Which photoshop version is revolutionary?

I own the cs4 master collection and would like to know if cs5.5 is more revolutionary than cs4 was. I want to wait for the next revolution before I upgrade. Small improvements are not worth the money to me. Examples of revolutions are smart filters and open gl zooming. And are there any rumors about any revolutions that adobe has planned for the next five years?

One practical approach would be to put off upgrading until your "discount period" is at the end, which means you could put off upgrading until CS7 is about to change over to CS8.

Otherwise, each new release adds good features, but whether it's "revolutionary" depends on your post-processing wants and needs.

For some folks the "Content Aware Fill" in CS5 is "revolutionary" enough to prompt an upgrade, but there are, I'm sure, plenty of CS4 users who are quite happy!

For me, I'm happy using CS3 when needed, but I'm not one who would use Content Aware Fill often enough to make it worth the expense...

The one that supports your camera.

Chris1le wrote in post #13178867
The one that supports your camera.

Great answer. I think the updates to ACR stop fast enough to leave models behind.

I have had CS2 through 5. I would say 3 was a pretty major upgrade, 4 and 5 not as much.

S.Horton wrote in post #13178967
Great answer. I think the updates to ACR stop fast enough to leave models behind.

I have had CS2 through 5. I would say 3 was a pretty major upgrade, 4 and 5 not as much.

Yeah, I was happy with the CS3 upgrade. One thing it improved on was "stitching", which at the time I was doing a fair amount of, and CS3 made a significant upgrade there. And, of course, Camera Raw sould good improvements as well.

And, since Camera Raw in CS3 supports the 3 DSLRs that I've been using, well, I've been happy to stick with CS3, although LR3 is now my go-to tool for "serious" Raw processing.

It's funny though -- I still have Lightroom 1.4, and it still manages my older "catalog" -- everything from '00 to '09 is in LR1. And, I've occasionally done a quick processing job using LR1.4 with no pain!

I also think CS2 was the last version I got a printed manual with. I am not sure at there is a printed manual at all for 5.

CS5 looks like a minor upgrade from CS4 to me, in terms of raw processing. CS5.5 has nothing much over 5.0 for raw too. There's more upgrades in PS itself, content aware fill, but just take the photo right and you don't have to mess with it. I'm skipping CS5. CS6, maybe, we'll see.

PS3: Layers
PS4: Adjustment layers
PS5: Color management
PS6: Color management done right
PSCS: Introduction of ACR as we know it. 16bpc.
PSCS4: New user interface, 64bit on windows
PSCS5: 64 bit on OSX. Rest relatively minor.

http://en.wikipedia.or​g …Photoshop_relea​se_history

Good stuff, René!

It's pretty amazing when you consider how long Photoshop has been around -- has it been 25 years now?

Depends on your definition of revolutionizing. I upgrade each version, not that I have to but I just do. I would think that upgrading every other release would give you more of a feeling of getting more for your money. It also depends on what you are using it for. If you are only editing images there are some very nice additions in the last couple of releases. If you are doing this plus say some design or digital painting work there have been even more that might dazzle you. The whole content aware concept is great when it works but you never know what your results are going to be. For me being able to work in 64 bit was great.

I haven't heard any rumors and when a new release is getting close to release they usually start to drop the odd tidbit of info on some of the new things that they are looking at. I haven't seen any of these and even the things in labs.adobe.com are not earth shattering imo. I'm thinking maybe next spring at the earliest but that is simply my guess.