Is CS4 worth the money?

by David on Tuesday 4th November, 2008 at 11:11 COMMENTS (0)

Having just forked out another £500 for an upgrade to Web Premium CS4 I thought I would let you all know if it was worth the spend.

Dreamweaver
Well there have been some minor changes that make using Dreamweaver easier, these small changes make a whole lot of difference; speeding up some tasks and just fixing some bugs that were always irritating in CS3.

The best thing about the upgrade is that it doesn't feel much different, so I can continue working as normal until I get the time to play with the new features.

The added features are good and I will eventually start using them more fully, but for now I am happy that everything seems to be working well.

Spry features are great, especially the connection tools which allows data to come from XML as usual but now allows tables found elsewhere in your site to be used as a data source.

Another spry feature that is worth having is the form submissions check feature that checks that a form is filled in correctly before allowing submissions. So easy to use.

Fireworks
Much better, lots of new styles and the layout of the screen makes everything standard across the CS range. New features work well especially the 9 slice tool.

Photoshop Extended
Fantastic, new adjustments buttons allow quick addition of filters in a totally non-destructive way, I always forgot to add a layer before playing with a filter, now I don't even have to think; play with a filter and switch it off or delete it if the result does not look the way you expected. Easy.

CS4 Web Premium comes with a whole bunch of other stuff which I will play with over the next few weeks (when I get the chance).

All in all a good package and well worth the upgrade price. My mac has never been happier.