my CS4 and I didn't put it there. I know how to do it in Bridge, I just haven't gotten around to it.
I'm suprised no one mentioned Paint Shop Pro X, which can do 16-bit processing and has adjustment layers and is about $60 instead of $600. Unfortunately it's 16-bit processing is limited- like no clone brush for 16-bit images ugh. But it is a viable alternative, unlike GIMP which seems determined not to ever implement Adjustment Layers.
Patrick Dixon
24-Jul-2009, 01:46
But it is a viable alternative, unlike GIMP which seems determined not to ever implement Adjustment Layers.
The fundamental problem with open source software development is that it tends to be focused on what the developers want rather than what the customer wants. What the developers want, is usually the 'new', 'interesting' and 'exciting', rather than the boring and useful.
Paint Shop Pro is Windows only. Even though the percentage is shrinking, the Macs are still the majority platform for digital imaging. No matter how good a program is, it cannot be viable unless it is truly cross-platform. Just like color management, 16-bit processing, adjustment layers and such. That is also why Corel, GIMP and others always remained fringe apps.
Lenny Eiger
24-Jul-2009, 09:03
The fundamental problem with open source software development is that it tends to be focused on what the developers want rather than what the customer wants. What the developers want, is usually the 'new', 'interesting' and 'exciting', rather than the boring and useful.
I don't think I would agree. Apache, PHP, UNIX, is all pretty useful, and boring... A lot of the programmers for open source work for large companies, which have very clear mandates for what they are trying to accomplish.
Being a programmer ini my other life, I think making Photoshop work properly with memory would be pretty exciting. Hey, how about saving a recover file in case it crashes... how about being able to deal with a large file.... How about throwing those bean counters out of the castle and letting some programmers do what the clients are asking for - now that would be something....
Lenny
Come now, Lenny, you know it's never going to happen, don't you? Programmers and designers want to design and create the best package and make their users happy in the process, while the bean counters and marketers only care about maximizing profits and making shareholders happy. There is a point in the lifecycle of a product where these two interests intersect. The job of the former is to bring the product up to that point and the job of the later is to take it down from there. ;)
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