Photoshop CS4 is a disaster

[_ProArtist_]

I'm am just at a loss of words.

What a mess. It could not be any slower. What were you thinking Adobe?

You ripped apart the code just to add GPU support for what? To provide worse performance?

Make sure you DL the demo first... CS4 is a disaster.

The latest hardware cant even run it smoothly... Dont tell me its graphic drivers.

[_Russell_Proulx_]

> bob maybe it's time to kill this thread and let a new one evolve... no one is coming in here reading all 800 posts.

Please don't kill it. I placed a bet with a bookie in Vegas that it'll reach 1000! ;-)

[BobLevine]

I'm not going to...someone will just start a new one anyway.

Bob

[Guest]

I don't think you can update a Trial version.

[BobLevine]

You can.

Bob

[_Charles_Vortreflich_]

I'll add one more: I did start a new thread today, but no responses yet (OpenGL...). I wasn't aware of how long this thread was! However, I have a new computer: quad 9650 3.0 GHz, RAID array (fast!), 32-bit xp, 4 GB RAM (sorry, but too many of my apps don't run on 64-bit) AND ATI 4850 graphics card, 512 MB (tested and approved!). Works great with OpenGL turned off. With it on, brushes don't work right (they don't complete the line); preview on the stamp tool (there is none); images move jerkily; moving a dialog box or panel leaves a copy behind if it was originally over the image. And I haven't even tried other tools like gradient, etc (can't do it now, since my computer is in the shop for a graphics card overhaul).

Russell, you're right and I didn't read all the posts in this thread: does anyone know if there's a solution posted somewhere for this problem?...

[Guest]

>does anyone know if there's a solution posted somewhere for this problem?..

update the video drivers and update photoshop?

[Guest]

> too many of my apps don't run on 64-bit

How did you establish that?

Are they very specialised programs?

I only ask because I haven't found anything yet that won't run on Vista 64.

Some plug-ins won't work with PS CS4 64-bit but that's not the same thing. I think some older hardware drivers won't work either.

[CR Henderson]

>John Joslin:I only ask because I haven't found anything yet that won't run on Vista 64.

I have a whole raft load of software from the late 80's and early 90's that won't run under Vista 64. Of course, it is all 16-bit software--most of it created by Turbo C or Turbo Pascal, but why should that matter......:) of course!

[_sylvaine_ruflet_]

After reading all of you about CS4 and its problems, I guess I know what to blame, since I can't apply a displacement map to a picture in order to get a reflection effect:
I have saved a rasterized (greyscale) document as *.psd file. With the text or image layer selected I go to Filter>Distort>Displace and choose it. It doesnt work, all I get a few broken up letters in the middle of my document. I have it saved in *. jpg format for anyone prepared to help me on this one!
Sylvaine Ruflet

[PECourtejoie]

Save it as a 8bits RGB image. With maximize compatiblitity.
This is a terrible place for such an unrelated question...

[_Phil_Nolan_]

I had really bad problems with CS4, it was incredibly slow and laggy to the point where it was not usable. However I reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled Vista to solve some other issues and now CS4 runs smooth as can be.

I do have some issues with the design of the interface though. I don't like how it's always full screen by default it makes it difficult to load a bunch of images in and put them all into layers in one file. I tried making them all floating Windows (about 20 images) but PS crashed. So I just have to do it in full screen mode with a ton of tabs.

[Guest]

That shouldn't be necessary Phil.

Select the files in Bridge.

Go to Tools > Photoshop > Load files into Photoshop Layers ...

Done!

If Photoshop is actually "crashing" maybe it is getting insufficient memory.

[TadCh3va7]

I posted a couple here already, and this msg is a follow up to advice for some of my problems and other things I read in going through posts.

I updated CS4 to 11.0.1 and I got the most recent drivers for my graphics card -- and they *were* recent, February 2009. Unfortunately this only seems to have made matters worse.

Editing text seemed to be a bit better, but images had grey backgrounds and selecting parts of the image turned the whole thing black. Calibrating monitor didn't help. I dumped the preferences and now I'm back to what I expect as far as image handling goes (no grey/black issues) but the text tool is at least as bad as it was prior to the changes and possibly worse.

If I type a word at regular typing speed it's a full second + before it appears. Highlight one letter in a word and hit the delete key -- it takes even longer for this to happen: visually nothing happens a good second +.

Vista Business, Radeon® X1650 Pro 512MB AGP, 2 gig RAM (Photoshop can use up to 70%) and huge amounts of scratch disk space -- four drives, the first of which has 350 gig. I'd say more but I keep falling farther behind on deadlines.

[Guest]

tried turning the font preview off richard? is vista's aero interface on or off? either way, try switching to the other.

[_Q_Photo_]

Running PsCS4 on Vista and Photoshop using 70% of memory. I think you may need more memory. Other than that, I would cut back on the memory dedicated to Photoshop to about 50%.

[_yslin68_]

Mine is ASUS EAH 4850 1G. After unistalling the "GamerOSD", EVERYTHING GONNA all right. I thought that would help somebody as me.

[_James_M__W__]

Using an 8800 GTX (Latest drivers: v182.08) on a brand new Intel i7 920, 6GB DDR3 and Vista x64 this issue is ridiculously painful. Phtoshop starts and runs beautifully except that it doesn't redraw until I move/zoom an image.

[Chris Cox]

James - if the Photoshop dot release and latest drivers aren't displaying correct, you need to contact your video card maker and get them details so they can fix the remaining driver bugs.

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

James, what mobo?

[_Mark_John_Murphy_]

FIXED. Our long national nightmare is over. After 4 months, Adobe or Nvidia or some combination of the two have fixed Photoshop CS4 on my two machines (Dell XPS 1330 with Nvidia Geforce 8400M GS & Dell Vostro 400 with Nvidia Geforce 8600 GTS, both running XP32).

The photoshop 11.0.1 fix plus 2009 drivers for both machines have CS4 in a useable state for me. On the 1330 laptop, there are still screen redraw issues with an image appearing in two places on the screen at once as I drag it from one side to the other, but the lagginess, slowness, unuseable-ness is gone.

I did not have to jump through any hoops, turn any switches on and off, de-install / reinstall any software, look for preinstalled bloat on my Dell machines, or uncover any other hardware or software culprits that may have been causing the CS4 performance problem. All I had to do was wait 4 months for Adobe and Nvidia to fix the problem, and they did.

The reality is that CS4 should not have shipped until now. My hope is that Adobe will learn a lesson from this big mistake and fix such widespread severity 1 problems prior to shipment next time. At this point they need to trumpet to the world that "CS4 is available and it really works now," because I know that many gave up and said to heck with this over the past 4 months. I would really like to see my Adobe stock move in a more northerly direction.

[_Russell_Proulx_]

> The reality is that CS4 should not have shipped until now. My hope is that Adobe will learn a lesson from this big mistake and fix such widespread severity 1 problems prior to shipment next time.

Perhaps the suite approach pressures the dev team to push it out the door within a fixed timeframe : ready or not..

[Guest]

Not perhaps Russell; definitely.

The rot started with the introduction of the suite concept: a marketing idea to increase turnover, which didn't take elementary engineering constraints into consideration. (ie you can't develop totally different products to the same time scale.)

The rise of the "suits" from thereon guaranteed the fall in quality for the end user.

[Hudechrome-sd9sPI]

Software insulin, anyone?

[Flawless_Star15D5]

There must be a clever link between the introduction of
b suites
and the rise of the
b suits.
But I cannot think of one at the moment.

Anthony.

[hhansard]

Bill Gates and the Office Suite. From that point on, MS owned the corporate desktop. Some argumnts can be made in the AS/400 world, but IBM was realy in the HW business at the time.

H