Photoshop CS4 on Mac

Craig Grannell ()

20080623-ps-cs4.jpg
Image credit: John Nack

If you were hoping Adobe’s new interfaces were going to quietly disappear into the ether, like a bad smell after eating too many beans, think again. MacRumors reports that that, yes, Photoshop—the leading light in Adobe’s application suite (and a rather good application in CS3, despite the Windows-oriented palette widgets)—is also being clad in the digital equivalent of a $1 suit. With a hole in the knee. That’s been sprayed with manure. That reduces grown men to tears in mere seconds.

Suggestions are that we can ‘look forward’ to a fall release. (That’s autumn, Brit-chums.) If so, we have four months to brace ourselves for Photoshop’s head-on crash with a brick wall. Buckle up, everyone!

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6 comments »

About the author

Craig Grannell

Craig Grannell is Cult of Mac's designer and an occasional contributor. He also runs iPhoneTiny.com, a Twitter-driven reviews site for iPhone apps and games. Follow Craig on Twitter @CraigGrannell and visit his website, Snub Communications.

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Posted in Software |

  • Barry

    ick

  • Tz

    The new windows like application frame will be optional on the Mac. Read this extensive post from Adobe PM. The post gives quite a few details about the upcoming interface changes.

    http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/06/future_photoshop_ui.html

  • Brian

    A tempest in a teacup. With monitors approaching home theatre-size, floating palates just don’t make sense anymore. The other issues are minor quibbles at best.

    These are probably the same chaps that lamented the OS9 to OSX switch. “It’s too glossy.” Where are they now? Abandon the melodrama. Times change, folks.

  • Shane

    I do like the option of tabs on the image window.

  • http://www.snubcommunications.com Craig Grannell

    Brian – it’s more than that. It’s about reinvention for the sake of it, and at the detriment of familiarity and usability. I have similar UI issues with Firefox 3 – why can’t I drag the toolbar, like in every other app? Why does this one app work differently from expectations?

    Adobe could easily have created an interface that fitted in properly with Mac OS X (and, for that matter, Windows), but it instead seems hell-bent on creating its own Adobe OS. The sad thing is that Fireworks CS4 beta feels like a shoddy shareware application, build by a Mac newbie, not the latest version of an application from a leader in the software market.

    Tz – I know the application frame is optional, and I reported as much in my initial post about CS4. However, even turning that off still leaves you with some dreadful UI issues. And while I know some might call this finnicky, a strong and coherent UI is one of the reasons many people use a Mac over Windows, and so it’s an important component of an application to get right.

  • Brian

    If you dislike CS4′s UI so much, speak with your wallet and skip this version. Drop out of the beta and give them the feedback why. As long as you eat it, they’ll serve it.