CS4 info released

I don't know if any of you have looked at what is new with CS4, but it was released today.

One thing I noticed is that it appears they are improving the interaction between Lightroom and Photoshop as they move forward (a good thing in my opinion). For example they state you can now move several items from Lr to Ps and perform a merge to pano or hdr function and then roundtrip to Lr seamlessly.

As a PSE user who moved to Lightroom and Photoshop, this was something I felt was sorely lacking from CS3 and Lr 1.x. The Elements system is much better for roundtrip work between the organizer and the editor.

Actually, this interface was greatly improved between CS3 and Lr2. With this combination you can export any number of images from Lr for either merge/hdr in CS3 and the process is automatically performed. Once you save the resulting file in CS3 it then appears within your Lightroom library. Has the release of CS4 added something more to this functionality?

You can read what's new in CS4 on John Canfield''s blog and 'Top 10 Features of CS4'.

Nice to see the new features in LR2 (which I have no use for) will be incorporated in the new version of ACR. The depth of field extension looks pretty sweet, too.

I don't know, but closer integration between the two apps is definitely a good thing.

Wow, some cool stuff in CS4. Feels like MS building all the competing software into the operating system, gets rid of competition and is "good for customers".

I have held off buying Helicon Focus software specifically because I thought a future release of PS would incorporate something like it. Sure enough! Very cool. I imagine the PS version won't be as good as Helicon until maybe the next version (took 'em a while to get Photomerge to work seamlessly enough that any idiot like me could do it), but it's a start.

Well as a PSE 5 user thinking about upgrading, would CS4 be any easier to learn than previous versions? It does look like some things might be more intuitive.
John

There are plenty of online tutorials and books that help make learning the full version of CS pretty painless.
If you have a fair grasp with Elements, then you're already halfway there (or better).

Note that for many years now, Adobe has offered a full version of PS to Elements users for $299.
Here's the most recent link for the Elements (any version) --> CS3 upgrade.
It's just a matter of time before this is offered for CS4.

John: I've praised the John Shaw Photoshop e-book on here a few times, and I'll do it again. John is talented at teaching stuff in such a way that any old fool can understand and apply the techniques. I worked with PS for over a year w/o marginal success until I bought his original e-book. I learned more in a week than I had in an entire year! His latest book covers CS3 but most of the techniques would be the same in CS4.