What’s new in Photoshop CS4 by Martin Evening
Photoshop CS3 had some mixed reviews. It didn’t have quite as many features of interest to photographers as say, previous versions of the program. I think such responses may also have been influenced by the introduction of Lightroom 1, which was definitely designed with photographers in mind. It is probably fair to say that there was a certain amount of envy among the Photoshop team to the ‘new kid on the block’. Well, Photoshop CS4 has arrived, hot on the heels of Lightroom 2 and it’s time to see how the new version of the ‘mother ship’ program shapes up.
As far as Photoshop CS4 itself goes, I think photographers will be very pleased with some the new changes here. Photoshop now has a smart dark gray interface and adopted a task-based approach to image editing and this can be seen in the way image adjustments are now accessible within their own panel. When you combine this with the ability to non-destuctively edit a layer mask, you’ll discover that the Photoshop CS4 image editing system offers the most flexible yet for pixel image editing.