Having reviewed Adobe Photoshop a number of times over the past ten years I was a little hesitant to install this version and start the review process again. Why? Because it has changed ... the Photoshop interface (and quite a few of the other products) are different, they've become more homogeneous, orderly and now Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop et al are like little soldiers lining up uniformly, their individual personalities indetectable ... well, this is what I imagined it would be like until I opened Photoshop CS4 Extended and started working my way around.

The interface is different, yes, but it is definitely much easier to use and after only a few minutes I was up to speed and zooming around via the new short cut icons and amazing over some new features. In the image below (left) you'll notice a lot more icons around the interface, you'll also notice that the image has it's own tab (like a browser) and on the right you can make adjustments without going through the menu at the top ... and if you can make out the "layers" at the bottom right ... any adjustments you make to the original image are inserted as separate layers and if you don't want them, you can "TURN THEM OFF". Whoa ... this one had me jumping around on my seat.

But, I digress, let's look at the NEW FEATURES.

First and foremost, Photoshop CS4 now touts both 32 and 64 bit versions (for Windows Vista). The 64 bit version allows PCs with lots of RAM to work on very large images with less HD swapping. That aside, there are still loads of reasons to consider Photoshop CS4 even if you're going to stick to the 32 bit version.

For example, as already mentioned, the new "Adjustment Palette" offers a short cut to many layer enhancements that you would normally have to find through the top menu and these adjustments are added as new layers. This is a great feature ... add multiple adjustments and you have multiple layers you can turn on and off for different variations of an image ... and best of all the original remains untouched. Smarter than Smart layers, the adjustment palette wins it for me.

There is also a definite WOW factor in the new "content-aware scale". Resize an image and this new feature will focus on the foreground and scale only the background. It is so good it has to be magically enhanced ... or, as Deke McClelland says in his video, "Some dude sold his soul to the devil for this new feature."

The Clone Stamp has some nice enhancements, the best of which is a "preview" feature. This is so good, it just blew me away ... I selected my clone and went to replace part of my image and there was a preview in the clone pane ... wow. If you want to line up anything, this job becomes 100% easier automatically. Magic!

And, then there's Kuler (pronounced cooler) ... for those of you who have used a tool like Color Cache you will know the advantages of having a colour palette builder available to you. If you've ever been stuck for one last colour to add to your site's colour scheme then you're going to love Kuler. Available in Photoshop CS4 (and other members of the CS4 Suite) is the "Kuler Panel" which will display direct from the web palettes from the Adobe community. You can cruise the palettes, edit the palettes and even build and upload your own. I'm not sure about the whole "sharing" thing though I'm definitely not against sharing per se, it's just that one does wonder if identically colour coded web sites will start popping up everywhere. But that aside, nothing is Cooler than Kuler.

So, what's new in the Extended version of Photoshop ... well, it's all about 3d baby ...

• Direct painting on 3D objects
• Easy conversion from 2D to 3D
• Editable 3D properties (scene, materials, meshes, lights)
• High quality output with new ray tracing rendering engine
• Volume rendering
• Single key shortcuts for editing motion graphics
• Preview and export of audio content and frame comments
• Quantitative data extraction
• Enhanced Count tool
• Tighter integration with Premiere Pro and After Effects

On the Installation front there were some glitches with all signs indicating the Suite was installed correctly when it had failed. On the second attempt to install it just fell in a heap and would not play ball because there were bits and pieces left over from the first install. It was pretty easy to fix though ... with a small side trip to the Adobe forums and being pointed in the direction of a cleanup tool to resolve the issue ... if you're having problems installing take a look over this information from Adobe on this page and this page.

Summing it up: Photoshop CS4 rocks ... it is in a league of it's own and earns a well deserved double thumbs up from me and my Editor's Choice Award 2008. Is it worth the upgrade? In my opinion, absolutely ... on the basis of the features I've listed here alone you could justify making the purchase. It's not often you can say that about an update and the last time I did was with Photoshop CS2 which had some incredible enhancements ... CS4 is just all that and more.