Hello all, i have a new quad 4 dell with 8 gig of ram and a nvidia video card running windows 7 ultimate. i am currently using cs2 and want to upgrade to cs4 if it will utilize the 8 gig and 64 bit processor. my question is should i get cs4 or wait until cs5 is out? any help appreciated

thanks

For me for the 64 bit & Graphic CPU support, yes it was worth it!

i went from PS 7 to CS3 and that was insane, so the jump to CS4 wasnt as thrilling. From CS2 though, your going to get ALOT of new cool stuff, so I would say yes..

If you are doing large files 64bit has a definite advantage.
As for any useful features, IMHO not really.

if you are buying it, you might want to just wait for cs5 which shouldn't be too long

For me, the rotate image tool is worth it alone.

thanks everyone....i did buy it but have not opened it yet in case your advise overall was to wait for cs5.

From what I have seen, it will be user specific. Read up on the features to see which ones you may use. I will most likely be waiting to see what CS5 has before going up from CS2

"With the CS3 product cycle, Adobe instituted a "3 versions back" policy on upgrades. That is, you can upgrade to the current version of Adobe tools from any version up to three versions back.

"In the case of CS3 that meant Photoshop 7, CS, and CS2. With CS4 it's of course CS through CS3."


So buyer beware on waiting 2 many versions....

I actually like the new healing brush feature that allows you to preview what your selected area will look like over the new area. I do find that sometimes CS4 can run a bit slower than CS3 did and this was even after the update. So I am considering going back to CS3.

CS4 doesn't have an amazing amout of new/extras things. It's like any program or hardware, they add a couple things to it and re-release it. If you really want to, go for it, but I'd wait for something a little more spectacular. On the other hand, I'd watch out for what Julian said. Just keep that in mind for future technology-based endeavours.