Adobe uses graphics chip for faster Photoshop CS4

Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen speaks at the company's CS4 launch event.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

Photoshop is a famously taxing piece of software, but beginning with the upcoming CS4 version, it'll be able to employ the muscle of your computer's graphics chip for the first time.

The new version of Adobe's flagship software product takes its first steps in using the graphics processing unit, or GPU, said John Nack, principal product manager for Adobe Photoshop. For example, the graphics chip helps Photoshop CS4 fluidly zoom in and out, rotate the canvas so artists can reorient an image for the best sketching angle, display and manipulate 3D objects, and handle color correction.

"It's not lost on us that when you look at the rate of GPU power advancement, there's an enormous wealth of cycles we can take advantage of now," Nack said. "The rate of price drop and performance gain has been off the charts."

Using graphics chips opens up new horizons, but it poses its challenges. For one thing, graphics chips are designed to blast pixels to the screen, not back to the main processor for further work, so not all tasks can be accelerated, he said. For another, it means Adobe has to work more carefully on hardware compatibility and means some people with older machines might have to upgrade at least the video card; he recommends a card with 128MB of memory.

"Typically, when folks were building a big Photoshop rig...we never had to really concern ourselves with things like which video driver they were using. We had a very light integration. Anything was fine," Nack said. "Now that we're doing actual processing on the GPU, we have to be a good deal more stringent."

Another new GPU-enabled feature is called Pixel Bender, which lets people apply special effects quickly and, Adobe promises, create their own effects more easily than with today's filter technology. However, that missed the cut for the final version of CS4 and likely will be a free update at the Adobe Labs site, Nack said

The upgrade price for Photoshop is $199 for the Photoshop CS4 and $349 for CS4 Extended; prices for the new versions are $699 and $999. The Extended version adds a variety of special-purpose abilities for dealing with scientific applications, dealing with medical imagery, and creating 3D subject matter. The company also offers its consumer-level Photoshop Elements for about $100 and its online Photoshop Express for free.

The software will be available in October, the company said.

Now with 64-bit support
Another hardware change--for Windows users only--is support for 64-bit processors. Most folks won't notice much of a speedup--perhaps 10 percent in some cases--but performance is much better in some memory-intensive areas where the 4GB limit of 32-bit software is a problem.

Adobe's Creative Suite 4 comprises many sub-brands.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News)

"For most people, with a 12-megapixel SLR file or doing Web design work, the difference they'll see is pretty negligible. The inflection point from 32-bit to 64-bit really happens where you would have run out of memory and would have had to go to your virtual memory system," storing data on the hard drive rather than in memory, Nack said. "There's a tenfold performance increase opening up a large file."

A companion product geared specifically for photographers, Photoshop Lightroom, has 64-bit support for both Mac and Windows, but Adobe couldn't do the 64-bit version of Photoshop CS4 for Mac OS X because it was busy moving to a new underlying programming foundation from Apple, called Cocoa.

Photoshop, meet Macromedia
Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia gave the company access to the Flash technology for animation and scripting, and Photoshop CS4 now employs it in the plumbing. In the past, it was tough for third-party software developers to add new features to Photoshop, but built-in Flash 10 software means Photoshop will accommodate control panels from third parties.

"Now you can drop a SWF (Shockwave Flash file) into your Photoshop folder and extend the application," Nack said. "This is going to be a huge shot in the arm for people developing on top of the application."

Adobe plans to release a Configurator application to help people create their own panels, part of the company's effort to make a Photoshop that can be better tailored to specific tasks. That software currently is scheduled to arrive sometime around the end of October, Nack said.

One benefit of the Flash technology is it's network-enabled. That permits integration, for example, with Adobe's Kuler site for creating harmonious color combinations, so palettes can be imported into Photoshop. Another possibility is a "geo" tab that could be added while browsing image information, showing where on a map a geotagged photo was taken.

Other features
The new version has a number of other features, though Nack emphasized work to polish existing abilities, too, such as the ability to select and delete multiple channels. There are some notable changes, though.

Content-aware scaling lets people change the proportions of an image while protecting important areas from distortion. (Click to enlarge.)

(Credit: Adobe)

• Content-aware scaling, known as seam carving from its research days, lets users change an image's proportions while protecting important areas from distortion. That's a useful option for those adapting content for small screens on mobile devices, for example.

• Panoramic stitching gets new options: it can be used to create full 360-degree wraparounds, so the right and left edges mate correctly, and it corrects for lens vignetting, which could cause dark-and-light undulations in even-toned areas such as the sky.

• With the 3D mode in CS4 Extended, people can paint directly on 3D objects rather than having to unwrap a skin, paint on it, then rewrap it.

• The Camera Raw 5.0 import filter inherits some local-editing abilities in Lightroom 2.0, such as the ability to selectively darken or lighten particular patches of a photo.

• A new tool can combine the sharpest parts of multiple photos of the same frame. It takes a couple minutes to run, but can help provide a sharp photograph of a subject--for example a series of close-up shots taken with a macro lens with a very shallow depth of field.

[jeremyschultz]

You posted before embargo was lifted

[Shankland]

Adobe lifted the embargo because others posted, so we published our piece as soon as I got word from Adobe.

[jeremyschultz]

Never mind, I learned Stephen had the go-ahead from Adobe before posting! :) Thanks Stephen

[TheAppleDoctor]

"Adobe couldn't do the 64-bit version of Photoshop CS4 for Mac OS X because it was busy moving to a new underlying programming foundation from Apple, called Cocoa."

New? Cocoa has been a part of Mac OS X since before the public release of OS X 10.0.0 in March 2001. Adobe needs to update their excuses at the very least, if truly updating their software is beyond them.

[NouberNou]

Adobe update their excuses? Haha... funny.

Adobe used to produce some quality products, but I have been very saddend by their recent efforts.

Flash (not wholly their responsibility) and Flex have been the most disturbing. They hock it like its the best thing since sliced bread but it leaks memory like no other and is a total pain to develope any serious applications in.

The fact that they are willing to intergrate this horrid stuff into their flagship product with the Photoshop extensions scares me.

[bakedpatato]

They didn't take Apple's recommendation that Cocoa is the future and Carbon is goin bye bye (I understand because its a huge hassle to move API's),and when Leopard forced Adobe to move to Cocoa,adding 64-bit was trivial.

[contentcreator--2008]

Feel free to complain to Jobs et al. How high should developers have to jump just because Steve says Jump!? How much should developers pay ---- and how much are Mac users willing to pay for it? Apple can make it as inconvenient as it wants for developers to write programs for their machines. Developers are under no obligation to magically absorb the cost of doing so. And be sure --- the Carbon/Cocoa transition cost is very very substantial, a major rewrite into Apple's proprietary environment.

[kelmon]

To be perfectly fair to Adobe, Apple has been somewhat less than transparent on the subject of Carbon. Up until WWDC last year it was expected that 64-bit Carbon would be available and then suddenly it was gone. Apple has always said that Cocoa was "where it's at" and that it was the future, but they weren't exactly explicit about when Carbon would be deprecated. It's possible to see both sides of this story but the conclusion is still the same. Apple wants to move everything to Cocoa so it only needs to maintain a single API and concentrate on what is seen as the best environment on the Mac. Adobe, on the other hand, had already invested into Carbon and thought that a 64-bit version would be available, so why move?

contentcreator--2008, unfortunately, appears to want to live in the past.

[Shankland]

For more details on Adobe's decision, here's an earlier story: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9909725-39.html

The company believes the Cocoa transition is hard enough that it's being cautious about new CS5 features besides that. It basically has to take Photoshop etc. apart and put it back together again.

[Anonymous2345]

I read an article a few months back that explained the delay. Adobe had been programming the Mac version of Photoshop in the other programming environment that was available. From what I remember Apple dropped that environment and now supports strictly Cocoa. Thus Adobe had to rewrite a lot of their code in Cocoa and that has caused them to miss the release timeline. I'm sure someone with more interest in the subject can dredge up the article but I thought I'd chime in.

[kelmon]

More or less correct. Carbon isn't going away but the problem is that it isn't being updated for 64-bit support, which it was advertised that Apple were doing and then mysteriously dropped last year. This came as a shock to Adobe and, presumably, anyone who had planned on sticking with Carbon and taking advantage of 64-bit processing. MS Office, presumably, has the same issue although I don't see 64-bit processing giving much of a performance boost there.

[msankar4]

I was hoping that you would improve on the HDR content as well. But seems there is no mention of it. I hope Adove realize that this is a key area that it needs to improve as digital photography gives a whole realm to be exploited here. And Adobe's current CS3 is far from its competition.

[Shankland]

I asked Adobe about this, and they said something to the effect of "maybe the next version." There's always Photomatix from HDRsoft, which does run as a Photoshop plug-in, of course, but no doubt that's one of the competitors you're referring to. :)

[msankar4]

I was hoping that Adobe would improve on the HDR content as well. But seems there is no mention of it. I hope Adove realize that this is a key area that it needs to improve as digital photography gives a whole realm to be exploited here. And Adobe's current CS3 is far from its competition.

[Galaxy5]

Utterly disgusting set of features.

Absolutely nothing in there for photographers who want to do easily-reversed image editing workflows. And yes, let me say I find it deeply disturbing that a photographer who spends more time at a desk than behind a lens has only to goof around with sliders to get an entirely different photograph that could have been done right faster the first time with some skill and patience.

At some point, I wish they'd just stop piling crap on top of Photoshop and sort out the features that already exist. Sorry to be the curmudgeon, but it seems Adobe spends more time talking to illustrators about Photoshop than they do photographers.

[JohnMcGuire]

Not a professional photographer, but I've been very impressed with Lightroom 2. You probably have seen it, but I find it's non-destructive editing features to be ahead of Photoshop's. Some of it has made it into this release, but Lightroom still seems to be the better choice for what you seem to want.

[Galaxy5]

I appreciate LightRoom's features, but I use Photoshop for layer-based editing of very large files; 300-600MB scans from large format film.

Lightroom offers limited local controls, but falls far short of the granularity I have with adjustment layer-based tonality and color tools. I tried Aperture and LightRoom - which are fantastic tools in their own ways - but they really don't offer the kind of features that a non-destructive Photoshop could.

[VALENTIJNTJELIEF1]

Anonymous2345 -> I remember that they used codewarrior in the past, and they move code xcode
because they had too.....

[kelmon]

I bought a copy of Photoshop CS3 last year so given that, and the general lack of features announced that I will find useful, I think I'll skip CS4 and wait to see what CS5 brings.

[TheRavingTAZ]

Approximately 7 months ago, our company purchased a 17-person license for CS3. And, yes, CS4 now magically appears. With the hoopla and the CEO saying, yet again, "we are all very excited." After the announcement, I am not.

Now, I do not (ahem) blame Adobe for make several millions on CS3 -- but this turnaround yet again --gives me a very acidic taste in my mouth. Of course, I realize that my company may (or most likely not) spend more thousands for their "upgrade." As a friend of mine in the music business says whenever one of his band's videos are on TV, on Cable, XM, et al -- "Cha-Ching!"

It just might be me, but companies are cutting down on IT purchases throughout the spectrum. Now Adobe want us to run to the store for CS4/5/6/7/8/9+. I honestly think Adobe screwed the pooch on this one -- both them and US. I have the sneeking feeling, with the current US economic situation, we'll see some sort of "new pricing policy" on full versions and upgrades to CS-Nauseum.

[kanehi]

The news of the new Adobe CS4 has been around for a long time but the release date hadn't been set. When your company bought CS3 I bet they've made revenue since then. There is an upgrade price which is much lower than original.

[rayhomme]

Does the CS4 logo look like an artist pulling something out of his ass? I guess they know their users!

[rocketjam--2008]

Got to have upgrades every 18 months or so to keep that revenue stream going. Unfortunately for the user, Photoshop is a very mature application, so there's a limit on how many really useful new features can be added to it. Instead we get gimmicky features of limited utility like the content-aware scaling.

[Galaxy5]

I disagree that Photoshop is mature.

Adding non-destructive editing a la "Lightroom within Photoshop" would be an instant upgrade incentive to me. Unfortunately, Adobe thinks that the only people who use Photoshop are magazine designers who can't find the right picture and who must apply some crock-of-marketing tool in order to make a strange looking picture instead of the one they couldn't find.

Adobe also seems to think that most photographers won't use Photoshop, instead prefering the coarse controls that come with Lightroom. Sorry, I don't fit in that category either.

My dream? I want LightRoom's non-destructive editing, Photoshop's selection tools and adjustment layers, Aperture's turnkey presentation of work and interface, and automation features that can depend on a built-in set of tools.

But Adobe's been ignoring their best customers for years in order to be the "Creative Microsoft" - witness the sad, neglected spectacle that is Framemaker, and you'll understand why most formal documentation looks like a Microsoft Word template - because there's no accessible, easily-deployed tool for creating professional documentation that companies will actually buy anymore.

Seriously - Adobe seems to have built quite a bit of ill will among the serious photographers.

[skrubol]

2 questions and one comment.
Have they given a release date?
Any indication of what video cards are going to be supported for accelleration? (building a PC now...)

I had read earlier that Adobe was dropping 64 bit windows support as well for PS-CS4 due to the Mac issue (didn't want to leave Mac users behind or something.)

[Art Dir]

You have it backwards. CS4 on the Mac is postponed, it's 64 bit on Windows. The performance difference in most instances according to Adobe will be negligible.

[sandkicker]

It's amusing, photographers complain that the art is in the takingof a photo, yet they [not all] send their stuff out for processing, and its usually tweaked to some degree.

Other complain that updates are out every 18 months or so, personally I love it . [new toys]

Not all of us are prima donna, aka diva's.

Is it about money, to a degree, a company does not expand or stay viable without a cash flow.

I used to take a lot of photo's, landscape, weddings, protraits and processed my own, by setting up darkrooms in bathrooms [military assignments does not make for permanent personal labs].

With the latest inovations, Digital cams for the masses, and photoshops [no more chemicals to play with], a whole new vista has been opened even to the neophytes capturing from the mundane to the beauty all around us. Giving us the ability to chronicle events for family and friends at much less cost in the long run.

I've only been using CS3 for about 8 months, but as soon as CS4 is available, I have no doubt it will take me very long to buy it.

Sorry, but complaints about improvements fall on deaf ears.
Following are two links about cs4 if you are interested.

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/09/cs4_sweating_the_details.html
http://www.photoshopuser.com/cs4/

[Galaxy5]

"It's amusing, photographers complain that the art is in the takingof a photo, yet they [not all] send their stuff out for processing, and its usually tweaked to some degree. "

Not sure what you mean by this comment. Push/Pull processing of film? I'm very glad you have lots of money to spend on upgrades, but most of us simply want features we can use to make better prints or online work - not yet another bundle of "oooooooh" features that have very little applicability in the real world.

I'll admit to being one of the photographers who still takes pride in "getting it right in camera", but I also know there is significant work that happens after a photograph is made. Unfortunately, watching Adobe glom on features like "content-aware scaling" to justify another $200.00 every 18 months is depressing, and speaks volumes about how most "gear queers" view photography - constantly spending money on new tools and geegaws, new bodies, new lenses...and never actually paying attention to what they see the moment before the shutter opens.

[angrykeyboarder]

<i>Microsoft's 64-bit versions of Windows are almost unheard of in real-world use.</i>

Maybe in your real-world, but in the world of a *lot* of enthusiasts 64-bit is it. RAM is so dirt-cheap these these days that I (like many others) went for 8GB on my most recent PC purchase.

Speaking of RAM, you state that most PCs [motherboards] only have 4 RAM slots. Yes, but the majority of new motherboards today support up to 8GB of RAM. In my case I have 2GB X 4.

So while 64-bit Windows use is in the minority, it's not a small a number as you think.

Anybody wanting over 3GB of RAM running on a Windows box is throwing RAM away if they aren't using 64-bit Windows.

[mike_flynn]

The reason why Adobe dropped the 64-bit version of PS for the Mac is because. Apple in their infinite wisdom dropped the support and plans of having 64-bit carbon library. Apple had promised developers that there would be 64-bit carbon libraries but then in a sudden turn around that surprised adobe (and others) apple opted not too.

Since PS is a relatively old piece of software with lots of legacy code, porting it to cocoa is not an easy (or cheap) undertaking. While the argument could be and probably should be made that they should have ported it long ago, the fact remains they relied on promises from apple and now we the Mac community have to pay for the lack of 64-bit

[Rancher5]

I think this is a great upgrade for Adobe . I do hate the money expenditures every 18 months though. Than they want me to buy Lightroom, Not I get along fine with PS just fine and actions work very well, to stream line the process. Sorry Mac' heads I have no problem with the OS but I really hate the over control Steve shoves on the softwares that come out with his cool devices, Workstations, Itunes, Ipods Apple Tv ,ect all " over" controlled, but I suppose with less hassle, So be it .