Well, I fired up LR 4 today to make a quick print of 2-5×7’s for someone and got the pop-up notice that 4.1 has been released.
Here is a link to fixes and updates. I won’t bother with typing them in all over as Adobe has a nice page themselves.
However here is a list of new things added:
- The ability to process HDR TIFF files. (16, 24 or 32-bit TIFF files) This can be useful if you have merged multiple exposures into a single 32-bit image using Photoshop’s HDR Pro. Using the new basic panel controls can be a very effective and straightforward method of achieving an overall balance across the tonal range.
- Additional Color Fringing corrections to help address chromatic aberration. Click here to learn more
- Save photobooks created in the Book Module as JPEG files
- Publishing photos to Adobe Revel is now accessible via a Publish plugin
One interesting note however is that 4.1 is over twice the size of what 4.0 was to install in the first place! I know they added some new features – but that’s pretty unusual for a 4.1 patch to be that big. So – looking over the list above – may be the larger file size is due to adding in support for working with HDR files. I’m still working on some of my sunrise and sunset pics from the Caribbean – so it might be interesting to compare these new features to what I’ve normally done with Photomatix’s HDR Pro.
Well, I took the plunge – bought the CS 5.5 upgrade to Web Premium and then just this morning I got online with an Adobe tech chat window and got my free promo for CS6 Design and Web Premium. (They said an email would be sent out for all of those with the free upgrade from CS 5.5 by May 25th – but I haven’t seen it). I’ve finished with the 4.5GB download and am now doing the install. Interesting that it didn’t ask about removing the older suite. I will probably just have to take care of that manually.
The download was pretty quick using the download manager and didn’t have any problems. It’s set to take 9.1GB in the install – which is eating up the last bit of free space on my 160GB boot OCZ SSD drive. Most definitely will have to remove the old suite as I don’t have room for both of them on my SSD. I could put the install on one of my other spinning drives – but I want the speed of the SSD when doing anything with the Creative Suite. I just wish the 512GB SSD’s were affordable enough. I can barely get by with the 160GB OCZ for booting my Windows 7 64bit along with all of the installed programs.
I’m excited about seeing all of the new features and by now also having InDesign for the those occasional projects.
I’ll post more after the upgrade is done and I get to see how things are running with the new suite.
So – it seems that there are some changes once again to how Adobe is setting up their new Creative Suite release. I’ve been a CS Web Premium user for several years now dating back to CS3. Every two years when the new suite is released, I dutifully pick up the new version. I don’t always get use of all the software titles in the package – but it varies and sometimes last minute it’s great to have the other titles to get something done and out the door that would have to be outsourced otherwise. I never know when one of my clients might need something that might only be available in one of the other titles besides the favorite Photoshop and Lightroom.
But Adobe has done something interesting with the CS6 release. They’ve now combined CS Web Premium and CS Design Premium. They’ve also changed some of the software titles available and on top of that they’ve increased the price of the upgrade. What?? It seems that Adobe Contribute is on a quick downward spiral as it’s been left out of all CS suites now. I never got around to building my mega-website with Dreamweaver and Contribute. Now it looks like that will soon be a thing of the past. But some other interesting pieces also came out of researching pricing and upgrade paths. Adobe made available that anyone purchasing an upgrade to CS5.5 after March would be able to get a free upgrade to CS6 equivalent product suite. $749 is the upgrade price from CS5 Web Premium to CS6 Web and Design Premium on the adobe.com site. Well the upgrade to CS 5.5 from CS5 was $349. That seems like a no-brainer. Upgrade to CS 5.5 and then get the free upgrade to CS6 and save $400.
Another interesting twist is the Creative Cloud. That is a subscription base on a monthly basis that entitles you to the entire software list of what is basically the “Master Collection”. Existing CS users can get a monthly discount for the first year – no word if it can be extended past the first year. The discount for CS users is $29.99/month versus the $49.99/month for everyone else. Mmh – so that means I can get the entire software line up from Adobe for $360 for the first year. Tempting. I’ve always wanted to get my hands on Adobe Premiere for some serious video editing capabilities. But the 2nd year – if they don’t let you keep the discount – it goes to $600/year. Ouch. I like to think that my CS upgrades every 24 months get split out over the two years to be about $300/year. But if going to the Creative Cloud gets me into a scenaraio that access to the software titles ends up being $600/year – I just don’t think I have that much use for ALL of the software all the time. That gets really expensive. There is nothing forcing me to upgrade from CS5. I could stay on this version for years if I want to. It won’t stop working. Sure there will be upgrades and new features – but going with the Creative Cloud seems to be a bit of a gamble and where I am really just a part-time Pro-Am photographer and not doing this full-time – I think I’ll just wait to see how this new pricing strategy goes in the market and how well it gets accepted. For me – the route is the CS5.5 upgrade and the later free upgrade to CS6. I’m looking forward actually to picking up InDesign as I’ve done some work in it in the past and made some decent money with it – so I was ok with the fact that Contribute is gone for now and I pick up InDesign with the new combination of the suites. I just hope the upgrade to CS7 at some time in the future doesn’t still come at the higher $749 price as that is hard to swallow every two years. I might have to start leap-frogging versions if that happens.
Software titles included with CS6 Web and Design Premium:
- Photoshop CS6 Extended
- Illustrator CS6
- InDesign CS6
- Dreamweaver CS6
- Flash Professional CS6
- Fireworks CS6
- Acrobat X Pro
- Bridge CS6
- Media Encoder CS6
I just got a copy of the new Lightroom 4 for Windows in and upgraded my catalog. Right now my catalog is sitting around 100k images. The catalog update went well and wasn’t a problem. I’ve not had too much time to go through the Develop module yet to see all the new changes. I’ve been watching some of the podcasts from PhotoshopUserTV and learning about the new features. It has support now for video which is nice as well as overall enhancements in several areas.
Landscape, Portrait, Sports and more!
