CS4 is on the Street, and it is Way Cool!

[Jeff Perry]

CS4 is now available and can be upgraded online for users of CS thru CS3. It is truly a worthy upgrade, new interface, new tools, imporved tools, but sadly my aging laptop does not have the latest graphics card to take advantage of the speedy hardware support built into CS4 for the first time, but it still runs just as fast as CS3, maybe even a bit faster. I haven't notice much change in Bridge CS4, but admittedly I haven't spent much time with it having only installed last night.

Adobe Camea Raw 5.0 is also a gem, but again, Adobe has seen fit to cripple it when Elements launches it. Really sad, because it has extra tools, and some great localized touchup features, including local brushes and gradients. Even a post-crop vignette feature that automatically restores the correct vignette you created after you crop! Bad Adobe!

And I almost have all my plug-ins working, some need to be reinstalled to be able to have CS4 recognize them, but so far, not a single problem.

IMHO, a very worthy upgrade to those who are running CS thru CS3.

Jeff

[winclk]

i am waiting on my copy of cs4 now. very impatiently i might add.:D hope i get it by the weekend.

[TonyW]

Kind of glad I passed up on upgrading CS2 to CS3 and went the Lightroom 2 route instead which does all that ACR 5 stuff. Just might wait until CS5 :) and see what new wonders that brings.

Tony

[ATR]

Jeff,

I have watched some of those CS4 video tutorials in the PhotoshopUser Learning Center. Although I do not use Camera Raw 4.5 even in Photoshop Elements, Camera Raw 5 in Photoshop CS4 looked very interesting

But, I did not understand what you meant by:
Adobe Camera Raw 5.0 is also a gem, but again, Adobe has seen fit to cripple it when Elements launches it.

I did not think that Photoshop Elements could use Camera Raw 5 in the first place. What am I missing here?

ATR

[Jeff Perry]

ATR, CS4 ships with the new Camera Raw 5.0 Plug-in that we have all come to know an love, as trying to keep it upgraded in out CS and Elements every time a new camera comes out. Adobe just released 4.6 for download. The exact same file (Camera Raw.8bi) is used by both CS3 and Elements and Bridge, although two exact versions are placed in their respective CS or Elements folders.

After D/L and install in CS4, I simply copied the new ACR 5.0 version into the respective Elemements folder and it launches as expected, although as in 4.6 (and all its predecessors) many of the features are disabled when Elements loads it up.

Ironically, when I copied the same file into my CS3 folder for ACR, it throws an error message saying that this versoon of ACR is not compatible with CS3. Works in Elements6, does not work in CS3. Interesting. Not sure about ACR 5.0's compatibility with PSE7 since I did not upgrade to it.

I susupect that a new point release will be made soon to all users that will be backward compatible.

Jeff

[TonyW]

Jeff: That's very interesting about ACR5 working in PSE6 (and likely PSE7). I understand though it will not work in CS3 or earlier. The test will be that when it's running in PSE6/7 will it recognize the localized adjustments made in CS4/LR2. I'm hoping it will because then I can open LR2 editied RAW files in PSE 6/7 without converting to TIFFS. Don't mind if I can't edit them in the Elements RAW editor just as long as it recognizes the localized edits. Sounds like it might. Can you check it out?

Tony

[elwoodsusanm]

Am I right in thinking tha CS4 contains all the other programmes like Illustrator etc?:confused:

[Jeff Perry]

Tony, I'll give it run tonight and let you know.

Elwoodsusanm, CS4 (Creative Suite 4) actually is a suite of products that includes Photoshop, Bridge, Illustrator, inDesign, Acrobat, and... I'm probably forgetting something. Each product carries a CS4 moniker, whether you buy the entire suite or just one app. I purchased the entire CS suite years ago, moving up from PS 7, but since have not upgraded anything but PS, thru CS2, CS3 and now CS4.

My understanding is thatall of the apps in the CS4 series have been upgraded in some way.

When I speak of Photoshop CS4 I am only refering to the new verion of Photoshop since I did not upgrade any of my other apps (don't use them enough to warrant the extra cost.)

Since I do own CS of those other apps, and adobe usually only allows 3rd generation ugardes to qualify, I will need to decide to upgrade those other apps before the next full version release, otherwise my CS versions won't qualify.

Jeff

[TonyW]

Thanks Jeff - I just saw that Adobe are going to release ACR 5.1 at 9.01 pm Pacific time tonight (as well as Lightroom 2.1) so I guess if I stay up I can download it and see if really will work in Elements.

Tony

[JEGavlas]

Since I don't own any versions of Photoshop, I will wait until they have the special offer they usually offer a couple times a year. I currently have PSE4, PSE5 & PSE6. No plans for PSE7.

[Jeff Perry]

Tony, I can report to you that adjustments, local or global, are not picked up by Camera Raw 5.0 launched Elements 6, unless you actually pass the adjusted file by specifically selecting "Edit in Elements" and then choose "Copy with LR Adjustments", then LR2 makes a PSD of the current LR2-adjusted version and passes it with all the adjustments, including local ones, directly to PSE, bypassing ACR.

This is the case for both RAW (Nikon NEF) files and JPGs, LR2 treats them the same regardless.

I also made adjustments in LR2 and then looked at the files in Bridge CS4, with no adjustments showing up and then opened the file in ACR thru Bridge, and still no adjustments. It is only when you specifically pass the adjusted file to PS or PSE do you get the adjusted version (already copied as a PSD).

I am not sure if there are any settings available as to how the LR2 adjustments are saved "with the file", sometimes they get embedded and sometime there are sidecar files aren't there? Perhaps it is they default settings that is making the LR2 adjustments transparent to Camera Raw.

Likewise, adjustments made to a NEF in ACR5 (launched via Bridge CS4), while immediately picked up by Bridge upon return, the adjsutments are not recognized by LR2, even after Synchronizing the folder in whihch they reside.

Hope this helps, and if you have any other questions, or I missed something, or you have some different "settings" suggestions I could try, please let me know.

Jeff

[TonyW]

Jeff: Thanks for testing that - I'll dig around a bit and see if I can find how the local adjustments get stored and how they might be accessible. Not a big problem as I'm used to passing the psd or tif to CS2 or PSE and that works fine but it does create an extra file in the process.

Tony

[TonyW]

Jeff: Update - I just downloaded the 5.1 update and put it into PSE7 and it does indeed recognize the local adjustments made in LR2. I did use the Ctrl-S in LR2 to make sure that the xmp file got generated. Now here's the funny part - I still have PSE6 with ACR 4.5 and I tried that to compare and that seemed to pick them up too :confused: I'm sure that didn't used to be the case but who knows - somewhere along the line in the ACR updates Adobe seems to have snuck in local adjustment recognition.

Tony

PS OK I found the answer over on the Adobe forums. ACR 4.6 will recognize all LR2 adjustments it's just that ACR 4.6 in CS3 (and compatible PSE versions) won't let you edit them. For that you need ACR 5.1 in CS4. Not a problem if you have Lightroom 2 because that's where I do my RAW edits. But it's nice to be able to open the RAW files in Elements without having to go through TIFS or PSD files and have the adjustments show even if I can't edit them.

Tony

[Jeff Perry]

Tony, thanks so much for the update. Based upon your success, I rooted around and finally found the preference setting sot write the XML files automatically and to save the develop settings in the metadata of JPGs, TIFs, and PSDs... and now all my LR2 adjustments are showinig up in ACR 5.1 (PSE and CS4) and in CS3 w/ACR 4.6.

I really appreciate it.

Jeff