Photoshop CS4 Demo (video)

Last Updated: September 18, 2008 – 4:15 am

Adobe’s Terry White posted an awesome video demo of some of the new stuff available in Photoshop CS4. This is the first full development cycle of the Creative Suite since Adode acquired Macromedia a while back. Needless to say, everyone had extremely high expectations. We all figured that since the two companies joined that there would be tighter integration with Flash. However, Adobe has gone above and beyond with this version. Not only is there tighter Flash integration now the entire Creative Suite works together seamlessly. And that is just the beginning… Wait until you see some of the new features that will be available in Photoshop CS4!

[Video After The Jump]

The video is good, but it is long. Not to mention the first 15 minutes are pretty much fluff. Fast Forward to the 16 minute mark to get to the good stuff!

Some of the things that are highlighted in the video include:

• Much better performance.
  

  They demonstrate by working with a 442 megapixel image that is 2gb big and suffer almost no system lag!

• Improved 3D capabilities.
  

  The 3D capability in CS4 is amazing! You basically have the ability to work with 3d files directly in Photoshop now. You can mess with the light sources, draw directly on the 3d textures, create anaglyph images (the ones you look at while wearing the goofy red and blue 3d glasses) and much more. Plus you have the ability to transform panoramic images into three dimensional “environments” and then export them into a flash video — think real estate sites. You know those fancy, 3d sort of “walk through” views of a room? Yea… Photoshop can now do that in a matter of minutes!

• Resize brush by dragging mouse
  

  It’s not really talked about, but if you forward to 25:00 in the video you will see them resizing the brush by dragging the mouse. The guy merely mentions it. Kind of like a throw away comment. This feature is excellent and definitely deserved more attention!

• Content Aware Image Resizing (also know as seam carving, or “totally kick ass”)
  

  You may have seen the hype around the interwebs a while back about a couple of guys that created some kick ass image resizing technology (see the video below.) Everyone that saw it was absolutely amazed…including the guys over at Adobe! About a week after the video hit the web Adobe, not wanting to miss out, hired one of the developers to help them integrate the feature into Photoshop. This is, by far, the coolest feature that we have seen come to the Photoshop franchise in a while. Watch the video below and be amazed:

This version of Creative Suite seems to really drive home three points:

• Cutting edge technology
• Better integration
• Increased productivity

And by the looks of the demo they really nailed it!

You may also register to view an online presentation on September 23, 2008 that showcases even more features that will be in CS4. Register at http://adobe.com/go/somethingbrilliant. If you just can’t get enough Adobe information for one day, checkout this presentation by John Nack. It’s long winded, but there are a couple more Photshop CS4 features hidden away inside plus loads of other Adobe-centric info.

I really think that Creative Suite 4 is going to completely revolutionize the media industry as a whole. Even if it doesn’t… it will make my life easier and that counts for something!