So... Photoshop CS6 is that revolutionary?

Question

Hi folks.
I'm a user of Photoshop since the 5.5 version and I do any kind of retouching and photompontages, but I've specialized myself in high-end beauty retouching. I work with thousand of layers, so I'm well equiped with enough RAM and BIG TIFF Files, at 16 bit per channel.
I find this new version of Photoshop quite good, however, this version should been done this way when CS4 was released. I think most people knows about the GPU scandal when the CS4 came out. So now, Photoshop CS6 uses the GPU to compute many tasks and the CPU much more smoothly than the other versions. Finally, Photoshop is using most of the hardware from computers and not just a very small percent, if did it in the older versions. I can see that finally, PSCS6 uses more than 1 or 2 CPU cores for most of it functions, and a part of the VRAM and GPU as well.
All the tools in the image/adjustment panel runs VERY smooth in real time when moving the sliders, without ANY delay. That's because PSCS6 finally is using the GPU, as promised with the CS4 version . Also, filters like the Liquify Filter and the Blur/Lens Blur filter, which only used one CPU core, finally use more cores/GPU. Not exactly 8 cores, as my Mac have, but quite almost. Now the Blur/Lens Filter is useful, otherwise, it was totally useless due the heavy processing for just one core.
I have been applying many heavy filters/adjustments to 21mp TIFF files of 16 bpc in order to check how good and responsive is the real time adjustments in Photoshop and the work perfect except for the Shadows & Highlights control. Even in smaller images has some kind of delay and that should be fixed. As well, some of the filters, like the Gaussian Blur, are not in realtime, as we EXPECT
Also, few of the Adjustment Layers, such as the Solid Color, Gradient, Pattern and Gradient Map; don't work in Real Time. So again, you have to go guessing how the image will look if you're applying some of those useful tools.
For the other hand, and from my experience in the field of high-end beauty, we use a lot the D&B technique to improve the overall light of the picture and the smoothness of the skin. And this is done pixel by pixel, or, at pixel level (3200% of zoom, that means, the maximum allowed by Photoshop). This means that we have to zoom in and out several times from 3200% to 100% (and to what resolution fit on your screen) in order to corroborate that our shading/pixel by pixel work is going good because, it happens that working at pixel level you miss how the whole image looks and that leads from fake looking to bad shading.
There are 2 ways to not to zoom in and out all the time:
1. Making the navigator as big as needed, so you can compare what you do at pixel level on the image with how the whole image looks in the navigator.
2. Creating a new window for the same image (Window/Arrange/New Window For [...]).
Unfortunately, none of these 2 ways work in real time. So you don't have ANY FEEDBACK, after you release the mouse/digital pen, making those 2 ways, completely useless and nosense.
I have wrote an e-mail to the Adobe Labs with many improvements in there that have been ignored, except for the Liquify, the Lens Blur and the real time in the adjustments layers.
One of the new tools I suggested in that e-mail, was allowing brushes acting like loupes. So when you D&B, you keep the image at, let say, 100% of zoom while the area where you're working on, is magnified to X%. This would be really useful if you have to work in detail. This is not just a personal point of view, but a professional one.
So, overall... PSCS6 is a very good mirage of what it should be, but nothing out of the box, really. How can it be called a "new version" when it comes to just performance improvements... This should be a CS5 update, nothing more .
I hope the Adobe Team get serious with this and stop bragging and scamming neophytes with just... improvements...
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Answer 1

PECourtejoie, no exactly because it wasn't in my "want" list, as you say (you're the second who says that), but because these tools already came with CS5. It's because of the repetition of tools I'm complaining, not for anything else. Please, re-read what I have written:
"I'm not judging the usefulness of these new tools, nor the improvements to the whole program. I think I was clear from the beginning of this post, as the title says, that CS6 isn't any revolutionary, but mostly, a rearrangement of the parts, which also involves the better performance of the whole program.
Most of the "new features" from CS5 were also in CS4 (or they've been improved/optimized)... I would accept the "cars analogy" if we were comparing Photoshop 1 with CS6, but it seems we have quite different views about what's something new and what's something apparently new".
Thanks for the link for suggestions, I already posted there long time ago.
Noel Carboni:
I test the beta while working on my own photographs and on clients photographs.
1. So do I, Noel, but that's because the User Interface hasn't changed so much and not because of new tools (that you can chose to use or not).
2. I do as well. I process around 1000 images per month in my work, and speeding up the workfow is my main priority.
3. Yes, I have noticed the auto-save recovery the first time Photoshop CS6 crashed, which was yesterday.
The main point is that you should discern how relevant are the changes, not if you feel nice with Photoshop CS6, or if you're a fan of Adobe. If we're doing an analisys about something, we have to be logical.
c.pfaffenbichler
I agree with you on that one, but the content aware does a very nice job in certain things. Of course, a high-end editing requires more manual job than just automated stuff, but it's a nice addtion for low-end editing or simplier things. For example, I do landscape photography and weddings, and for removing electricity poles from a landscape, or probably, a bush that ruined the composition, or maybe you need a rock a bit more to the left; the content aware comes pretty handy for that. It's something that you can do manually, not doubts about that because I use to do it that way when content aware doesn't match the textures and lines very well, but for simpler things (like patterned/random stuff backgrounds) it works very nice, also for removing hotspots in a cloudy sky works realy good. The same the content aware scaling if you want to change the aspect ratio of the image from let say, 3:2 to 16:9 without cropping down the image (or distorting its prpportions), you can achieve flawless results. However, these tools where already done in CS4 with, of course, much less performance.
klsteven
I would also love that feature become real time because, for every type of detailed work, you need to have feedback about how looks the image in its full extent while working in the details. I have emailed few ideas to Adobe long time ago, but just a couple of times because they have their own criteria of what should be done for the next versions, even if this idea is great for detailed work, I think it's not very well known by most users, so they just don't ask for it.
I wonder, for example, how a filter such as Render/Lens Flare still working the same than in Photoshop 5.5 (not CS). It's not a filter I use, in fact, I don't use most of the filters, but there are many filters that have not been updated at all. I think we would agree that's just a marketing strategy. Probably, in PSCS8 we will see that the render/Lens Flare will work on a transparent layer instead of having to create a 50% gray layer set to overlay in order to avoid placing the lens flare on a layer with actived pixels and I will came here saying that CS8 wasn't any revolutionary I hope not, honestly.
Of course, if we compare CS3 with CS6 we can see stunning changes, but from an objective point of view, from CS4 to CS6 there are not new things, mostly improvements. It's a fact that everybody can probe thorugh an objective analisys. Which is the point of this topic.
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