Peter Figen
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For true power users, the Adjustments Panel is a complete abomination, especially for those using dual monitors. It's very big step backwards for a very minor benefit. The new interface design of the adjustment panels, particularly the Curves is unbearable. Luckily you can still use an F-Key action to bring up the Adjustment Layer via the Layers menu, which brings up the old Modal dialog box, which is so much more intuitive than the cryptic icons that you have to hover your cursor over to figure out what they do. Unfortunately, when you have to re-edit that adjustment it pulls up the new panel, and off to the side where you have to divert your attention back and forth from monitoring the image. Yes, you can go off and do other things while in the dialog box now, like change blend modes, but seriously, that's not a big enough deal. Adobe really needs to have an option to fully use the modal dialogs for all aspects of adjustment layers.
On the plus side, you can now use Device Link Profiles if you're part of the 1/2 of one percent who even knows what they are, and the largest brush size in Liquefy is up to 1500 pixels. Unfortunately the regular brush sizes are still limited to 2500 pixels, which becomes increasingly small as files sizes increase with every new camera model.
PhotoMerge is improved and Layer Blending is as well.
If you're on a PC, and don't use many plugins, you can enjoy the benefits of a full 64 bit application, allowing the access of virtually all your ram, assuming you have filled up all your slots. Of course, any plugins you use have to be 64 bit compatible or the whole thing sinks.
All in all, so far, I'd call this upgrade a C or maybe a C+. But then, I'm an extremely critical extremely high end user. Other opinions will undoubtedly vary. If in doubt, download the demo, use it for 30 days and then decide.
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), and there's more too. Check out some of the many review sites for more details on CS2 --> CS3 and CS3 --> CS4.