Photoshop: Cs3 or Cs4?

[Matt P]

I have used Cs3 before in a media arts class, on a mac not a PC like I have at home, and it was simply amazing. I discovered recently that I can get Cs4 Extended for only $299 because I'm a student, but I'm sure I could find Cs3 cheaper on ebay or something. Anyway, my question is, is Cs4 that much better than Cs3? What differences does it have? I'm leaning towards Cs4 because I can get it very cheaply directly through Adobe. Also, is the mac version any different than the PC besides simple controlls?

[Jeff Sagar]

Hi Matt,


I have experience with CS3 and Lightroom 2 and have recently compared CS3 to CS4. With your student discount, I would certainly opt for CS4 asit offers significant new functions and features over CS3 that make it worthwhile depending on your specific needs. CS4 Extended includes significant "premium" design features that you may not need so I would figure out if you really need those premium features. Maybe the plain old CS4 version would do. New features of note are CS4's enhanced camera raw processing capabilities and something new called content aware scaling. Many other existing functions have been enhanced as well. Content aware scaling will allow you to automatically recompose an image as you resize it while preserving important areas as the image adapts to the new dimensions. I do not have experience using any version of Photoshop on a Mac computer, but based on what I read the differences are only cosmetic. The functionality of Photoshop is the same regardless of whether it runs on a Mac or PC. There are also recent CS4 reviews in most of the major photography magazines that are available via their websites so I would check them out for more detailed information.

[transkohr]

Why pay for it? The main difference for me between cs3 and 4, is that cs4 is 64bit. There are also a few other things that i use that have been introduced.

[Daniel Browning]

If you use ACR, and you have a recent camera that's not supported by CS3, you have to upgrade. (Or be forced to use the slow and laborious DNG workaround.)

[Ozimax]

Image taken on the NSW north coast, using Photomatix (free version). I usually clone out the Photomatix stamps, but didn't get around to it this time.

[Ozimax]

Hello All. I posted this in the HDR post, and it ended up here. I think something may be haywire somewhere![:^)]

[Matt P]

Thats ok, nice photo anyway :-)

[Matt P]

For some reason there is no student discount on the regular cs4 version. So it's 599 for the regular or 299 for extended with the discount ... haha go figure? And if you are in a higher level education (i.e. college) you can get it for only $199 if i remember correctly. I bet many people pass over these great offers without even knowing it. Great though, thanks, I think I'll go for cs4 then :-)

[transkohr]

many people don't buy photoshop. the running joke is people who actually purchase adobe software.

[Matt P]

haha that I've heard! I'd prefer toget it"the right way"it ifI can get it that cheap :-)