UPDATED: Adobe Creative Suite 4 for October release?

Sat, 05/24/2008 - 2:48am — Jonny Evans

The future of Photoshop includes GPU and physics acceleration, with Adobe CS4 set to ship this October, a report claims.

The company is currently developing its creative applications for release with Adobe Creative Suite 4, and while not a great deal’s known about these yet, some features are emerging, with Adobe preparing for more public revelations soon, we think. The new GPU and physics acceleration features for Photoshop were demonstrated by Nvidia to TG Daily this week. And the website says progress on the move is “simply stunning”.

What the application (allegedly code-named ‘Stonehenge’) now does is use the power of a computer’s graphics processing unit to accelerate certain image editing functions, generating tangible improvements TG Daily calls “more effective than anything else we have seen before in our experience using Photoshop over the past 14 years”.

“Changes made through image zoom and through a new rotate canvas tool were applied almost instantly.” Harnessing the GPU in this way has signnificantly speeded-up even the most intensive Photoshop operations, the report claims, stating Adobe CS4 will ship around 1 October.

UPDATE: Adobe has since informed the public that claims as to an October launch for the software are "made up", according to John Nack. In related news, Adobe shipped beta versions of three upcoming CS4 applications today, May 27, Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth.

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Comments

Adobe CS4

Sat, 05/24/2008 - 6:06am — Mr. Metry (not verified)

Acceleration is great and all, since Adobe apps are slowly become bug-laden bloatware. It would be terrific if Adobe would address bugs and updates with actual updates, instead of paid upgrades, which has apparently become their policy. I would like to see the UI of the apps become consistent, once and for all, as a suite should be! How about unified color palettes and usage, tabs all in the same place/style, and hey, while you're at it, multiple pages in an Illustrator file?!

amen

Sun, 05/25/2008 - 7:57pm — anotherNoob (not verified)

YES. Making the UI consistent would be the greatest thing Adobe could possibly do to improve CS (in my humble-yet-pushy opinion).

At first, I thought not, but

Sat, 05/24/2008 - 7:36am — JeffDM (not verified)

At first, I thought not, but it's already been 18 months, which I think is Adobe's stated upgrade cycle.

I too would like software companies focus on fixing bugs. Apple's software too is often guilty of not fixing bugs on a given release. The bug might be fixed on the next paid version, so you have to re-buy the app in order to get it, but then the new version might introduce new bugs.

Not amused.

Sat, 05/24/2008 - 10:02am — anotherNoob (not verified)

Oh for f**k's sake this is ridiculous! We only just got CS3 mid-2007. Can't they focus on improving software we've just paid a fortune for rather than jumping onto the next cash-cow?

And they wonder why people

Sat, 05/24/2008 - 10:57am — 9to5Mac Noob (not verified)

And they wonder why people try to use 'other methods' to obtain CS packages, verses actually purchasing it. How in the world can the average person keep up with this crap. Most companies won't keep up with it... Poll... how many companies are still on CS2? (mine is on CS3, but most companies my business deals with are still on CS2).
-my thoughts.

That's not it

Sat, 05/24/2008 - 11:03am — JeffDM (not verified)

The thing is that large businesses often skip alternating releases of any kind of software, not just Adobe's

Saying they shouldn't update their software very often is like asking Intel to only introduce a new chip family every three years. Would you want to buy a "new" high end computer which is exactly the same chip type and speed as it was two years ago? Software businesses can't be seen as falling behind by only updating every three years, even if many businesses don't buy into updates that often. October is pretty close to an 18 month cycle.

I'm still trying to get my

Sat, 05/24/2008 - 2:14pm — Orng (not verified)

I'm still trying to get my company to upgrade to PS3 from Illustrator 10. Maybe I'll ease off for a couple months and go for CS4 instead.

Any idea how awkward it can be to call up clients and ask if their graphics department can please use the legacy save feature to create an illustrator 10 file for me?