Ok, PS CS3 extended has been buggy. (web premium suite, FWIW) So even though it seems CS4 is a very limited upgrade, I'm seeing complaints about (among other things) not reading some files (especially wmf). I was going to upgrade just to get rid of the bugs (new, unopened package sitting on my desk) but am seeing even more nightmares come up. Not only are most of the upgrades only cosmetic, but some features have actually been pulled from it. (Not to mention they don't even ship a manual with it anymore)

Now, CS3 was a huge upgrade over CS2. So I guess my question is, has anyone who has been using CS3 and upgraded to CS4 like it or consider it (as I'm beginning to) a horrendous waste of money?

I was hoping someone else would respond to this with a better answer than me. My laptop with CS3 died a week ago and I've been playing around with the CS4 trial while I wait for my laptop to come back. So far I really really hate it. The most annoying thing is that all images you're working on appear in the same window now with tabs. I've been doing a lot of work on my shops and haven't checked to far into this to see if they can be separated but I have not found a simple intuitive way to do this. What is frustrating about this is that I can no longer see two images side by side, or drag a layer from one image to the other. I also don't like the way the tools are laid out. As far as I can tell there's no way to have extra windows like how in CS3 when you use the type tool, the type window will appear to the left of the main tool windows. Instead in order to see the options for the type tool I have to select the "typography" workspace and then leave it when I'm done and want to do something else. It's frustrating. I've been using Photoshop for almost 10 years now and this is the first version I don't like. I never thought that would happen. I'm afraid to see what they've done with the rest of the programs. I hope I can salvage CS3 on my laptop or I'm going to be very unhappy.

Oh, I should also add that it seems to run much slower but that could just be the computer I'm using it on.

Yeah I'm afraid this is one of those "give them anything we need the money" kind of upgrades. But it seems it's turning into a downgrade rather than an upgrade. All the bugs of CS3 remain intact, yet some features have been removed. Like in CS when you wanted to edit an animated gif, open image ready. Now... use fireworks. No more image ready. Of course unless you bought a suite, you have to buy fireworks. Not sure what you have to buy to get to use the features they removed from CS4.

Interesting when CS2 and CS3 came out there were all kinds of tutorials out there spouting the praises of the new features. Now... nothing. Save for a few on how neat bridge is. Of course, if you've been around before bridge and never used their viewer, you probably think as I do. Bridge sucks. Worst viewer I've ever used. Even the freeware viewers run rings around it.

Also of interest, you can only upgrade from CS3. That's kind of unheard of with any program. They'll usually go back at least 2 or 3 versions before they cut you off. So, catch-22. Buy CS4 now or pay a fortune for CS5 when it comes out.

Not a happy camper.

CS4? I just finally upgraded to CS3 today. Upt to this point, I've been using CS1 since it came out.

Good choice, Bolt. CS3 was a great upgrade, albeit a bit buggy. CS1 was good. CS2 was mediocre as an upgrade.

I tried the trial CS4 too before I opened CS4. (thanks for reminding me they had one, Val!) Played with it about a week. Absolutely not worth anywhere near the $600 for the (suite) upgrade. I wouldn't consider it at half the price. And of course it wreaked havoc with CS3 when I uninstalled it. All kinds of pointers off.

And FWIW, all the CS3 bugs remain intact as well. Not one was addressed. I sent CS4 back unopened even tho I'll probably have to pay thru the nose to upgrade to CS5. Provided they actually put something in it worth while.

I'll admit that CS4 may not be automatically intuitive, but after watching the "New Features" video, there's not much left to figure out.

One of the BEST parts of this upgrade in my opinion is the tabbed open files (Which can be viewed at the same time under Window>Arrange) where instead of having to manipulate your separate image windows to move something from one to the next you simply drag it to the tab of the destination image and bing, you're there.

I have to say that CS4 saves me time with all my photo-manipulation work and I enjoy using it.

I have dual monitors. A not needed feature for me. But I agree, just something new to get used to. I just wish they had a "use classic" button like windows.

At any rate, if it worked (for me) it would be acceptable. But since all the bugs remain... meh. I can get aggravated without spending the extra money.

Wow i feel so left out here. I still have version 7.0 because i'm afraid to drop hundreds of dollars on something that's getting me by. I really want to upgrade, but now after reading this i think i should stay where i am right now.

I tried the CS3 trial and it was a breath of fresh air compared to 7.0. What annoys me about 7.0 is that i can't preview the font and sometimes when I'm choosing a color from a swatch, a few Adobe Help windows pop up for no reason.

FWIW, CS3 is light years ahead of v7. Bugs and all it's a worth while upgrade. The program is incredibly powerful. It's bridge that has the major bugs. PS has a few, but minor annoyances easily lived with. (I think every program on the planet has a few)


If you use another viewer, you'll be fine. Trouble is, bridge is handy inside PS. You get used to it and that's when it goes flaky.

And not to worry. I get the help screen popping up now and then for no apparent reason as well. So it's something you won't miss.

But, that's my opinion n' I'm stuck with it.

Yeah you're right, i should stop being cheap. It will be a great investment since i use it everyday and it's making me money.

Now i like CS3 but is there a CS5 coming out that you know of?

I would imagine next december or so you'll see CS5. Or at the least news about when it's due. They try to up it "pretty much" every year.

That's why I said CS4, IMHO, isn't really a user upgrade (from CS3)as much as an adobe "let's make money" upgrade.

If you are going to upgrade from 7... CS3 vs CS4? To me a toss up. Depends on how much you can save by going CS3. Probably not much since the old versions really keep their value up for some odd reason. If you can save $50... probably not worth it. Go CS4. But $100 or more... time to sit down and think since it's more a user interface upgrade over 3. A couple new features but nothing "earth shattering, gotta have it" stuff. Bugs are free in both versions.

Of course this is photoshop (I have the extended version). I really can't speak for illustrator since I don't use it that often. Maybe an hour a day vs. 25 hours a day in PS.

Well it looks like the upgrade starts at CS.

Time to sell more t-shirts

maybe i have a bad copy of cs4 - but in my opinion - it's not really worth it, but you can't avoid it if you have a newer camera. it has many neat features like the raw editor has a brush mode. you can rotate the canvas, content aware scaling, a few other things.

however it's very, very, very memory intense. and no matter how i configured my computer, card, software, updates, firmware, whatever it was still very slow. it crashed or didn't do the command stating an error instead. my video card can run many 3-d games at over 60 frames a second, with full everything on rarily slowing down. 512mb on board, 2.4 dual processor, 3 gigs of ram = a slow photoshop.

where as cs3 took advantage of the dual core, this only seems to see the video card and only that card. maybe they'll make a fix. but right now even a small picture is a real pain to work with. and with my new camera coming i have to convert everything to DNG files so cs3 will see them.

---Mike Savad

quote:

Originally posted by garyoa1:
Ok, PS CS3 extended has been buggy. (web premium suite, FWIW) So even though it seems CS4 is a very limited upgrade, I'm seeing complaints about (among other things) not reading some files (especially wmf). I was going to upgrade just to get rid of the bugs (new, unopened package sitting on my desk) but am seeing even more nightmares come up. Not only are most of the upgrades only cosmetic, but some features have actually been pulled from it. (Not to mention they don't even ship a manual with it anymore)

Now, CS3 was a huge upgrade over CS2. So I guess my question is, has anyone who has been using CS3 and upgraded to CS4 like it or consider it (as I'm beginning to) a horrendous waste of money?

I must also be an unusual user because I have CS3 on Mac and no bugs/issues at all.

CS1 on the XP box and THAT I one I hate but really can't justify spending the money to bring that up to a newer version.

Maybe another bug? Supposed to take advantage of 64 bit as well. I only tried the trial for about a week but that was enuff for me. I didn't really notice a performance hit.

As far as DNG files... most are saying that you should convert anyway. It's slowly becoming the standard. (You can set up an action to mass convert in bridge) My K20d has the option to set DNG as default.

But as far as the new RAW "features"... Yeah, cute. But generally speaking you should use raw to adjust color, exposure, etc. As far as rotating, scaling or anything else, you could always do that directly in PS just as easily. So I'm not really seeing any advantage to it aside from getting a "finished product" in RAW rather than touching up in PS. But IMHO, you'll probably want to tweak a bit in PS anyway.