Discover new dimensions in digital
imaging
Revolutionary 3D painting and compositing
Paint directly on 3D models, wrap 2D images around 3D shapes, convert gradient
maps to 3D objects, add depth to layers and text, and get print-quality output
with the new ray-tracing rendering engine, and enjoy exporting to supported
common 3D formats.
Adjustments panel
Simplify image adjustment by easily accessing every tool you need to
nondestructively adjust and enhance the color and tone of your images; on-image
controls and a wide variety of presets are also included in the new live and
dynamic Adjustments panel.
Masks panel
Quickly create and edit masks from the new Masks panel. This panel offers all
the tools you need to create editable pixel- and vector-based masks, adjust mask
density and feathering, easily select noncontiguous objects, and more.
Motion graphics editing
Paint, add text, and clone over multiple frames of an imported video sequence.
Sync painting and other effects to your soundtrack with new audio controls. And
work faster using single-key shortcuts.
Richer painting and drawing toolset
Create or modify images with a wide assortment of professional, fully
customizable drawing tools, paint settings, and artistic brushes. Simply drag to
resize brushes and adjust for hardness as you paint and preview brush strokes.
Enhanced auto-alignment of layers
Create accurate composites with the enhanced Auto-Align Layers command. Move,
rotate, or warp layers to align them more accurately than ever before. Or use
spherical alignment to create breathtaking panoramas.
Enhanced auto-blending of images
Easily create a single image from a series of shots that have different focal
points with the enhanced Auto-Blend Layers command, which smoothly blends color
and shading and now extends your depth of field, automatically correcting
vignettes and lens distortion.
Extended depth of field
Combine a range of images, each with a different exposure, color, and focal
point--with options to preserve tones and colors--into a single color-corrected
image.
Image analysis
Extract quantitative information from images with powerful tools that calculate
distance, perimeter, area, and other measurements. Record and export data for
further quantitative analysis. Even set measurements to the scale in DICOM file
headers.
Better raw image processing
Enjoy superior conversion quality as you process raw images with the
industry-leading Adobe Photoshop Camera Raw 5 plug-in, which now offers
localized corrections, post-crop vignetting, TIFF and JPEG processing, and
support for more than 190 camera models.
Efficient file management with Adobe Bridge
CS4
Get instant access to Adobe Bridge CS4 with faster start-up, use new workspaces
to jump to the right display for every task, easily create web galleries and PDF
contact sheets, and more.
Industry-leading color correction
Enjoy dramatically enhanced control with reengineered Dodge, Burn, and Sponge
tools that now intelligently preserve color and tone details. Make precise
adjustments with Brightness/Contrast and Curves controls, the histogram, channel
lines, and a clipping preview.
Multi-Touch support on Mac laptops
Pinch, swipe, rotate, zoom, and scroll with just the touch of your fingers by
taking full advantage of the Multi-Touch trackpad on newer MacBook Pro and
MacBook Air laptops (requires Mac OS X v10.5).
Profiles to support the color-blind
Design with sensitivity for color-blind individuals by creating soft proofs of
your images using built-in Color Universal Design Organization profiles.
Extensibility--Get and share Adobe Flash technology-based panels that developers
create to accomplish customized tasks. Plus, get tips and tricks from the
thriving worldwide community of Photoshop users through the new Adobe Community
Help online service.
Top new features in Photoshop CS4 and
Photoshop CS4 Extended
The new versions of Photoshop are about much more
than just adding new features. They're about providing you with best practices
in the tasks you do daily--about making your work in Photoshop not just faster
and easier, but more intelligent, and more natively nondestructive. Here are the
top new features and enhancements in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended.
Live, nondestructive corrections with the
Adjustments panel
Photoshop CS4 speeds workflow performance with the Adjustments panel, cutting
the time it takes to make nondestructive adjustments like Curves, Levels,
Hue/Saturation, and much more. There's no dialog box maze to navigate--just go
straight to the task at hand. The Adjustments panel brings the right tool for
the right job to your fingertips, dynamically, saving precious time. The panel
features the new Vibrance adjustment, giving you greater control over color
saturation while preserving delicate tones, such as skin colors. On-image
adjustments are now available for Hue/Saturation and Curves. Plus, for even
greater convenience and time savings, the panel features a wide variety of
modifiable presets for each type of change, including more than 20 new
preconfigured, customizable starting points. Photoshop CS4 speeds you through
countless tasks with the Adjustments panel.
Re-editable, feathered, density-controlled
masks
The new Masks panel smooths and speeds the creation and adjustment of pixel and
vector masks, making it easier than ever to apply effects to precisely defined
areas of an image. Now, with simple sliders, you can adjust the density and
feathering of a mask, to control both the sharpness of the mask edge and how
much of the adjustment effect you'd like to reveal. The Refine Mask feature
allows simple yet fine-grained control over the mask size and edges. And Color
Range has been upgraded for better accuracy and power. It's a fast way to
automatically create powerful and detailed masks based on single or multiple
colors, with simple controls for the spatial tolerance and "fuzziness" of the
color sampling.
More refined, natural results with Dodge,
Burn, and Sponge
In the days of film, paper, safelights, and chemicals, photographers dodged and
burned their prints during exposure, to darken and brighten areas of an image as
they created it. It was an art that required steady hands and practice to
master. The newly refined Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tools in Photoshop CS4 take
the pain and practice out of preserving tonal quality while you spot-correct
exposure and color saturation. Simply paint the area you want to adjust and get
advanced results in a fraction of the time.
Enhanced Auto-Align, Auto-Blend, and new
360-degree panoramas
The automatic alignment and blending technology in Photoshop CS4 enhances a wide
variety of features, but nowhere are the improvements more obvious than in
Photomerge. Now, when you stitch a sequence of images into a panorama, enhanced
blending combines with new vignetting and geometric distortion corrections to
bring you even better results--a panorama with more natural colors blended from
one end of the scene to the other. Additional improvements include the ability
to create 360-degree panoramas, automatic detection of fish eye lenses to
compensate for their inherent distortion, and the new Collage option which
rotates and scales individual images as they are combined using Auto-Align and
Photomerge.
Extended depth of field
Whether it's the extreme close-up, the microbial world, or simply low-light
conditions, there are times when the depth of field you can capture with your
camera is extremely shallow. Now, you can shoot the scene with a series of focal
points, and use the enhanced Auto-Blend Layers feature to automatically create a
new, single image with a depth of field encompassing the entire series. You can
even color-correct the images at the same time, automatically. This feature
provides breathtaking enhancement of any scene where lighting and depth of field
are in short supply.
Fluid canvas rotation
Photoshop CS4 introduces a revolutionary new feature that lets you paint and
draw as easily and naturally as sitting down at an easel. With the new Rotate
View tool, you can nondestructively spin your canvas to any orientation you
desire--a boon to every illustrator, whether you paint by mouse or tablet. No
pixel distortion, no craning your head to get the perspective you want, and no
matter how you spin your canvas, Photoshop CS4 adjusts your selections, grids,
rulers, and other tools and features to match your chosen orientation.
Ultra-smooth, extra-precise pan, zoom,
preview, and painting tools
Most modern computers contain a powerful graphics processor (GPU) that is almost
like having a second computer inside the box. Photoshop CS4 leverages the power
of your GPU with OpenGL technology to blast past the image-viewing restrictions
of yesterday. Zoom all the way down to the level of individual pixels, with
perfect clarity even at the oddest magnification percentages. Smoothly navigate
around the largest images with no stutter or preview lag. Use the new Pixel Grid
to easily edit images at the highest magnification. And revel in a faster,
easier painting workflow, with brushes you can resize by dragging your mouse;
new brush cursors that more clearly preview brush strokes before you make them;
and improved, higher precision tablet tracking. Navigating very large images is
easier than ever--instantly zoom high overhead to move to a new area of the
image, and just as instantly zoom back in to the highest magnification. You can
also ÒtossÓ the image across the screen with the Hand tool--the physics engine
in Photoshop CS4 will give you a natural pan in any direction.
Next generation Adobe Bridge CS4
Finding, previewing, and managing all of your image assets jumps to a new level
of power and convenience with Adobe Bridge CS4, beginning with faster
performance from startup through to handing off images to Photoshop CS4. New
path-bar navigation and workspace selection buttons across the top of the Bridge
window let you instantly jump to just the right display for every task,
including new Camera Import controls, visual folder navigation, and a new
Carousel View for larger image-group selections. In the Output workspace, Bridge
now features PDF-based contact-sheet creation and web-gallery creation and
uploading. You can preview 3D images and panoramas created in Photoshop CS4. The
new Search field helps you quickly find images in Bridge, and is also integrated
with the Spotlight feature in Mac OS X and the Desktop Search feature in Windows
Vista. You can even switch to the new, intuitive List View, with its familiar
data display and sorting controls.
Tighter integration with Photoshop Lightroom 2
Professionals and other advanced photographers rely on the one-two punch of
Adobe Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom software as the complete digital
photography toolkit. Photoshop CS4 makes this workflow easier than ever, with
improved cross-application support for automated functions, such as opening
multiple photographs from Lightroom 2 directly into a layered Photoshop
document, high dynamic range (HDR) image, panorama, or Smart Object. Lightroom 2
and Adobe Camera Raw also share the same underlying technology, which means the
changes you make with Camera Raw 5 in Photoshop CS4 are recognized in Lightroom
2, and vice versa.
Camera Raw 5 with localized, nondestructive
adjustments
Providing the first step in the processing of raw data from your digital camera,
Camera Raw now enables you to make localized adjustments by simply painting the
area to be affected, and then using sliders to control the change. Additional
enhancements include Post Crop Vignetting, and gradient-based localized
correction. You can apply the same Camera Raw adjustments to TIFF and JPEG
photographs, and, as always, the corrections you make are completely
nondestructive, with the original files being maintained in their pristine
state.
Breakthrough 3D editing and compositing
With Photoshop CS4 Extended, you can now work with 3D models as easily and
powerfully as you can 2D images, without navigating dialog boxes and special
layer contents. For the first time, you can paint directly on 3D models, easily
convert 2D images or gradient maps into 3D objects, and convert layers into
volumes. Wrap a flat design onto a 3D object by merging the 2D layer directly
onto your 3D layer. Merge two different 3D layers into a single scene. You can
even use video layers as textures, to turn any 3D object into a video display
zone. Basic presets will speed the process or turning two-dimensional designs
into common 3D shapes such as spheres and cylinders. You can also export 3D
layers directly to the OBJ, KMZ, Collada, and U3D file formats. It all means
that every creative professional can now take immediate advantage of
three-dimensional assets created in today's high-end modeling applications, and
use them in their 2D mock-ups and composites. The 3D engine has been rebuilt
from the ground up to provide dramatically faster performance; allow editing of
properties like lights, materials, and cameras; and create more realistic
renderings with a new high-quality ray tracer.
Enhanced motion graphics
Adobe Photoshop is an essential part of the motion graphics workflow, and
Photoshop CS4 Extended makes that workflow more efficient than ever, starting
with the enhanced preview of non-square-pixel images. Easily preview and export
the audio content of a video file as well as its frame comments. New keyboard
shortcuts are enabled for the Animation panel to make fast work of editing
between frames and keyframes. You can now animate the 3D object and camera
position, render settings, and cross-sections, bringing new depth to
motion-graphics editing. When working with 3D objects, you can even place video
layers into your textures, turning any 3D object surface into a video display
screen. Especially for film and television professionals, Adobe After Effects
CS4 can now directly read and import 3D layers from Photoshop CS4 files.
Volume Rendering
Volume Rendering is a new way to easily convert text, shape, or pixel layers
into a volume. Artists can combine painted layers into entirely new and
eye-catching 3D volumes. Motion graphics professionals can quickly turn text
layers into animated 3D text. Medical professionals can volume render a DICOM
image stack into a 3D anatomical image that can be viewed and explored from all
angles and depths. Whether the goal is creative or scientific, Photoshop CS4
Extended adds exciting new capabilities with Volume Rendering.
Easier data collection and analysis with the
Count tool
Allowing fast, simple, point-and-click tallying of objects in scientific images,
the Count tool is expanded in Photoshop CS4 Extended to allow for multiple
counts, as well as separate colors for each count. This data is easily saved
into the file for future reference, and can be collected in the Measurement Log
panel for comparison and export to standard text files.
Unified tabbed interface with self-adjusting
panels
Photoshop CS4 helps you keep your work area efficient and clutter-free, with a
new unified application frame, tab-based interface and self-adjusting panels.
You'll notice immediately how the Photoshop interface appears cleaner--instead
of having to arrange multiple image windows, Photoshop does it for you with a
tab for each open image. Docked panel groups keep to the side of your images, so
you have fewer things to move around while you work. Individual panels expand
and contract automatically to show you the controls you need, and you can even
collapse entire panel groups to their header rows with a single click. Of
course, you can still manually arrange floating windows and panels to suit your
working style, even moving all of your panels to a second monitor if you prefer.
Smarter Smart Objects
Smart Object layers allow for nondestructive scaling and transformation of
Photoshoplayers. With Photoshop CS4, you can now apply perspective
transformations to SmartObjects, work with linked layer masks, and use the new
Eyedropper tool option to sampleeither the current layer or all of the layers in
the Smart Object at once.
More powerful printing options
Photoshop CS4 brings even higher quality to large, detailed images when taken to
print. You can now preview out-of-gamut colors and take advantage of a
streamlined printing interface. In addition, only on Mac OS X for this release,
16-bit printing is available for the first time, vastly increasing the color
depth and clarity possible in printing.
Higher performance on very large images
(Windows 64 only)
Photoshop CS4 has now been optimized to take advantage of even more RAM on
64-bit-capable Windows PCs that are running a 64-bit version of Windows Vista.
Additional refinements
The evolution of Photoshop software always includes a vast array of small but
important improvements and additions. Extra refinements in Photoshop CS4
include:
- Support for multi-touch gestures available
on newer Apple MacBook Pro and MacBook Air computers running Mac OS X
Leopard
- Clone Stamp and Healing Brush live preview
cursor for easier, more precise cloning and healing results
- Layer-based metadata enabling reading and
writing strings to layer properties, such as recording time-stamp
information for video
- Developers of specialized applications can
create custom SWF-format panels that smoothly integrate with Photoshop CS4
- Extensible SWF-based File Info panel,
enabling developers to add network-stored keywords, perform spell-checking,
and other functions
- Unique IDs per document for easier
downstream tracking of assets
- CUDO technology, providing the ability to
design with sensitivity for color blind individuals via soft-proofing
- Spring-loaded keys to temporarily shift
between tools by holding down a tool shortcut key
- FXG export
- Device Link color profile support
- Notes panel, to keep annotations from
cluttering the canvas
Creative Pro Online Services
Photoshop CS4 gives you built-in access to a world
of online resources with Creative Pro Online Services. Search for help; share
your screen with colleagues or clients in a few clicks; create and share color
harmonies; and more.
Adobe Community Help
Get the power of an online search engine with targeted results. Searchable
content includes the in-depth Photoshop Help, plus additional Adobe and
third-party content chosen by experts at Adobe and in the design and production
communities. With Adobe Community Help, you can find the focused answers you
need, fast, simply by choosing Help > Photoshop Help (Internet connection
required).
Acrobat.com
Acrobat.com is a set of online services--file sharing and storage, PDF
converter, online word processor, and web conferencing--that you can use to
create and share documents, communicate in real time, and simplify working with
others. Thanks to the connection between one of the Acrobat.com services, Adobe
ConnectNow, and Photoshop CS4, you can meet live over the web to share your
screen, present creative concepts and ideas, and brainstorm with up to two
online guests for no additional service charge. To share your screen with
colleagues and clients, choose File > Share My Screen. Guests can then see your
desktop on their screens as you work. You can exchange ideas using the chat pod,
add a live video or audio feed, or use the Whiteboard feature to enable guests
to comment on content. You can even temporarily hand over control of the screen
to a guest to collaborate on a file. Additional Acrobat.com services, such as
Share, Create PDF, My Files, and Adobe Buzzword, are accessible via your web
browser. (Internet connection required.)
Adobe Kuler
Explore, create, and share color themes with Adobe Kuler. Kick start your
creative projects with color inspiration from the online Kuler community. Browse
thousands of themes by newest, most popular, or highest rated; or search themes
by tag word, title, or creator. Themes can be downloaded and moved to your
Swatches panel with one click. Or use an interactive color wheel that supports
standard harmony rules to develop new color themes that you can save, move to
your Swatches panel, and upload to share with others (Internet connection
required for community functionality).
Adobe Bridge Home
Click Bridge Home in the Favorites panel of Adobe Bridge CS4 and stay up to date
with what's new from Adobe, and from the design, web development, and video and
audio production communities at large. Watch the latest video tutorials for your
Creative Suite 4 components, listen to a podcast interview with a leading
designer, or learn about the next training event in your community. Discover
tips and resources that can help you make the most of Photoshop CS4 (Internet
connection required).
Part of the Adobe Creative Suite 4 family
Adobe Photoshop CS4 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended
are important components of the Adobe Creative Suite 4 family of software.
Creative Suite 4 Design Premium is everything a modern designer needs to create
eye-catching images, breathtaking graphics, expert typography, precision layout,
and high-quality production for print, web, interactive, and mobile content.
Creative Suite 4 Web Premium is a complete solution for creating interactive
websites, applications, user interfaces, presentations, mobile device content,
Adobe AIR applications, and other digital experiences. Creative Suite 4
Production Premium is must-have software for creative professionals who need to
craft world-class video, audio, and interactive media--on-air, online,
on-device, and invariably on deadline. Creative Suite 4 Master Collection is the
complete solution for customers requiring the ultimate power and versatility of
the complete line of Adobe Creative Suite 4 components.
