24 hours with CS4

Richard Charpentier Notes from Rich, Photography, Photoshop, RLC Design, Tech Reviews, Tech Tips 1 Comment

Ok, I’ve tinkered around with Photoshop CS4, read about the new improvements, and I’ve got a few first impressions…..

Yes, I know I’m late to the game.  Everyone else has run through this thing 9 ways to Sunday.  But still, here I am giving you my first impressions all the same!

So, what have I found in CS4 that really catches my attention?  Plenty.  And I’ve only had a short time to go through it.  I’m sure I’ll find more that I like as time goes on.

Merge to Panorama from Lightroom2

I already posted a “quick and dirty” panoramic yesterday.  This morning I spent 10 minutes playing around with another.  Photoshop CS4 does a great job merging frames, creating masks, and blending the images together.  I spent my time removing the automated masks so you could see the collection of shots that went into the creation of the pano.  Popped borders around each image to make them stand out, and called it neat enough for the web!

panotwo-1-of-1

In time I’ll play further with the panoramic features of CS4 (the upcoming Borrego trip), but the first effort was good enough to get a giggle out of.  Pretty slick.  Photoshop’s really done a nice job matching images and aligning.  The best part……I shot these out of order.  I did not do left to right or right to left.  I shot randomly at a scene and Photoshop figured out my intentions!  Pretty smart, don’t you think?

Content Aware Scaling

This feature is going to help me in a big way with printing.  It’s going to help with my own work as well as the work of folks who bring their images into the shop.

Often I’ll be presented with an image that the creator wants a certain size.  And often the file they present me will not resize appropriately.  Cropping or stretching are the immediate options.  But with the content aware scaling you can now pick the regions that need to keep their scale (no stretching or distortion) and you can pick areas that will “fill in” as you alter the size of the image.

Spring Loaded Keys

There’s slick and then there’s slick.  The Spring Loaded Keys feature is going to make my life much easier when retouching images for clients, I have no dobut.

Often I’ll find myself retouching scans for folks.  Dust spots, damage to the original slide, etc.  The clone stamp tool (S) is used a lot, and the brush tool as well (B).  I pop back and forth between several tools, and then go back to the other tool once again.  Now if I hold a key down to switch to a tool and keep the key held down I’ll have that tool available.  But when I release the key I get snapped back to the last tool I was using.  Slick!

Much more

There are tons of other features going into CS4.  I’ve only listed the 3 that really jumped out at me initially.  I’ve got a list of others that I want to check into further.  Maybe I’ll do a few posts over the next few weeks on what I’m really liking in CS4.

Oh, one more thing.  CS4 is a heck of a lot faster than CS3.  There’s something I’m liking as well!

Comments 1

  1. Hey Rich…could you shoot me an email? I’ve got a photo I’d like you to take a look at & maybe work your magic on! Hope you’re doing well!

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