Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

I just unboxed and installed Adobe Photoshop CS4, so I’m ready to offer some first impressions on the PC version.

Speed

Photoshop CS4 seems a lot faster than previous versions.  There are many things that frustrated me in CS3 that no longer are present.  In CS3, it was kind of clunky when you wanted to drag a window outside of the main Photoshop window, but in CS4 it’s quick and fluid like you would expect. 

Another performance boost that I noticed is the menu system.  The menus in Photoshop are huge, due to the insane amount of filters and features they provide, so it’s easy to see why the menu system could be a bit sluggish.  Right away, I noticed that the menus load immediately, and the application launches a lot quicker.

Essentials

Since I do a lot of design for the web, my use of Photoshop is fairly limited in scope.  The panels that I use the most are Layers, Character, Paragraph, and Paths.  Fairly straight-forward, right? 

In previous versions, I had to create my own “Workspace” that I could use while doing this basic web work.  However, in Photoshop CS4, you can now just go to the top right of the main window and click the “Essentials” menu, and select “Web.”  Basically, the items listed under the “Essentials” menu are preset workspaces for specific tasks.  When I want to work on web-related tasks, I use the Web option.  When I work on Typograph, I can use that option, etc. 

The preset workspaces were available in previous versions, but it is great to see them broken out from the overwhelming menu system now.  Another nifty item in the Essentials menu is the “What’s New in CS4” option which highlights all of the new goodies in the application.

Slick User Interface

The thing that you notice right when Photoshop CS4 pops open is the pretty new user interface (UI).  I’m currently using the PC version, and it looks great.  To be honest, the new UI makes it look like Photoshop is an Apple product—gray rounded corners, no title bar, etc. 

By default, when you open more than one file at a time, it opens them in tabs similar to Firefox.  This makes it much easier to deal with editing multiple files at a time; there’s no needto move windows around to find the other image you’re working on. 

Extensions

A gem I just discovered is the ability to add Extensions.  As I was scouting the menus, I just stumbled-upon an Extension they’ve installed by default that makes me happy: Kuler.  If you’re not familiar with Kuler, its a project of Adobes where they allow you to create, manage, and discover color themes that others have created.  I’m a huge fan, and am excited to see what Extensions people can come up with to make our Photoshop lives even easier.

That’s all I’ve got for now.  We’ll get more details out in an upcoming Creative Suite 4 review series.