Next Version of Photoshop to be GPU-Accelerated

[MacRumors]

http://www.macrumors.com/images/macrumorsthreadlogo.gif (http://www.macrumors.com)

TGDaily reports (http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37611/140/) that the next version of Adobe's Photoshop application will take advantage of video cards graphics processing units (GPUs) to provide a dramatic improvement in performance.So, what can you do with general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) acceleration in Photoshop? We saw the presenter playing with a 2 GB, 442 megapixel image like it was a 5 megapixel image on an 8-core Skulltrail system. Changes made through image zoom and through a new rotate canvas tool were applied almost instantly. Another impressive feature was the import of a 3D model into Photoshop, adding text and paint on a 3D surface and having that surface directly rendered with the 3D models' reflection map.
These features are expected to be introduced in Adobe's next version of Creative Suite (CS4) which is expected in October of this year. GPU acceleration has been used in many aspects of Mac OS X's Core Animation and Core Image.

Article Link (http://www.macrumors.com/2008/05/24/next-version-of-photoshop-to-be-gpu-accelerated/)

[shiunn]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

[bacaramac]

Marketing (billboards, etc)? I would guess they need a quality picture.

[xUKHCx]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

Some people do but it was used, as an extreme example, to highlight the speed increases seen by moving to the new features.

[Mike Teezie]

I can't wait for this. Hopefully Bridge will get the same treatment.

[AdeFowler]

CS4 in October? Seems like only recently that CS3 came out. I have a strong feeling that I'm about to skip a version.

[schnb]

this wont be too great for integrated GPUs will it..
or will there still be improvement but only slightly? hm.

[Gherkin]

CS4 in October? Seems like only recently that CS3 came out. I have a strong feeling that I'm about to skip a version.

Yea, from what I can find on the web, there was about a 2 year gap between CS2 and CS3. October seems a little early for CS4. Is that really when it's projected to come out?

[chaosbunny]

Yes please Adobe add more features that are useful about once or twice a year... :rolleyes:

How about different sized pages in InDesign? Or gradients to transparency in Illustrator? Guess we'll never see these.

[viperguy]

Agreed, it stills seems like CS3 was launched... yesterday.

[hyddan]

That sounds great! I hope they do corel painter-esque canvas rotation with this, and that it natively works on intel OSX from the start, of course.

On the negative side I can see photoshop buffed with even more features and separate versions I'll never see or use (the CS2 from CS1 transition for example). But hopefully it will fit right in.

[john7jr]

Adobe said somewhere that they intend to make more regular updates, perhaps even yearly, to their lineup. So this could be very cool. October, huh?

Too bad it was also announced that CS4 would only be 64-bit on Windows, not on the Mac until CS5.

[northernpaul]

perhaps they'll decide to include support for case-sensitive file systems too :rolleyes:

[bdkennedy1]

This will be absolutely kick-ass.

Speed is always a graphic designers friend. The amount of time saved will be terrific.

[neven]

Yes please Adobe add more features that are useful about once or twice a year... :rolleyes:

Order-of-magnitude improvements in the speed of zooming, panning, scaling, and general rendering is something that would only be useful to you once or twice a year?

How about different sized pages in InDesign? Or gradients to transparency in Illustrator? Guess we'll never see these.

New features are the LAST thing we need. Most Photoshop professionals I know are still using the features of Photoshop 7 99% of the time. And this *is* a bit of news about Photoshop, not about InDesign or the rest of CS.

[!¡ V ¡!]

This will be absolutely kick-ass.

Speed is always a graphic designers friend. The amount of time saved will be terrific.

There are two types of graphic designers:

1. Trial and Error; or

2. Visionary and the minimal steps to obtain it. ;):p:)

Which one are you?

[gkarris]

this wont be too great for integrated GPUs will it..
or will there still be improvement but only slightly? hm.

If the GPU has certain features, then I would think that Adobe would tap into into it. I would imagine you would need a minimum X3100, though.

[Mitch1984]

Wish they re-write the apps in cocoa, would it be faster then?

[!¡ V ¡!]

Wish they re-write the apps in cocoa, would it be faster then?

Yes, to an extent it would be faster. Not sure why Adobe® does not rewrite it in Cocoa and make it 64-bit multi-processor aware. Take another year to do this as I care less for CS4. Skip CS4 and once the above it met release it under whatever naming scheme it deems. Just get it done. :rolleyes:

[bobertoq]

Wish they re-write the apps in cocoa, would it be faster then?Photoshop CS4 will not be cocoa. It'll still be 32-bit :( but photoshop CS5 will be cocoa

[!¡ V ¡!]

New features are the LAST thing we need. Most Photoshop professionals I know are still using the features of Photoshop 7 99% of the time. And this *is* a bit of news about Photoshop, not about InDesign or the rest of CS.

How true indeed?

For me it would be v6 - 7 though, v5.5 was the turning point though for PS. :)

[john7jr]

Yes, to an extent it would be faster. Not sure why Adobe® does not rewrite it in Cocoa and make it 64-bit multi-processor aware. Take another year to do this as I care less for CS4. Skip CS4 and once the above it met release it under whatever naming scheme it deems. Just get it done. :rolleyes:

That's what they are going to do. CS4 will continue to use the 32-bit Carbon APIs, which thanks to Apple changing their mind about it (http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/06/13/64-bit-support-in-leopard-no-carbon-love) - didn't go 64-bit along with the Cocoa APIs in Leopard. But by CS5 they expect to have enough of it re-written to go 64-bit.

[kresh]

Photoshop CS4 will not be cocoa. It'll still be 32-bit :( but photoshop CS5 will be cocoa

I'll believe it when I see it. I'm still expecting in 2009 to see an Adobe announcement that converting the CS Suite to Cocoa is not going very well, Apple's XCode is not as versatile as Code Warriors or Microsoft's stuff, and have decided to throw all their support behind adding dedicated support files for Parallels and Fusion users running Windows or the Dual Boot option.

[Wigletbill]

Or is this update a little soon!?

How about supporting the $3k+ CS3 suite with updates!!!? I mean they thing came out in April of '07. I am all for innovation but it seems like maybe we could get some upgrades through the software updater before they drop a new version 18 months later for another 3k.

J

[TSE]

This will most likely speed up the MacBook Pro with photoshop, but slow down the MacBooks.

[Axemantitan]

Woo-Hoo! My submission made it to the front page! Thank you, Arn!

[theLastBeatle]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

graphic artists in the print industry.

this is the kind of comment that solidifies (to an extent) my concern when a mac rumors poster asked "what system should i get for graphics". most people, even inexperienced graphic artists themselves dont realize that in the print industry a 2gig file is a common everyday pain in the rear.

[inkswamp]

CS4 in October? Seems like only recently that CS3 came out. I have a strong feeling that I'm about to skip a version.

Honestly, I haven't seen any compelling new features in Photoshop since 7.0. Other than bringing the program up-to-date to run on newer hardware and mangling the interface more and more with each revision, I haven't seen anything on recent versions of Photoshop that makes me think Adobe has put much thought into it. It's funny to me that Adobe is stealing customers away from Quark with InDesign because of Quark's apparent indifference to QuarkXPress, while Photoshop seems to be treated the same way.

Who knows? Maybe someone will step in and give Adobe a run for their money finally.

[joost538]

I am putting my money on Pixelmator instead; designed to use the GPU from the ground up, and it works right now. Also, Universal Binary from the start.

Sure it does slighty less. It also costs a lot less and is getting much better with every new version. And the online tutorials are awesome.

[ert3]

FInally you would think this to be standard

[swingerofbirch]

The article doesn't say which GPU was used.

Can standard GPUs (like those in the MacBook Pro) make so much difference?

And what about the MacBook? I know it doesn't have discrete graphics, but can applications offload to its integrated graphics chip? Or is integrated graphics like not having a GPU at all?

[inkswamp]

I am putting my money on Pixelmator instead; designed to use the GPU from the ground up, and it works right now. Also, Universal Binary from the start.

Sure it does slighty less. It also costs a lot less and is getting much better with every new version. And the online tutorials are awesome.

In the long-run, I would bet on Pixelmator too. At some point, Adobe is going to get too big and lumbering to keep up and it's going to take someone fast and small to stay ahead of them. I've seen so many would-be Photoshop challengers come and go but Pixelmator is the first one I've seen where I think it seriously stands a chance. I would buy and use Pixelmator too but it doesn't run for crud on older hardware (still chugging away on a G4 iMac here.) However, that's the sacrifice a developer makes in the decision to stay ahead of the big corporate alternative. Still, one of the first things I will install on my next Mac is Pixelmator.

The sad thing is that if the developers behind GIMP would get off their high horse about copying Photoshop's UI, we'd already have a true competitor. I've used GIMP and it's got loads of great features, but the interface is mired in a weird mix of modern day and mid-90s-isms, and it's hard to work efficiently around such a scatterbrained approach to the tools.

[snberk103]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

I was working with a 2GB image this spring..... started out on a Mini, and -very very quickly - decided I had better get a slightly more robust system. The Mini is now attached to the stereo and acting as a jukebox. Quite literally, I could have lunch while the Mini was saving the file.... and I saved often because I was afraid of crashes ... which the Mini never did.

[AdeFowler]

Most Photoshop professionals I know are still using the features of Photoshop 7 99% of the time.
Spot on. I'm a freelance designer and I've been using Photoshop since version 2. To be honest it's never struck me as being particularly sluggish. I'm a little cynical whenever I hear talk of 'massive speed boosts etc'. It sounds like marketing talk to me.

The current suite on the whole is poor in my opinion, and in need of a rewrite. Acrobat Pro is a dog compared to the windows version, as are Flash and Dreamweaver. I don't like the interface of Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator. Roll on CS5 ;)

[mangoarts]

Is Adobe using Core Image to make these speed jumps or is this GPU acceleration both Mac and PC?

[KindredMAC]

Photoshop:
- Live, editable Lens Flare. Not that puny preview window... have color options too so I don't have to apply multiple layer blend modes to achieve a simple effect.

Illustrator:
- Multiple artboards in a single document, like in FreeHand.
- Color to Transparent gradients.
- PSD layer comps for the placed image like how InDesign handles that feature.
- Handle Layer masks with the simplicity and ease that Photoshop has come to be known for.

[Macmadant]

To be honest i'm very surprised it doesn't take advantage already.

[twoodcc]

wow. seems like a great improvement. this update should be great

[SodiumBenzoate]

This will most likely speed up the MacBook Pro with photoshop, but slow down the MacBooks.

Maybe it will prompt Apple to put a low-end GPU (8400M GS or similar) into the MacBooks?

[antoneoh]

Hey Adobe, how about first fixing my CS3 on my PowerPC Mac. I'm crashing everyday and I'm still waiting for an update. :(

[Bez]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

Er - me! Like these:

http://www.virtualpathology.leeds.ac.uk/public/common_slides.php

OK, something of a minority interest I accept ...

Bez

[winterspan]

The article doesn't say which GPU was used.

Can standard GPUs (like those in the MacBook Pro) make so much difference?

And what about the MacBook? I know it doesn't have discrete graphics, but can applications offload to its integrated graphics chip? Or is integrated graphics like not having a GPU at all?

I assume Adobe will implement this through custom shader code, so any chip that can do shaders. The newest integrated crap from intel can do it, but anything with the older chipset probably won't. I'm not exactly sure which models have which integrated chip, but I would guess any Macbook or Mini more than about 18 months old. however, I may be completely wrong, and it may work on all recent hardware.

Anybody know the timeline for when Intel updated it's IGP to include hardware shader support?

[Yr Blues]

Yes please Adobe add more features that are useful about once or twice a year... :rolleyes:

How about different sized pages in InDesign? Or gradients to transparency in Illustrator? Guess we'll never see these.

You are so right on. There are so many obvious things that they need to add.

[emulator]

Photoshop CS4 will not be cocoa. It'll still be 32-bit :( but photoshop CS5 will be cocoa
yeah, right. this is the same adobe who can't even make an x64 flash player.

[dbyl2]

This is good for most mbp owners but for people on a macbook this could be quite bad, unless there is a setting to make it more cpu powered than gpu powered we will just wain and see....:(

[JBaker122586]

Hey Adobe, how about first fixing my CS3 on my PowerPC Mac. I'm crashing everyday and I'm still waiting for an update. :(

Maybe you should have bought a new computer instead of spending hundreds on CS3.

[chuckles:)]

Er - me! Like these:

http://www.virtualpathology.leeds.ac.uk/public/common_slides.php

OK, something of a minority interest I accept ...

Bez

that is really cool. How do you even take pictures like that? do you have a 442 megapixel camera?

[Michael CM1]

CS4 in October? Seems like only recently that CS3 came out. I have a strong feeling that I'm about to skip a version.

Tell me about it. I mean I do hate that I won't be able to manipulate 442-megapixel pics as fast, but I guess I can just do without.

Seriously, I don't get why they're making such a huge update not even a year later. I bought CS3 when it first came out last summer. So you're talking about a 15-month turnaround. That's extremely quick for something that costs so much. I mean is Adobe going to keep updating CS3???

[Michael CM1]

Honestly, I haven't seen any compelling new features in Photoshop since 7.0. Other than bringing the program up-to-date to run on newer hardware and mangling the interface more and more with each revision, I haven't seen anything on recent versions of Photoshop that makes me think Adobe has put much thought into it. It's funny to me that Adobe is stealing customers away from Quark with InDesign because of Quark's apparent indifference to QuarkXPress, while Photoshop seems to be treated the same way.

Who knows? Maybe someone will step in and give Adobe a run for their money finally.

I have heard people yap about InDesign being better, but I just don't get it because I tried to use it and wanted to slit my throat. I know 1,500 keyboard shortcuts in Quark, and it seemed like none of them worked in InDesign, even when I turned the option on to use Quark shortcuts.

I think a lot of people are switching to InDesign because it's bundled with Creative Suite. I just got Quark XPress 7, which lists a lot of stuff that it's got that is supposed to steal people from Adobe. Thing is I don't really see much of them yet. Could be because we run QXP 4 at work along with Photoshop 5. Yah, we can't even export to PDF without Distiller.

Personally I like QXP better because it's what I have always used. We really don't use many special features because, well, we don't have them.

[krazygoat]

We use Pixelmator at our visual FX studio since it is faster than Photoshop, leaner than Photoshop, and significantly cheaper than Photoshop.

We do keep two copies of Photoshop around for Matte Painting since it is the default tool for that kind of work, but for everything else Pixelmator gets the job done very well. It also easily opens some formats that Photoshop struggles with sometimes like DPX, EXR, Cineon, etc.

[Shadow]

Maybe you should have bought a new computer instead of spending hundreds on CS3.

A lot of G4s and all G5s are more than adequate to run CS3 moderatley well...he shouldn't have got a new computer at all.

[abrooks]

Could be because we run QXP 4 at work along with Photoshop 5. Yah, we can't even export to PDF without Distiller.

You should always export to Distiller from Quark, even Quark 7.

The damn program can't make a PDF to save its life! :rolleyes:

[BiikeMike]

Maybe it will prompt Apple to put a low-end GPU (8400M GS or similar) into the MacBooks?

Why on earth would Apple make it easier to run professional applications on their cheapest computer? And a better question, why would people buy a MacBook if they are serious about graphic design and Photoshop use?



Er - me! Like these:

http://www.virtualpathology.leeds.ac.uk/public/common_slides.php

OK, something of a minority interest I accept ...

Bez


Wow, you must have one HELLUVA microscope!








And the most important question of these Photoshop updates are, will it run on the 3G iPhone? ;)

[alphaod]

Er - me! Like these:

http://www.virtualpathology.leeds.ac.uk/public/common_slides.php

OK, something of a minority interest I accept ...

Bez

I'm curious to know what the file size of a RAW frame from that is!

This will most likely speed up the MacBook Pro with photoshop, but slow down the MacBooks.

Or it would be an user enabled option like they use in AutoCAD.

---

Did Adobe say they would skip OS X when it came to CS4 and they would come back in CS5? Or was it just they wouldn't do a 64-bit version?

[stainlessliquid]

about damn time, there was a huge difference between XP interface interaction (like minimizing windows) and Vista interaction because Vista actually uses the GPU. XP was always sluggish and crappy regardless of the computer you have because it uses the CPU for all GUI stuff.

The downside will be like the downside of Vista, if you dont have the right hardware to run it then youre going to have performance issues. But if you do have the right modern hardware then its going to fly.

[stevenz]

If speed is the primary concern then Pixelmator is already GPU accelerated and damn near a tenth of the price of photoshop.

[hectors92]

is it just me or is cs3 the clunkiest, overladen, piece of crap ever? its the windows of graphics editors..

[alphaod]

is it just me or is cs3 the clunkiest, overladen, piece of crap ever? its the windows of graphics editors..

It's just you.

Well at least it's not me

[Master Atrus]

I've been using CS3 since it came out and I find a lot of the upgrades were worth the expense. (for example quick select in Photoshop). But I haven't heard anything for the Mac version of CS4 to justify an expense. Can someone tell me if I skip CS4 and wait for CS5 will I still be able to upgrade or will I have to buy the full version again.

For example if I would have had CS could I have upgraded straight to CS3? (I already had CS2 so I don't remember the rules of the upgrade.)

[Eidorian]

Dear Apple,

I know you use the GPU for Quartz Extreme and those wonderful Core foundations. Maybe you should start using it for Quicktime and other decoding work.

~Eidorian

[mixel]

Firstly, I'm looking forward to seeing what's in CS4, but it'd take some crazy new features for me to upgrade from CS3. The GPU thing sounds good on paper, providing it's fast enough.

Secondly, anyone who thinks Pixelmator does enough to replace PS in most people's workflows is far off. Streamlined it is, but feature rich it isn't! Its tablet support is bad, its natural media simulation is non-existant, it's colour proofing is almost non-existant, it has no vector stuff, it has no "refine edges" or ability to easily adjust selections, you can't even /save/ selections, do (or proof) animations.. it has no support for PS-compatible layer effects (which a lot of people rely on, especially texture artists).. Etc.. Photoshop has nothing to fear in various pro & amatuer markets if people can be bothered to learn the feature-set, which generally people do when they depend on them. It's not trying to compete in the consumer market, so people complaining about feature bloat should really just quit complaining and buy pixelmator or Photoshop Elements, these "bloat" features are part of what makes Photoshop CS3 great, regardless of whether you personally see a need for them.

Oh, and CS3 runs faster than PM on my setup, by a significant margin, Pixelmator has *terrible* cursor lag, making it a bit useless for high res digital painting, this is on a new iMac with a 8800.. So much for this GPU silver bullet. It'll have to work a *lot* better in CS4. Test for yourself - load an A3 canvas, 300 dpi and scibble circles with your wacom.. On PS you get circles.. On PM you get a jumble of straight lines.

Gimp and Painter are more of a "threat", but neither of them have the flexibility either, and neither of them are competing. There's room in the market for more than one app.. On Windows they have Paint Shop Pro, which is much better as a PS competitor than Pixelmator is, but you don't hear about people setting it up to take down Photoshop. Not going to happen.

Don't begrudge PS, it's a very good app. I've made use of a few of the CS3 new features, and did 7's before that. They don't force you to upgrade. :)

[bmb012]

is it just me or is cs3 the clunkiest, overladen, piece of crap ever? its the windows of graphics editors..

Oh, no, I think Photoshop in general is one of the worst designed programs ever made. I literally cringed when I heard that Adobe was buying Flash (and Flash already sucked to begin with).

Anyone who doesn't hate Photoshop hasn't used Final Cut Pro or Express (incredibly powerful programs that I've never felt 'lost' in) :p

[mixel]

I've been using CS3 since it came out and I find a lot of the upgrades were worth the expense. (for example quick select in Photoshop). But I haven't heard anything for the Mac version of CS4 to justify an expense. Can someone tell me if I skip CS4 and wait for CS5 will I still be able to upgrade or will I have to buy the full version again.

For example if I would have had CS could I have upgraded straight to CS3? (I already had CS2 so I don't remember the rules of the upgrade.)
Yeah you've previously been able to jump 3 generations. I'm not sure if they'll change the rules though. I went from PS7 to CS3, skipping the ones between.

I'm with you, the CS3 features have been great. :)

edit: I'm surprised there are people who find Photoshop that confusing.. (And consider Final Cut pro intuitive in comparison?!) Photoshop is one of the best designed, most intuitive apps I've ever used. Different strokes, etc.. And it's not overladen, it takes <5 secs to load here, and I use a lot of the "power" features. Hmm. And then there's the people who complain about the GUI, when it's painfully easy to set it to be exactly the same as it was in 7 (if you're that scared of change) .. If you're intimidated by options, and want everything set up for you then it might not be ideal, but really, the "bloat" notion is totally overblown.

[needsomecoffee]

Have said this before, and will keep repeating it with hopes Apple is listening. Acquire code fore LivePicture. Acquire Painter. Integrate into Aperture.

HPC via nVidia or soon Intel chips is coming no matter what now. This is clearly the next big step forward. Awesome to think about how the desktop experience will be enhanced -- not just Pshop big file processing.

[inkswamp]

Why on earth would Apple make it easier to run professional applications on their cheapest computer?

Because even Apple's "cheapest" computers are much pricier than similar hardware in the PC market. Apple has been doing a shabby job lately of justifying that "Apple premium." I think any machine over $1000 ought to run pro applications at least reasonably well. There's no excuse for that. And if Apple can't provide that, they need to bring their prices down to be more in line with the rest of the computing world.

[mixel]

Have said this before, and will keep repeating it with hopes Apple is listening. Acquire code fore LivePicture. Acquire Painter. Integrate into Aperture.
Painter? I hope not! Millions* of artists depend on Painter staying in reasonable shape, and they dont want it built in to Aperture.. Unless Apple would continue developing Painter standalone, which sounds like a bad idea considering how it's interface is very un-apple-ish. (personally i think painter could do with a GUI overhaul, but i dont think most people would appreciate such a radical change, heh, especially when it probably sells more on Windows anyway.)

* = probably.

[chaosbunny]

Order-of-magnitude improvements in the speed of zooming, panning, scaling, and general rendering is something that would only be useful to you once or twice a year?...

On files with 2 gb size? Most certainly, yes.

But I'm sure the nanoseconds saved on regular web & print sized files will earn me millions...

[Quu]

Sounds like they were showcasing it on Windows. Being a Skulltrail system and all.

I know that NVIDIA cards under Mac OS X can run CUDA code just like on Windows and Linux but I'm curious in which way exactly Adobe are going to implement the power of the graphics processors present in systems.

Are they going to use OpenGL with a custom renderer (Or Core Image on OS X) or utilise the General Processing capability present in the latest NVIDIA and ATi cards. The article specifically mentioned GPGPU so I'm going to guess the latter but I'm still curious.

Also I'd like to know why Adobe don't feel its needed to release a 64-bit version for OS X when they feel its needed on Windows Vista. :confused:

At the moment I can see myself only getting CS4 for my Vista x64 PC as it has a CUDA supporting 8800GTX, 8GB of RAM and Vista x64. I don't see how I'm going to get much worth out of a CS4 upgrade on the Mac side of things considering I don't have a CUDA processing GPU in my new Intel Mac, it doesn't support 64-bit and wont address more then 4GB of RAM.

Hey Apple, make a Photoshop competitor!

[akac]

I am putting my money on Pixelmator instead; designed to use the GPU from the ground up, and it works right now. Also, Universal Binary from the start.

Sure it does slighty less. It also costs a lot less and is getting much better with every new version. And the online tutorials are awesome.

Pixelmator does about 10% of what Photoshop can do. But more importantly, it only does about 50% of what most image processing guys use daily of Photoshop. Lots of stuff that require a lot of UI work and can't be done just by filters or Core Image.

[akac]

Also I'd like to know why Adobe don't feel its needed to release a 64-bit version for OS X when they feel its needed on Windows Vista. :confused:


Its been explained before. Goes like this:

Photoshop is Carbon (and Cocoa would do zero to improve Photoshop beyond 64-bit)
Carbon was planned to be 64-bit in Leopard. Apple announced it and shipped it in betas.
Photoshop was running in 64-bit Carbon.
Then WWDC 2007 Apple cans 64-bit Carbon.
So no 64-bit Photoshop.

Now they have to rewrite Photoshop in Cocoa or Lua (which uses Cocoa) and its going to take a few more years.

What makes me mad is even Final Cut is Carbon and is still 32-bit. Apple should've just shipped 64-bit Carbon.

[puckhead193]

These features are expected to be introduced in Adobe's next version of Creative Suite (CS4) which is expected in October of this year.

didn't CS3 just come out :eek:

[pimentoLoaf]

Let's see... When did PS 7.0 come out? Haven't upgraded since. :(

OTOH, I've been happy with the primitive program. :)

OTOH, I only have a 1.33ghz g4. :(

[theLastBeatle]

Yes please Adobe add more features that are useful about once or twice a year... :rolleyes:

How about different sized pages in InDesign? Or gradients to transparency in Illustrator? Guess we'll never see these.

are you kidding? this should of been added already. this is going to affect my everyday use of photoshop. just because it isnt relevant to you doesnt mean there arent industries out there that have been waiting for this.

when you have dead lines you cant sit around and stare at a progress bar (well, we can and we do but we're pulling are hair out because we got dead lines) we need to be able to move that image and go through the creative process of moving, scaling, blurring, whatever...we cant wait ten minutes (sometimes 30 minutes) just to see what something might look like rotated 45 degrees.

if adobe can excellerate this painful process it will be about time.

[Quu]

Its been explained before. Goes like this:

Photoshop is Carbon (and Cocoa would do zero to improve Photoshop beyond 64-bit)
Carbon was planned to be 64-bit in Leopard. Apple announced it and shipped it in betas.
Photoshop was running in 64-bit Carbon.
Then WWDC 2007 Apple cans 64-bit Carbon.
So no 64-bit Photoshop.

Now they have to rewrite Photoshop in Cocoa or Lua (which uses Cocoa) and its going to take a few more years.

What makes me mad is even Final Cut is Carbon and is still 32-bit. Apple should've just shipped 64-bit Carbon.

Actually I already knew all that. My point is, why are they not doing the leg-work to make a 64-bit Mac version like they should be doing. I know it would need a re-write to Cocoa but lets be realistic, they are a company they should be diverse enough to push back the CS4 release date for Mac and release a 64-bit Cocoa version. Also with CS3 they kept going on and on about how it would be a huge re-write to get it Universal on Intel, did they not think to use Cocoa then, they knew all along that Apples legacy transition coding language was Carbon and that they _should_ have been using Cocoa like everyone and there dog is.

I'm just pissed in general at Adobe not giving the Mac community the same as the Windows one. I'm glad I have a nice beefy Windows system to run it on but it's not the same without Expose and Spotlight which I really love to use while I'm doing PS work.

[theLastBeatle]

There are two types of graphic designers:

1. Trial and Error; or

2. Visionary and the minimal steps to obtain it. ;):p:)

Which one are you?

BS, theres a bit of RND required when doing complex photo manipulation. especially when there visions that are fresh. exploring and developing the correct approach always takes time.

[mt4design]

CS4 huh?

I'd love to see Adobe fix the "Could not complete your request because of a program error" bomb or the issues with InDesign simply crashing when trying to access the finder.

As to image size, I work on files for trade show graphics that are 4 Gigs and up... so a little performance boost would be great.

But, I'd really like to see Adobe actually fix some of the lingering issues in CS3 that I never have working in CS2.

mt4design

[e-coli]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Hey Adobe, how about first fixing my CS3 on my PowerPC Mac. I'm crashing everyday and I'm still waiting for an update. :(

Maybe you should have bought a new computer instead of spending hundreds on CS3.

This has to be one of the most condescending and out of touch comments I've read on this board.

So your proposed solution to Adobe's buggy software is to spend a few thousand on a new Mac AND a few thousand on CS3?

CS3 has an enormous amount of bugs. Acrobat is a joke. They owe it to their customers to fix the expensive software they've already sent to market.

[krye]

If I know Adobe, we'll see this in 2012.

[andy.barron]

CS3 has to be THE WORST UPGRADE EVER. lets hope the reason for the quick released version of CS4 is because of this.

[dante@sisna.com]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

Large Scans of Fine Art Paintings in the 4' x 6' size easily approach 700MB and Higher. When you add in adjustment layers, need for cropping, one easily has an image in the 1gig to 2 gig range. Scans like these are made on a "light table" scanner which scans one-to-one at 300dpi. Huge resolutions.

We are producing a 9x12" art book right now for a fine artist with these types of large images.

Some folks do use them.

Dante

[dante@sisna.com]

There are two types of graphic designers:

1. Trial and Error; or

2. Visionary and the minimal steps to obtain it. ;):p:)

Which one are you?

That's a pile of crap. True Graphic Arts / Design involve both.

It is NOT either or, the best designs I've seen, and produced for that matter, start with a vision/plan and evolve through trial and error, often from accidents along the way.

[SodiumBenzoate]

Why on earth would Apple make it easier to run professional applications on their cheapest computer?

Because it makes sense at the price they are selling the MacBook. It's a very cheap card, and competing notebooks (Dell M1330 and Sony SZ) have it.

And a better question, why would people buy a MacBook if they are serious about graphic design and Photoshop use?

Maybe they don't have the money for a MBP or are just a serious hobbyist. Photoshop is used by an awful lot of people who aren't professionals.

[dante@sisna.com]

If speed is the primary concern then Pixelmator is already GPU accelerated and damn near a tenth of the price of photoshop.

Pixelmator is a fantastic tool. Agree.

BUT it lacks any sort of Path based curve creation and saving which is a deal killer for a lot of professional imaging.

[galstaph]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

I frequently use images larger than this to do architectural presentation graphics on 24x36" boards


oops! read that as mb... my pixels are around 7,200 x 10800 pixels or 77,760,000 pixels in total.... so not quite 442 mega pixels

[winterspan]

Sounds like they were showcasing it on Windows. Being a Skulltrail system and all.

I know that NVIDIA cards under Mac OS X can run CUDA code just like on Windows and Linux but I'm curious in which way exactly Adobe are going to implement the power of the graphics processors present in systems.

Are they going to use OpenGL with a custom renderer (Or Core Image on OS X) or utilise the General Processing capability present in the latest NVIDIA and ATi cards. The article specifically mentioned GPGPU so I'm going to guess the latter but I'm still curious.



Is Adobe using Core Image to make these speed jumps or is this GPU acceleration both Mac and PC?

If you read the first few comments on http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37611/140/, the editors responded in one of them to say that it'll only be available on nVidia Geforce 8-series GPUs, although he NEVER mentioned that directly in the article as he says he did.

If true, this means that Adobe is indeed using the nVidia's CUDA "GPGPU" technology, which is a c-like programming language that offloads parallel/SIMD processing onto the GPU. This is totally different than OSX's Core Image, which uses OpenGL shader programs written in GLSL for digital image transformations and filters.

Using nVidia's CUDA gives much more flexibility and optimization for all kinds of applications, not just image processing, but the downside is that you'll need an Nvidia Geforce 8-series card or higher to take advantage of this.

One of the really positive effects that will come from more software developers like Adobe using GPUs for application acceleration is that they will become a very important core component of computers, instead of just being used for games and professional 3D modeling/animation. And god forbid, Apple will have to start offering top-of-the-line GPUS like they SHOULD have been for the last few years!

[JackAxe]

Photoshop:
- Live, editable Lens Flare. Not that puny preview window... have color options too so I don't have to apply multiple layer blend modes to achieve a simple effect.


Cheeeeeeeeese (http://www.lensflare.com/), but with majesty!!! :D

<]=)

[JBaker122586]

Because even Apple's "cheapest" computers are much pricier than similar hardware in the PC market. Apple has been doing a shabby job lately of justifying that "Apple premium." I think any machine over $1000 ought to run pro applications at least reasonably well. There's no excuse for that. And if Apple can't provide that, they need to bring their prices down to be more in line with the rest of the computing world.

CS3 runs perfectly fine on the $1,100 iMac.

[Axemantitan]

Dear Apple,

I know you use the GPU for Quartz Extreme and those wonderful Core foundations. Maybe you should start using it for Quicktime and other decoding work.

~Eidorian

They could also do what one programmer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%40Home#Optimized_data_analysis) did for Einstein@home and optimize it for SSE, 3DNow! and SSE3. That created an 800% improvement for that application.

[BlakTornado]

ugh. How wonderful.

Yet another update for me to lavish money I don't have on.

Oh well. At least they might make the icons better. The CS3 ones are rather bland, dull and uninteresting. (I know those words are basically the same thing :P)

[inkswamp]

CS3 runs perfectly fine on the $1,100 iMac.

I wasn't making that point per se. I was responding to the idea that someone can't expect a pro app to run decently on "low end" Macs. That's a load of rubbish.

[Kwill]

Oh, no, I think Photoshop in general is one of the worst designed programs ever made. I literally cringed when I heard that Adobe was buying Flash (and Flash already sucked to begin with).

Adobe is quickly heading for problems. The decision to bundle all their applications in suites (like Microsoft Office) is going to bite them in the foot. Some production environments cannot immediately upgrade to each software release because of 1) training, 2) cost or 3) hardware or driver incompatibility.

To those with a PowerMac environment, there was little need to upgrade to CS2. As Intel Macs were added, CS3 made more sense. One big advantage is much better rendering of soft shadows within PDF from InDesign. Photoshop CS3 offers a few productivity enhancements and overall Universal Binary better optimizes RAM on Intel Macs.

Nevertheless, the entire suite is huge and it will literally take years to benefit from enhancements to multiple applications. GPU performance optimization does not sound like a paid upgrade. It should be a point update. Unfortunately, since all graphics applications are bundled, there is pressure to get the next full suite out to generate income. I am not interested in the next biggest annual upgrade. (These apps are too big already.) Refine what we have with better interface cohesion and performance gains. Slow down the upGRADE cycle to 2-2.5 years or stagger more moderately priced unbundled upgrades.

[BenRoethig]

If Abobe does this, I hope it will force Apple to actually take OpenGL and the video card drivers seriously for a change.

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

This works really well with some of the core animation stuff so it is very exciting.

[winterspan]

Adobe is quickly heading for problems. The decision to bundle all their applications in suites (like Microsoft Office) is going to bite them in the foot. Some production environments cannot immediately upgrade to each software release because of 1) training, 2) cost or 3) hardware or driver incompatibility.

To those with a PowerMac environment, there was little need to upgrade to CS2. As Intel Macs were added, CS3 made more sense. One big advantage is much better rendering of soft shadows within PDF from InDesign. Photoshop CS3 offers a few productivity enhancements and overall Universal Binary better optimizes RAM on Intel Macs.

Nevertheless, the entire suite is huge and it will literally take years to benefit from enhancements to multiple applications. GPU performance optimization does not sound like a paid upgrade. It should be a point update. Unfortunately, since all graphics applications are bundled, there is pressure to get the next full suite out to generate income. I am not interested in the next biggest annual upgrade. (These apps are too big already.) Refine what we have with better interface cohesion and performance gains. Slow down the upGRADE cycle to 2-2.5 years or stagger more moderately priced unbundled upgrades.

They still offer all the apps individually though, right? Or do you mean that they are much more expensive individually, and so they are only worth buying in the suites?

[monke]

I bought CS3 in October last year, and I'm really not looking to upgrade.
I'll definitely wait for CS5 although that could take forever. CS5 will be both GPU-Accelerated and have 64-Bit support for Mac, plus I can't just keep dishing out another couple wallets full of cash every year to have the latest and slightly better software.

Unless there's something really big about CS4, I'll be waiting for CS5, and my guess is that other people that just bought CS3 will too.

[tsd]

Geez, it's about blooming time! Adobe has been so far behind the times with Photoshop - no 64 bit support and no GPU support. It's really ridiculous how long it's taken them to get the GPU support.

[h4cky0u]

I wonder if it's a GPU-mode option instead of the whole program being built for the GPU. The GPU-mode option would be very very nice for those who have Macbooks or something with integrated graphics. As of right now, CS3 works perfectly on my Toshiba with GMA950 integrated. I hope it stays that way.

[ckurowic]

How about some news that affects more than .000001% of us??? These GPGPU's are hellaciously expensive, a pipe dream for most people. Useless news.

[winterspan]

How about some news that affects more than .000001% of us??? These GPGPU's are hellaciously expensive, a pipe dream for most people. Useless news.

1) Only .000001% of mac users use Adobe Photoshop? This is entirely relevant to a site called "MacRumors.com"

2) There is no such thing as a "GPGPU". GPGPU is just an umbrella term for using graphic card processors to perform calculations outside of their native domain, i.e. 3D graphics processing. Nvidia does sell special graphic cards without DVI ports that are dedicated to GPGPU type calculations, but their GPGPU code library and SDK, called "CUDA" (Compute Unified Device Architecture), is able to run on ANY Geforce 8-series card or it's equivalent professional Quadro card. The lowest 8 series card Apple uses is the Geforce 8400, which retails for $75.


Geez, it's about blooming time! Adobe has been so far behind the times with Photoshop - no 64 bit support and no GPU support. It's really ridiculous how long it's taken them to get the GPU support.

Um... I'm not sure where you are coming from with this, but most image manipulation apps (and for that matter most apps in general, especially on Windows) don't have any type of GPU support. Most of the apps on the Mac that do have GPU support are using the built-in Core Image library which utilizes OpenGL shaders. This is an entirely different solution using Nvidia's CUDA SDK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CUDA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPGPU

I wonder if it's a GPU-mode option instead of the whole program being built for the GPU. The GPU-mode option would be very very nice for those who have Macbooks or something with integrated graphics. As of right now, CS3 works perfectly on my Toshiba with GMA950 integrated. I hope it stays that way.

I'm sure this will be optional, as many/most people will not have an Nvidia 8-series or higher GPU by the time this version of PS ships.

[AidenShaw]

How about some news that affects more than .000001% of us??? These GPGPU's are hellaciously expensive, a pipe dream for most people. Useless news.

These are mid-range graphics for "the rest of us"....

[Everythingisnt]

Needless to say, that is *extremely* impressive.

How it will perform on our Mac Pros with their somewhat outdated GPUs is another matter though..

[babybluecollar]

In the long-run, I would bet on Pixelmator too. At some point, Adobe is going to get too big and lumbering to keep up and it's going to take someone fast and small to stay ahead of them. I've seen so many would-be Photoshop challengers come and go but Pixelmator is the first one I've seen where I think it seriously stands a chance. I would buy and use Pixelmator too but it doesn't run for crud on older hardware (still chugging away on a G4 iMac here.) However, that's the sacrifice a developer makes in the decision to stay ahead of the big corporate alternative. Still, one of the first things I will install on my next Mac is Pixelmator.

The sad thing is that if the developers behind GIMP would get off their high horse about copying Photoshop's UI, we'd already have a true competitor. I've used GIMP and it's got loads of great features, but the interface is mired in a weird mix of modern day and mid-90s-isms, and it's hard to work efficiently around such a scatterbrained approach to the tools.

Ok I am a little tired of the comparisons between pixelmator and photoshop. Yes, if u want to make cool picture to post on facebook or myspace, pixelmator will work. For us that actually do this for a living, no it will not. I need support for high resolution ACCURATE, print ready files. With the ability to color correct and it be ready to send to a real printer, not my inkjet.

I need to be able to seperate to DSC for plates.

I need to be able to export to a variety of formats for other purposes.

I need to work with multigigabyte files and have the preview reflect the final rendered image... down the the pixel.

and... i need friggin keyboard shortcuts so I can do this quickly!

so no... pixelmator will never be a serious competitor on a professional level.

[MacFly123]

Adobe sucks! Yes that's right they suck! I say its just time for Apple to release a Creative Suite killer :D

[Hajs]

Ok I am a little tired of the comparisons between pixelmator and photoshop. Yes, if u want to make cool picture to post on facebook or myspace, pixelmator will work. For us that actually do this for a living, no it will not. I need support for high resolution ACCURATE, print ready files. With the ability to color correct and it be ready to send to a real printer, not my inkjet.

I need to be able to seperate to DSC for plates.

I need to be able to export to a variety of formats for other purposes.

I need to work with multigigabyte files and have the preview reflect the final rendered image... down the the pixel.

and... i need friggin keyboard shortcuts so I can do this quickly!

so no... pixelmator will never be a serious competitor on a professional level.

yes, blimey this whole discussion seems strange to me.
how many people on this forum have photoshop and use it in anger?
It seems to me that there are quite a few hobbyists floating around here that would like to think they know what they are talking about, but really just are doing wedding invitations for their friends etc etc. I wish them luck with pixelmator.

[babybluecollar]

yes, blimey this whole discussion seems strange to me.
how many people on this forum have photoshop and use it in anger?
It seems to me that there are quite a few hobbyists floating around here that would like to think they know what they are talking about, but really just are doing wedding invitations for their friends etc etc. I wish them luck with pixelmator.

THANK YOU!

[Hajs]

THANK YOU!

Thanks,
That was my first post BTW, felt quite liberating! I have been observing from a distance for a while. H.

[babybluecollar]

Welcome to the board, I am new too.

I just get frustrated that people sometimes don't understand that even though these are the flashiest of tools... they are professional level. And doing cheesy amateur stuff with them is possible... but some of us rely on the things that the teenagers don't find important to make a living.

[Hajs]

Welcome to the board, I am new too.

I just get frustrated that people sometimes don't understand that even though these are the flashiest of tools... they are professional level. And doing cheesy amateur stuff with them is possible... but some of us rely on the things that the teenagers don't find important to make a living.

Hah! nice to meet you.
Im sure i read about someone earlier talking about lens flare. Hmm, case in point.

[babybluecollar]

definitely... they could really get rid of the entire "filters" tab and not upset me one bit.

The power of photoshop is really under the surface on a professional level.

But yay gradients and bevels and lens flares FTW!

[inkswamp]

Ok I am a little tired of the comparisons between pixelmator and photoshop. Yes, if u want to make cool picture to post on facebook or myspace, pixelmator will work. For us that actually do this for a living, no it will not. I need support for high resolution ACCURATE, print ready files. With the ability to color correct and it be ready to send to a real printer, not my inkjet.

I need to be able to seperate to DSC for plates.

I need to be able to export to a variety of formats for other purposes.

I need to work with multigigabyte files and have the preview reflect the final rendered image... down the the pixel.

and... i need friggin keyboard shortcuts so I can do this quickly!

so no... pixelmator will never be a serious competitor on a professional level.

Okay, thanks for posting your resume. :D

BTW, I've done professional design and pre-press work as well and I know what you're talking about. I wasn't making the point that Pixelmator can replace Photoshop. The point is that Pixelmator is the first application I've seen where it really seems like the developer has a good idea of how an image app should be built in the OS X era, from the ground up. If they keep up with that and aim for feature parity with Photoshop, I think Adobe will have their first true competitor in this space. And that's something Adobe's customers really need. They don't need Adobe milking them with halfhearted updates.

[babybluecollar]

But really you have got it all wrong. Pixelmator is fun for filters... yay GPU acceleration! But it really doesn't compete with photoshop on what is important. There is a reason pixelmator is 59 dollars and photoshop is several hundred. I am not gonna be preparing images for press with pixelmator.

Its not a resume, its just reality. Sometimes you get images that you need to color correct in 32 bit, just so it will print right.

Sometimes you need your paths to translate into indesign so the pre-press folk can mask correctly.

Sometimes you need something other than GPU accelerated eye candy. Don't get me wrong, I think pixelmator is an excellent application, BUT IT IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL APPLICATION.

[Hajs]

Okay, thanks for posting your resume. :D

BTW, I've done professional design and pre-press work as well and I know what you're talking about. I wasn't making the point that Pixelmator can replace Photoshop. The point is that Pixelmator is the first application I've seen where it really seems like the developer has a good idea of how an image app should be built in the OS X era, from the ground up. If they keep up with that and aim for feature parity with Photoshop, I think Adobe will have their first true competitor in this space. And that's something Adobe's customers really need. They don't need Adobe milking them with halfhearted updates.

I do understand what you are getting at here.
All the stuff I use PS for is saved (normally as pretty large hires files) how is the GPU going to help this? This tends to be the most lengthy part of the whole editing process when creating artwork.

[skellener]

In the long-run, I would bet on Pixelmator too. At some point, Adobe is going to get too big and lumbering to keep up and it's going to take someone fast and small to stay ahead of them. I've seen so many would-be Photoshop challengers come and go but Pixelmator is the first one I've seen where I think it seriously stands a chance. I would buy and use Pixelmator too but it doesn't run for crud on older hardware (still chugging away on a G4 iMac here.) However, that's the sacrifice a developer makes in the decision to stay ahead of the big corporate alternative. Still, one of the first things I will install on my next Mac is Pixelmator.Pixelmator runs just fine on my G4 (Dual 1 Ghz PPC). Adobe is already too big and lumbering to keep up. I'll bet Pixelmator has even more features by October. They just released an update recently that added curves and rulers. I think a lot of people may look at just spending the $59 for GPU processing over the $500 (or whatever upgrade for CS4 is this year) and sit this upgrade out on the Mac side. Adobe may lose out all together by CS5. Think how much ground Pixelmator will have covered by then. It already has GPU acceleration. It could have 64-bit support long before CS5. I'd really like to see these guys unseat Adobe. I wish them good luck! :)

[babybluecollar]

Pixelmator runs just fine on my G4 (Dual 1 Ghz PPC). Adobe is already too big and lumbering to keep up. I'll bet Pixelmator has even more features by October. They just released an update recently that added curves and rulers. I think a lot of people may look at just spending the $59 for GPU processing over the $500 (or whatever upgrade for CS4 is this year) and sit this upgrade out on the Mac side. Adobe may lose out all together by CS5. Think how much ground Pixelmator will have covered by then. It already has GPU acceleration. It could have 64-bit support long before CS5. I'd really like to see these guys unseat Adobe. I wish them good luck! :)

And your filtered "myspace" photos still will not be appropriate for press.

[mashinhead]

CS4 in October? Seems like only recently that CS3 came out.

i had the same reaction. the cs 2 cs 3 gap was like 4 yrs..

[inkswamp]

But really you have got it all wrong. Pixelmator is fun for filters... yay GPU acceleration! But it really doesn't compete with photoshop on what is important. There is a reason pixelmator is 59 dollars and photoshop is several hundred. I am not gonna be preparing images for press with pixelmator.

Its not a resume, its just reality. Sometimes you get images that you need to color correct in 32 bit, just so it will print right.

Sometimes you need your paths to translate into indesign so the pre-press folk can mask correctly.

Sometimes you need something other than GPU accelerated eye candy. Don't get me wrong, I think pixelmator is an excellent application, BUT IT IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL APPLICATION.

You're either incapable of understanding my point or being intentionally obtuse so you can carry on about your work needs for whatever reason. I thought I made it clear that as Pixelmator stands, it's not a replacement for Photoshop. It is however the first image processing application that appears to have a solid grasp on how an image app should be built nowadays from the ground up. That's the kind of thing that could evolve into a serious PS competitor should the developer choose to go that way with it. I hope they do.

Okay, here's the part where you claim Pixelmator isn't a PS replacement again even though this is the second time I've said that.

Pixelmator runs just fine on my G4 (Dual 1 Ghz PPC).

Yeah, my iMac G4 is blazing along at 700 Mhz. Someday, I'll rejoin civilization. :D

I'd really like to see these guys unseat Adobe. I wish them good luck! :)

I just want Adobe to be scared a little bit, enough to actually make a Photoshop update that actually matters to anyone.

[davidmaxwaterma]

Geez, it's about blooming time! Adobe has been so far behind the times with Photoshop - no 64 bit support and no GPU support. It's really ridiculous how long it's taken them to get the GPU support.

Actually, Adobe Photoshop 3 had used the GPU for acceleration (http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=0650&db=man&fname=/usr/share/catman/u_man/cat1/photoshop_sgi.z) on SGI O2 computers. It was quite amazing how much faster it was that the PC version.

Ah, looks like it might have been both GPU and DSPs (probably part of the gfx hardware, but maybe ICE) :

This second
directory contains code which uses image processing hardware, such as
DSPs (digital signal processors) directly or calls OpenGL to perform
tasks such as color space conversion, filtering, and resampling (for
resizing and rotating).


Here's what was accelerated :

The following list of menu items invoke
hardware accelerated functions: Mode/CMYK Color, Mode/Lab Color,
Image/Rotate/Arbitrary..., Image/Image Size..., Filter/Blur/Blur,
Filter/Blur/Blur More, Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur..., Filter/Blur/Motion
Blur..., Filter/Noise/Despeckle, Filter/Pixilate/Facet,
Filter/Sharpen/Sharpen, Filter/Sharpen/Sharpen Edges,
Filter/Sharpen/Sharpen More, Filter/Sharpen/Unsharp Mask,
Filter/Stylize/Emboss..., Filter/Stylize/Find Edges,
Filter/Other/Custom...


Not extensive, but I'm sure it was very noticable.

I wonder why they didn't decide to continue the trend back then? Nice to see they've finally got with the program - a decade or two late, but there you go :)

[winterspan]

But really you have got it all wrong. Pixelmator is fun for filters... yay GPU acceleration! But it really doesn't compete with photoshop on what is important. There is a reason pixelmator is 59 dollars and photoshop is several hundred. I am not gonna be preparing images for press with pixelmator.

Its not a resume, its just reality. Sometimes you get images that you need to color correct in 32 bit, just so it will print right.

Sometimes you need your paths to translate into indesign so the pre-press folk can mask correctly.

Sometimes you need something other than GPU accelerated eye candy. Don't get me wrong, I think pixelmator is an excellent application, BUT IT IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL APPLICATION.

I understand your point, and I don't have any experience with PixelMator, but what Inkswamp is trying to say is that the developers of PixelMator, having created a great application from the ground up with an excellent interface, may have the potential of taking their app to a professional level in the future, eventually reaching professional feature parity with Photoshop. For now, there's not really any comparison; but we all would benefit greatly if Photoshop were to get a true competitor. I'm unsure why I'm having to explain this to you -- are you reading his posts?

[Michael CM1]

You should always export to Distiller from Quark, even Quark 7.

The damn program can't make a PDF to save its life! :rolleyes:

For prosperity, yeah. But we have to send a couple of proofs via e-mail and just really need it legible for one person to look at. The problem is Quark 4 isn't even integrated with Distiller like 5 is. You gotta export to .eps then distill. Of course this royally sucks when you have about 10 Power Macs and have 2 copies of Distiller. Yes, our company is famously cheap. Our other computers are Power Mac G3s or eMacs. The non-Power Mac G5s can't even load Google correctly now.

[Michael CM1]

They still offer all the apps individually though, right? Or do you mean that they are much more expensive individually, and so they are only worth buying in the suites?

I was thinking the same thing. I just own Creative Suite 3 because I got the education version and just use it for junk at home and to learn more so I can eventually get a better job.

But considering the fact that usually a major version upgrade means older version people are left out in the cold, I don't get a one-year turnaround on CS4. Mac OS usually takes 2-3 years, and it's only $120 per copy. If I spent $700 on Photoshop or $8 million on the entire CS3, I'd be pissed if Adobe was upping the version so quickly.

[chewy5000]

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/05/oct_1.html

[yesthisisapc]

They just released an update recently that added curves and rulers.

This is a fakepost, right?

I find it a little hard to believe that a program that just updated to include something that even the most basic free image editing apps have is going to unseat even freeware programs like GIMP.

...

Does GIMP have CMYK support yet?

[winterspan]

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/05/oct_1.html

Thank you for the link! Since many won't end up clicking on it, I thought Id post his blog post so everyone reads it. and I'd like to comment that I entirely agree with his point; the online tech press has become a steaming pile of trash lately. NO ONE FACT-CHECKS, they repeat rumor as fact, and take things out of context. They also all are connected in this big web of ********. One blog or website writes something speculative, someone else copies it and references it, and pretty soon it's gone round-robin around the internet and transforms from random speculation into a fact confirmed by "trusted sources". I'm so sick of that nonsense.


Straight From the Adobe Engineer that gave the presentation all of this info is based upon:

*emphasis mine*

It seems that news of the demo I did the other day (a repeat of what we'd shown publicly three weeks earlier) is bouncing all around the online tech press. People are excited that the Photoshop team is exploring ways to make the app feel faster and smoother, and that's all good. What's irritating, though, is just how much bogus info is getting invented, passed around, and swallowed without question.

Gizmodo is repeating info found on a site called TG Daily, stating that "Photoshop CS4" (a term that I've never heard anyone from Adobe use publicly) "is expected to be released on October 1." Uhh... expected by whom? And based on what?

I didn't say anything about schedule. In fact, I never said that any of this stuff is promised to go into any particular version of Photoshop. Rather, as with previous installments, it's a technology demonstration of some things we've got cooking--nothing more.

Doesn't matter, though: Someone pulled a date apparently out of thin air, and now everyone who can copy & paste is dutifully repeating it. The fish story grows with the telling, too. In addition to repeating the date, Electronista is inventing new details (e.g. "CS3 has already had limited support for graphics processing units (GPUs) for certain filters"; sorry, no; "An upcoming wave of video cards with special physics processing will also help, Adobe explains"; nope, didn't say that; and more). Where do people get this stuff? It's particularly annoying to see made-up info presented as a response from Adobe--to questions that were never asked. (Contacting Adobe PR, or me directly, to confirm some detail isn't exactly tough.)

I'm not feeling a lot of confidence in the tech press these days. People just make up whatever they want, creating a bunch of expectations & misperceptions that people like me have to try to unravel. There's no disincentive to doing so: the sites still get their ad impressions, and clearly bloggers and readers are all too happy to take what they read at face value.

I don't know what to tell you, as the quest for ad bucks is eroding journalistic standards across the board. "Caveat lector," and I'll keep trying to share actually legitimate information here.

J.

[krazygoat]

Pixelmator may not be a professional app for some markets, but it works fine in other.

If you have gone to see Iron Man or I am Legend you have seen Pixelmator in action. So just because it doesn't work for your niche doesn't mean it doesn't work for some other professional niches.

And for us we fine Pixelmator a huge speed improvement over PS3, which we also still use in the niche we need it for.

Pixelmator has a horrible name but for a version 1 app it is pretty darn good not even considering the price.

[Eraserhead]

But really you have got it all wrong. Pixelmator is fun for filters... yay GPU acceleration! But it really doesn't compete with photoshop on what is important.

...

Sometimes you need something other than GPU accelerated eye candy. Don't get me wrong, I think pixelmator is an excellent application, BUT IT IS NOT A PROFESSIONAL APPLICATION.

Not yet, though by version 5.0 it may well do.

[OS X Dude]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

I think the more important question is WHAT CAMERA TAKES 442MP IMAGES??

christ, imagine holiday pics at that resolution!!! <cringes>

[OS X Dude]

this wont be too great for integrated GPUs will it..
or will there still be improvement but only slightly? hm.

Integrated graphics are chips soldered to the motherboard - not cards. They get their power by sharing other system resources (like RAM) with the computer. In that sense they have no GPU so maybe they will be unsupported by this feature.....

[aLoC]

GPU acceleration is not exactly new. There have been frameworks on OS X to allow programmers to do it for some time. I guess Adobe's problem is that they write a cross platform app so have to program to the lowest common denominator OS.

[tersono]

Hopefully that'll mean that Photoshop winds up almost as fast as TIFFany (sadly no longer in development since the devs went to work for Apple) was on OPENSTEP 10 years ago..... :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong - I'm a heavy user of Photoshop and appreciate how powerful it is, it just bugs me that the OS X version of TIFFany3 (even running under Rosetta on my MBP) still leaves PS for dead when manipulating enormous images....

[inkswamp]

I understand your point, and I don't have any experience with PixelMator, but what Inkswamp is trying to say is that the developers of PixelMator, having created a great application from the ground up with an excellent interface, may have the potential of taking their app to a professional level in the future, eventually reaching professional feature parity with Photoshop. For now, there's not really any comparison; but we all would benefit greatly if Photoshop were to get a true competitor. I'm unsure why I'm having to explain this to you -- are you reading his posts?

Thank you for proving that my post is clear enough to be understood by anyone taking the time to read it. That is exactly what I'm getting at, and have been since my first post. :)

I was actually going back and re-reading my posts to make sure I hadn't left something out or had misworded something. It seemed strange that someone would keep misinterpreting what I was saying like that.

[AdeFowler]

Hey Adobe, how about first fixing my CS3 on my PowerPC Mac. I'm crashing everyday and I'm still waiting for an update. :(
I assume you're running Leopard? If you head over to Adobe's support forums you'll find plenty of threads on this subject (Indesign mainly). There's a huge blame game going on between Apple and Adobe and apparently no fix in sight.
Maybe you should have bought a new computer instead of spending hundreds on CS3.
Most stupid comment of the year? :rolleyes: I'm a freelancer using CS3 on a G5. Many of my clients (agencies) are running CS3 on old iMacs etc. The OP's problems are software related.

[Roller]

Thank you for the link! Since many won't end up clicking on it, I thought Id post his blog post so everyone reads it. and I'd like to comment that I entirely agree with his point; the online tech press has become a steaming pile of trash lately. NO ONE FACT-CHECKS, they repeat rumor as fact, and take things out of context. They also all are connected in this big web of ********. One blog or website writes something speculative, someone else copies it and references it, and pretty soon it's gone round-robin around the internet and transforms from random speculation into a fact confirmed by "trusted sources". I'm so sick of that nonsense.

The true power of the 'net. It's what lets anyone with a Web site set themselves up as the expert on anything, be it the cure for cancer or the latest movies at the cineplex.

In this case I'd expect a correction to the original post on macrumors. However, I admit that the back-and-forth about Pixelmator is at least as interesting to me as the rest of the discussion and has led me to take a look at this app. So even bogus stories have their way of being useful sometimes.

[freebooter]

There are two types of graphic designers:

1. Trial and Error; or

2. Visionary and the minimal steps to obtain it. ;):p:)

Which one are you?
catty

Faster is better, so this will be a welcome change.

Whether it comes in October or not...who knows. Did Adobe say this, or is it speculation/rumor/leak?

[xstorm101]

Man, I don't know how in the world no one mentioned a big problem with Leopard and Ps CS3... using SPACES.

If you switch from another space to the space that contains Ps, you will have your toolbars dissapear, and sometimes the cursor won't work until after you restart photoshop. This is a big pain as I work with 3 or more spaces and almost everytime I switch to the space that contains Ps I have to switch back and forth again until my toolbars reappear.

I HOPE this will be fixed in Ps CS4... Anyone else run into this problem ?

[REM2000]

ok Pixelmator is not up to photoshop standards yet, however this is a 1.x release, photoshop wasn't that handy on version one.

I think that pixelmator has a lot of potential, the developers are fixing and adding features incredibly quick.

Adobe through no compeition throws out any old crap now, for me photoshop and most of the suite has been going down hill with each release. New features have been added but it seems at a big cost of bloat in the software.

As for the whole 64bit on the mac front, Adobe have been pushing their luck on the mac plattform for years, for a long time a lot of their filters on the mac were still in 6800 code. Apple did say they would be releasing a 64bit carbon as a patch but Adobe still should have been putting all their effort into cocoa anyway. Im not putting this forward lightly as i know software development is a lengthly process, but adobes the sort of company that if they can get away with patches without doing the actual ground work they will.

[abrooks]

Thank you for the link! Since many won't end up clicking on it, I thought Id post his blog post so everyone reads it. and I'd like to comment that I entirely agree with his point; the online tech press has become a steaming pile of trash lately. NO ONE FACT-CHECKS, they repeat rumor as fact, and take things out of context. They also all are connected in this big web of ********. One blog or website writes something speculative, someone else copies it and references it, and pretty soon it's gone round-robin around the internet and transforms from random speculation into a fact confirmed by "trusted sources". I'm so sick of that nonsense.


Straight From the Adobe Engineer that gave the presentation all of this info is based upon:

*emphasis mine*

Thanks for posting this, I say MR should pull the story due to the majority of it being a load of rubbish.

[kaiwai]

I assume Adobe will implement this through custom shader code, so any chip that can do shaders. The newest integrated crap from intel can do it, but anything with the older chipset probably won't. I'm not exactly sure which models have which integrated chip, but I would guess any Macbook or Mini more than about 18 months old. however, I may be completely wrong, and it may work on all recent hardware.

Anybody know the timeline for when Intel updated it's IGP to include hardware shader support?

According to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA

It was added in x3100 - however, from what I have heard through Arstechnica in reference to Intel's next integrated GPU; there is a major step forward in regards to its performance. IIRC, it was powerful enough at a demo given by Intel to run some pretty high end games without too many problems.

Here is some information about leaked benchmarks:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/Intel_GM47_Mobile_Chipset_Delivers_2X_Graphics_Performance/5592.html

[EagerDragon]

That's what they are going to do. CS4 will continue to use the 32-bit Carbon APIs, which thanks to Apple changing their mind about it (http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/06/13/64-bit-support-in-leopard-no-carbon-love) - didn't go 64-bit along with the Cocoa APIs in Leopard. But by CS5 they expect to have enough of it re-written to go 64-bit.

We do not need to always have the latest version.

Skip a version or two. Had Apple not drop support, you may have been stuck in carbon for another 12 years.

I think it is a shame that these guys waited until now to start thinking about Cocoa. It has been several years since the intel switch and now they tell us that it will be here in 2 more versions (CS5). Somehow I just do not feel the love.

This change will occur late on 2009 or some time in 2010. For a company that started in the Mac world, they seem to prefer doing windows development more.

As to graphic cards .... There is nothing in the wind that says that MacBooks and Minis will ever have a dedicated graphic card. That is the main differentiation between a PRO and the consumer version. Could happen but I would not hold my breath.

Aperture and new Apperture plug-ins are a combination that may help in the mean time.

[mBox]

Marketing (billboards, etc)? I would guess they need a quality picture.
Ive done something close a few times in my lifetime. However, I also need to do almost close for textures maps in 3D software such as Maya. I welcome any speed to Photoshop. Hopefully it spans across After Effects. Major openGL probs with that one on my MacIntels :(

[Techguy172]

According to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA

It was added in x3100 - however, from what I have heard through Arstechnica in reference to Intel's next integrated GPU; there is a major step forward in regards to its performance. IIRC, it was powerful enough at a demo given by Intel to run some pretty high end games without too many problems.

Here is some information about leaked benchmarks:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/Intel_GM47_Mobile_Chipset_Delivers_2X_Graphics_Performance/5592.html

No, Here's what I think will Happen the New Adobe suite will work with the GMA X3100 but that's it and then apple will release the new MacBook in Aluminum with a Dedicated Graphics chip. All in time for all this new GPU Software.

I think the Reason they didn't do it before was not price it was heat the Small MacBook Fan and Plastic case kept heat inside the computer. Now the Aluminum will dissipate the heat making it more bearable for the components

[KindredMAC]

Hah! nice to meet you.
Im sure i read about someone earlier talking about lens flare. Hmm, case in point.

ahem.....

That was I who brought up a live Lens Flare feature. How does that not make me a professional?

I never made any kind of statements that I "LOVE Lens Flares" or use them in every project I do. I admit that amateurs over use Lens Flare, but they also over use Plastic Wrap and Chrome. Does that make Bert Monroy a novice because he uses those every time he makes water in a composition???

I was completely behind what you were saying about weekend users and professionals. I've been in the professional field for 10 years, using Photoshop for 13.

I think in the last year I've used Lens Flare twice. My only qualm is that when I do need to use it I would like a little more control over it. What's wrong with that?

[antoneoh]

I assume you're running Leopard? If you head over to Adobe's support forums you'll find plenty of threads on this subject (Indesign mainly). There's a huge blame game going on between Apple and Adobe and apparently no fix in sight.

Yes, I am running Leopard on a PowerPc processor with all the latest updates. I did go to the support forums on the Adobe website and I've done everything they have mentioned on there but that doesn't work. So my solution was just to go back to Tiger and reinstall CS3. Hopefully, Apple and Adobe can get there act together on this one.

[mixel]

Pixelmator runs just fine on my G4 (Dual 1 Ghz PPC). Adobe is already too big and lumbering to keep up. I'll bet Pixelmator has even more features by October. .... Adobe may lose out all together by CS5. Think how much ground Pixelmator will have covered by then. It already has GPU acceleration. It could have 64-bit support long before CS5. I'd really like to see these guys unseat Adobe. I wish them good luck! :)

... Pixelmator runs fine on a G4? not if you're trying to *draw* in it. Which millions of people use Photoshop for. Pixelmator is horrendously slow for that. It might be ok for adjustments, but..

Ok, this is ridiculous. Huge kudos to the people arguing for Photoshop features.. But PM people.. Do you even realise all of the useful stuff Photoshop can do? I suggest you read up on it and think about it's implications for artists, designers, print labs etc - Before you start touting PM as some sort of PS alternative. It hardly does *any* of the things most CS customers need.

Adobe have nothing to fear from pixelmator, multiple industries would laugh pixelmator out of the building as a serious PS alternative.. It does have its uses sometimes, but it's slower than CS3 at many tasks already. The only comparatively good thing about PM is the price.

Painter, Paint Shop Pro and Gimp ARE competing with Photoshop in some industries, not too seriously, but certainly more than Pixelmator is ever likely to be. I hate how everyone gos on about PS like Adobe have some sort of monopoly over graphics apps. They do have competition - they always *have* had competition. PS is the only app that's branched out to be useful to so many work-flows though. (Painter does well in its target industries too)

Good luck to Pixelmator; I'd love to see it develop down it's own path, currently it's just slowly accumulating old PS features. It'll need more than that. It needs to set itself up as a real alternative rather than "poor mans (admittedly pretty) Photoshop".. Artists will happily use lots of tools.. I use Artrage, sketchbook pro, PS, Pixen, PM - I only pull out PM for the crazy explosion/speed line filters (lol, I do comic art commissions sometimes) but everything else, PS does it all. There is no reason to get it other than price. I want a reason! I don't know if there's anything left which PS doesn't already do though, which is testiment to how good its feature set is - not how /bloated/ it is.

[kaiwai]

No, Here's what I think will Happen the New Adobe suite will work with the GMA X3100 but that's it and then apple will release the new MacBook in Aluminum with a Dedicated Graphics chip. All in time for all this new GPU Software.

I think the Reason they didn't do it before was not price it was heat the Small MacBook Fan and Plastic case kept heat inside the computer. Now the Aluminum will dissipate the heat making it more bearable for the components

True, but I don't think they would have a dedicated video card; it would cannibalise their MacBook Pro line, and worse, the battery life would die in the ass.

As you can see from my signature, I don't own an Apple product (I hang around for the discussion and atmosphere) - but I do think they need to make their MacBook more robust. I don't expect it to be like their Pro line, but a roll cage like the Lenovo Thinkpad laptop I'm using would be a good start.

[ilflyya]

I wish Adobe would make Captivate for a mac. I could care less about improvements with Photoshop. It works great for me as it is. I'm getting sick of how Adobe makes things for PC only, and not for mac. What gives? I have to use a PC to work with Captivate, and it is so slow! It also "freaks" out when ever I begin to add images. Grrr, so glad I went to Mac. I hope Adobe will cater more to mac users!

btw, the PC I'm using for Captivate is a Lenovo Think Pad... it is terrible! I have to restart the PC every few hours or Captivate freezes! Grrr... My Macbook on the other hand, handles every program l like a dream, and I only restart it once a week!

[tba03]

who needs a 442 megapixel picture?

I do
at my job(digital imagery) we scan lo res at 460 megapixels and HQ at 0.923 Gigapixel, and it's a real pain to open those scans in photoshop, 422 would be a minimum to handle...

[needsomecoffee]

Painter? I hope not! Millions* of artists depend on Painter staying in reasonable shape, and they dont want it built in to Aperture.. Unless Apple would continue developing Painter standalone, which sounds like a bad idea considering how it's interface is very un-apple-ish. (personally i think painter could do with a GUI overhaul, but i dont think most people would appreciate such a radical change, heh, especially when it probably sells more on Windows anyway.)

* = probably.

To clarify -- did not mean to suggest a diminishment of Painter via Apple acquisition. Painter is likely the greatest creativity app for artists ever. Suggest re: making integrating with Aperture was to take the brilliance of LivePicture's IVUE concept and extend it artistic creation using either LivePicture for Photoshop-like photo effects, and Painter for work that goes beyond Photoshop. Wont go into why LivePicture was (and still is) such a brilliant product. If Apple bought it and Painter, extended the concept of IVUE files to Painter -- it would just be so awesome when sourcing with images out of Aperture at the start of the creative process. For artists using Painter without starting with an image, the benefit of an IVUE-based approach would be an incredible speed boost. Not well stated. Sorry for that. I'm sure Apple's engineers understand (John Scully once had a hand in LivePicture after his stint at Apple -- did about as well with LP as he did with Apple.)

[Techguy172]

True, but I don't think they would have a dedicated video card; it would cannibalise their MacBook Pro line, and worse, the battery life would die in the ass.

As you can see from my signature, I don't own an Apple product (I hang around for the discussion and atmosphere) - but I do think they need to make their MacBook more robust. I don't expect it to be like their Pro line, but a roll cage like the Lenovo Thinkpad laptop I'm using would be a good start.

It wouldn't canabilize it at all, They just put the ATI HD2400xt in it they are completely different. Making the MacBook Pro look better especially because the cheapest iMac has this card.

Graphics cards don't use that much power and the MacBook will also get an LED screen to help.

[Padaung]

And a better question, why would people buy a MacBook if they are serious about graphic design and Photoshop use?


Like a lot of what is being said in this discussion - utter rubbish. Using the tool best suited to the job is why. What benefit does a Macbook Pro offer over a Macbook with Photoshop? - a bigger screen and slightly more speed. As this thread proves, current versions of Photoshop don't use the graphics card to render anything in either of the laptops so that feature of the Pro line offers no benefit to users.

I got my Macbook as it was the lightest machine available at the time - I carry it around a lot in a camera backpack. I still wouldn't get the Air as the hdd is way too small.

I agree with other people who state wishes on Adobe fixing the various bugs in CS3 first. I suffer various errors in PS and frequent crashes with Bridge on my iMac (then again the iMac is intended for consumers so I guess I shouldn't be using that either ;) No probs on my Macbook with either app, though!

[Full of Win]

According to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA

It was added in x3100 - however, from what I have heard through Arstechnica in reference to Intel's next integrated GPU; there is a major step forward in regards to its performance. IIRC, it was powerful enough at a demo given by Intel to run some pretty high end games without too many problems.

Here is some information about leaked benchmarks:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/Intel_GM47_Mobile_Chipset_Delivers_2X_Graphics_Performance/5592.html
Its not how powerful the graphic system is - it's how much the os drives it. For example, the x3100 can so open gl 2.0, but apple only supports 1.2. Until apple gets with the program, its pointless to say how powerful/good the graphics system is.

[iris_failsafe]

This is when Adobe will screw Mac people I bet it will be accelerated with Direct X instead of using Open GL, and they will probably ship the mac version un accelerated and only in a 32 bits flavour...


I think is time Apple start plans on their own, or buy Adobe!

[ckurowic]

These are mid-range graphics for "the rest of us"....

Mid-range? Last time I heard about GPGPU's the prices were multi-thousands.

[winterspan]

Since it is clear that a good portion of commenters here DON'T READ THE ACTUAL THREAD BEFORE POSTING, let me say again that a lot of this information has been debunked by the Adobe engineer of the project, such as he never mentioned a release date for a future version of Photoshop, he never said that any of this GPU enhanced functionality will actually be in ANY Adobe project, etc. So we don't really even know what IS true.

You can find the adobe employee's blog posting here:
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/05/oct_1.html



Mid-range? Last time I heard about GPGPU's the prices were multi-thousands.
this was brought up earlier in the thread and answered. But here it is again:

"There is no such thing as a "GPGPU". GPGPU is just an umbrella term for using graphic card processors to perform calculations outside of their native domain, i.e. 3D graphics processing. Nvidia does sell special graphic cards without DVI ports that are dedicated to GPGPU type calculations, but their GPGPU code library and SDK, called "CUDA" (Compute Unified Device Architecture), is able to run on ANY Geforce 8-series card (or newer) or it's equivalent professional Quadro card. The lowest 8 series card Apple uses is the Geforce 8400, which retails for about $75."


This is when Adobe will screw Mac people I bet it will be accelerated with Direct X instead of using Open GL, and they will probably ship the mac version un accelerated and only in a 32 bits flavour...


Again, most of the facts provided by the original Tgdaily.com post have been said to be false straight from the Adobe engineer that gave the presentation. That said, TGdaily reported that Adobe's GPGPU technology was based on nVidia's CUDA system. CUDA is a c-like programming language extension that allows arbitrary code to be offloaded to the GPU for processing. This completely bypasses the graphic APIs like DirectX or OpenGL.

[mdriftmeyer]

Its not how powerful the graphic system is - it's how much the os drives it. For example, the x3100 can so open gl 2.0, but apple only supports 1.2. Until apple gets with the program, its pointless to say how powerful/good the graphics system is.

What the hell are you talking about?

Leopard is OpenGL 2.x ready.

Tiger isn't.

Intel X48 is the latest. The x3100 was a stop-gap.

http://www.intel.com/cd/products/services/emea/eng/chipsets/387228.htm

The X3100 will be replaced soon.

[chaosbunny]

While not exclusively related to this thread, I have to say I don't like this type of posts that appear rather often: "zomg you use macbook and not mac pro with 32 gb ram you no professional".

1. It doesn't depend on your machine how good a designer you are. Whatever gets YOUR job done is fine.

2. Designer is not equal to designer. One may do huge billboards with 1-2 gb file size rather often, another may do web design at 72 ppi and the biggest photoshop file is like 50 mb. One may use a mac pro, the other won't see a difference between a mac pro and a mac mini.

These are just extreme examples but I guess you know what I mean.

[arthurchanny]

I WILL need a MBP to run that haha:D

[rhett7660]

If Adobe doesn't do 64bit for the Mac on the next version, I know it has been said that they won't, but one never knows. I will wait till the next version after that.

I just purchased the lastest CS3 and that can hold me over for a couple of years.

[Shadow]

We do not need to always have the latest version.

Skip a version or two. Had Apple not drop support, you may have been stuck in carbon for another 12 years.

I think it is a shame that these guys waited until now to start thinking about Cocoa. It has been several years since the intel switch and now they tell us that it will be here in 2 more versions (CS5). Somehow I just do not feel the love.

This change will occur late on 2009 or some time in 2010. For a company that started in the Mac world, they seem to prefer doing windows development more.

As to graphic cards .... There is nothing in the wind that says that MacBooks and Minis will ever have a dedicated graphic card. That is the main differentiation between a PRO and the consumer version. Could happen but I would not hold my breath.

Aperture and new Apperture plug-ins are a combination that may help in the mean time.

You sir, have won an internet.

Apple did us a great favor by forcing Adobe to rewrite CS.

[chewietobbacca]

This move towards making GPU's more GPGPU has been coming a long time. Nvidia saying that the CPU was dead, ATI moving to integrate GPU's with AMD CPU's, and Intel now playing for the discrete GPU market.

And yes, all this GPGPU thing is based on CUDA. In fact, Folding@Home will be available for CUDA-enabled GPU's IIRC soon.

All this is coming on the heels of Nvidia's next gen GPU: GT200. Supposedly its performance will be to the G80 what the G80 was to the G71 :D

However, knowing Apple, this won't be available until its refresh so until then, PC users will have a big advantage in CUDA enabled programs :mad: (the rumored specs include 240 shaders, fixed MUL commands for true 2MADD+MUL per shader, and total 933 GFlops power)

[ltcol266845]

Souunds awesome to me! Gotta put that video card to good use!

But yeah, I think their release date of October is crap. CS3 JUST came out!

[viperguy]

Ooops.. looks like the update to the news doesn't confirm neither the early release date and the possible GPU acceleration feature
LoL.. :o

[katorga]

XP was always sluggish and crappy regardless of the computer you have because it uses the CPU for all GUI stuff.

That is absolutely not true. Video cards have included 2D GUI acceleration since the mid 1990's, and the windows interface used the cards for acceleration. Ditto for the Mac when you used the high end nubus graphics cards back in the day.

What I have noticed in Vista is that the aero interface keeps the GPU in 3D mode and keeps powermizer from kicking in, killing battery life on a laptop. It also still consumes 8-12% CPU just moving a window around. It is a resource hog compared to Compiz on Linux or Core Image on a mac (which do exactly the same thing).

[koobcamuk]

Adobe said somewhere that they intend to make more regular updates, perhaps even yearly, to their lineup. So this could be very cool expensive.

If they lowered the price a notch it would be more appealing to me. After forking out for CS3, I think I'll wait until CS5 and 64-bit goodness. My images handle nicely as it is (for my purposes).

[winterspan]

....But yeah, I think their release date of October is crap. CS3 JUST came out!

For god sakes, read the thread. Not only has it been mentioned 3 times in this thread, it is now even on the article itself that most of the info from TGdaily.com is B.S., including the October release date. The actual Adobe presentation said absolutely NOTHING about any release date of any product, nor did they actually say that the GPGPU technology would be included in a future version of photoshop. Apparently, the journalist that wrote the TGdaily article is either a complete moron, was inadvertently misled, or both.

This move towards making GPU's more GPGPU has been coming a long time. Nvidia saying that the CPU was dead, ATI moving to integrate GPU's with AMD CPU's, and Intel now playing for the discrete GPU market.

And yes, all this GPGPU thing is based on CUDA. In fact, Folding@Home will be available for CUDA-enabled GPU's IIRC soon.

All this is coming on the heels of Nvidia's next gen GPU: GT200. Supposedly its performance will be to the G80 what the G80 was to the G71 :D

However, knowing Apple, this won't be available until its refresh so until then, PC users will have a big advantage in CUDA enabled programs :mad: (the rumored specs include 240 shaders, fixed MUL commands for true 2MADD+MUL per shader, and total 933 GFlops power)

Yep! They are saying that on GT200, the stream processors/shaders are 50% more efficient than on G80. So that 240-shader beast should run like it has ~360 of the older G80 shaders! That is INSANE! I'm not a big gamer, but I like to dabble in 3D animation and simulations. And being a developer, I can't wait to learn how to use the 'CUDA' API for offloading parallel computations.

For people that are wondering what applications will benefit from GPGPU/CUDA tech, think of the types of floating-point heavy applications that benefit from multi-core processing.

- HPC "high-performance computing", Supercomputer applications, Grid computing
- Raytracing, global illumination, and other professional 3D rendering.
- Digital Image processing, biometric recognition, computer vision science
- Video encoding, decoding, editing, compositing, effects rendering, iDCT/IQ
- Audio encoding, editing, compositing, effects rendering
- Digital and Analog signal processing, Speech processing
- Scientific computation and scientific simulations
- Neural networks and Artificial intelligence
- Weather forecasting and simulations
- Molecular dynamics and Biological mechanism simulations
- Oil and Gas industry geology simulations
- Computational Finance / Financial forecasting
- Cryptography

For the average user, they will see vastly-increased MP3 encoding, DVD-ripping, MPEG-4/H264 video encoding, home video editing and effects, digital image editing, etc


That is absolutely not true. Video cards have included 2D GUI acceleration since the mid 1990's, and the windows interface used the cards for acceleration. Ditto for the Mac when you used the high end nubus graphics cards back in the day.

What I have noticed in Vista is that the aero interface keeps the GPU in 3D mode and keeps powermizer from kicking in, killing battery life on a laptop. It also still consumes 8-12% CPU just moving a window around. It is a resource hog compared to Compiz on Linux or Core Image on a mac (which do exactly the same thing).

Yes, "Aero" is a totally pathetic attempt at a polished and 3D accelerated GUI. You can run Quartz in OSX and compiz on Ubuntu with even 3-4 yr old machines with no problem -- especially Compiz. Comparatively, Aero on Vista is incredibly resource hungry and bloated to all hell. I couldn't believe how it was taxing my Quadro 1500M in my laptop. I can get MUCH better battery life with compiz on in Unbuntu than Aero on Vista.

[stephenli]

There are two types of graphic designers:
1. Trial and Error; or
2. Visionary and the minimal steps to obtain it. ;):p:)
Which one are you?

both.
but for such file size, i would make a low res for trial and layout before I actually work on the crazy large file, and I suppose nobody will use such size for trail and error...

GPU accleration. well. would apple please remove Intel GMA.
I can see no benefit on Mini / Macbook...
anyway CS4 comes too early. shocked.
Im still using CS1 at work and one of my Macs at home still using Photoshop 7...hahaha

[Phillyzero]

this wont be too great for integrated GPUs will it..
or will there still be improvement but only slightly? hm.

I'm also interested in this...

[puckhead193]

Wirelessly posted (my blackberry pearl: BlackBerry8130/4.3.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Well that stinks at least my CS3 will still be good for another week
Now if technology moved as fast as the dunking donuts line I might be happy!
Yay for blackberry!

[mosx]

Why on earth would Apple make it easier to run professional applications on their cheapest computer? And a better question, why would people buy a MacBook if they are serious about graphic design and Photoshop use?

Up until the switch to Intel, EVERY Mac had a dedicated GPU in it.

If you remember correctly, the last generation of iBook had a Radeon 9550. Which was a slightly down clocked Radeon 9700 with less memory.

The last PowerBook had something like a 1.67GHz G4 and a Radeon 9700. The last iBook was sporting a 1.42GHz G4 with a Radeon 9550. They were ridiculously close in specs.

There is absolutely no reason for Apple to be gimping the MacBook and Mac mini the way they do.

Its ridiculous that the Apple TV gets a dedicated GPU while the MacBook gets gimped with a GPU that is not even up to desktop standards from 2001 as far as performance goes, yet "PCs" can be had with GPUs that run circles around the MacBook for $500+ less.

Anyway, the Intel GMA 950 supports Pixel Shader 2.0. The Radeon 9200 in the last G4 mini and a lot of the iBooks supports PS 1.4.

Why would someone want a MacBook for Photoshop? Well, maybe its all they can afford? Or maybe they want that more portable computer than the MBP (and more reasonably priced, though still overpriced for the hardware) and plan to connect it to a nice big external display? I can think of a hundred reasons why one would use a MacBook for all of their needs.

[mosx]

True, but I don't think they would have a dedicated video card; it would cannibalise their MacBook Pro line, and worse, the battery life would die in the ass.

As you can see from my signature, I don't own an Apple product (I hang around for the discussion and atmosphere) - but I do think they need to make their MacBook more robust. I don't expect it to be like their Pro line, but a roll cage like the Lenovo Thinkpad laptop I'm using would be a good start.

False. The iBook and PowerBook G4 were extremely close in specs and the iBook did not "cannibalize" the sales of the PB at all.

The iBook had a 1.42GHz G4 with a Radeon 9550. The Radeon 9550 was just a lower clocked version of the 9700 the PB was sporting.

Also, battery life would not die. At all. Obviously, look at the MBP. Does it have bad battery life? No. Plus if the MacBook had an 8400M GS in it, as it should, Apple could use the same style of power saving thats in the Windows drivers. Such as using less power to drive the display (not just reduced brightness), as well as clocking the GPU down to 100MHz or even lower. They could even write drivers that shut off the dedicated GPU and use the main system memory to display the UI and kick in the dedicated memory as needed.

The MacBook absolutely needs a dedicated GPU and its an insult to everyones intelligence when they try to push a $1400 system (after taxes) as a premium product when the GPU isn't even as good as one you'd find in a PC costing several hundred dollars less.

[Shadow]

Up until the switch to Intel, EVERY Mac had a dedicated GPU in it.

If you remember correctly, the last generation of iBook had a Radeon 9550. Which was a slightly down clocked Radeon 9700 with less memory.

The last PowerBook had something like a 1.67GHz G4 and a Radeon 9700. The last iBook was sporting a 1.42GHz G4 with a Radeon 9550. They were ridiculously close in specs.

There is absolutely no reason for Apple to be gimping the MacBook and Mac mini the way they do.

Its ridiculous that the Apple TV gets a dedicated GPU while the MacBook gets gimped with a GPU that is not even up to desktop standards from 2001 as far as performance goes, yet "PCs" can be had with GPUs that run circles around the MacBook for $500+ less.

Anyway, the Intel GMA 950 supports Pixel Shader 2.0. The Radeon 9200 in the last G4 mini and a lot of the iBooks supports PS 1.4.

Why would someone want a MacBook for Photoshop? Well, maybe its all they can afford? Or maybe they want that more portable computer than the MBP (and more reasonably priced, though still overpriced for the hardware) and plan to connect it to a nice big external display? I can think of a hundred reasons why one would use a MacBook for all of their needs.

You forget that the GMA950 in the MacBook and mini is actually more powerful than what was in there before. Just because its dedicated doesnt mean that its not very good. Everyone always bashes the GMA950 for being crap, but I actually quite like it. I manage to run the programs I need on it (and that includes gaming in Windows occasionally) really well. Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work, and if you're doing heavy 3D work (although I use Cinema 4D on my MacBook perfectly) you should have a MacBook Pro anyway.

[deathshrub]

Why is this still on the front page?

[mosx]

You forget that the GMA950 in the MacBook and mini is actually more powerful than what was in there before. Just because its dedicated doesnt mean that its not very good. Everyone always bashes the GMA950 for being crap, but I actually quite like it. I manage to run the programs I need on it (and that includes gaming in Windows occasionally) really well. Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work, and if you're doing heavy 3D work (although I use Cinema 4D on my MacBook perfectly) you should have a MacBook Pro anyway.

I'm sorry, but the GMA 950 is nowhere near as good as the Radeon 9550 that was in the last iBook or even the Radeon 9200.

I have the same MacBook as you do in your sig, just with 2.5GB of RAM instead of 3. I've also owned systems with the Radeon 9200 and 9550.

The only thing the GMA 950 has over the 9200 is that the GMA supports Pixel Shader 2.0, while the 9200 only supports 1.4.

The GMA 950 does not support hardware T&L, while the 9200 does. The GMA X3100 supports hardware T&L, but the performance is so terrible that you see people on PC related forums coming up with all kinds of creative ways to disable it so the performance is at least as good as the GMA 950!

Do some googling. You'll quickly find that both the 9200 and 9550 are rated WELL above any integrated GPU out there today, still.

My own experience, I had the Radeon 9550 in a Celeron based system. It was basically 1.2GHz Coppermine based Celeron (overclocked from 1.1GHz), 256MB of RAM, and the Radeon 9550. I was able to push UT2k4 and HL2 at full details at 1024x768 and still get around 40fps. My MacBook can't even choke out 30fps at 800x600 with medium settings.

The GMA 950 and X3100 are simply pathetic.

Intel's integrated graphics are not good for anything. They offer no advanced video features like nVidia and ATI/AMD's integrated chipsets, their 3D performance is terrible.. Their DVD playback performance isn't even as good as desktop GPUs from nearly a decade ago! They're a joke. Look at my GeForce 8400M GS in my HP. It does full decoding of every video format, full hardware deinterlacing, deblocking, etc. It can play blu-ray discs without a sweat. The GMA 950? Even in Windows (since OS X does not take advantage of GPU features for video playback), CPU use is unnecessarily high because the GPU can't do anything for video playback.

The MacBook Pro isn't suited for "heavy 3D work" either. The GeForce 8600M GT it has is at the bottom of the "mid-range" cards currently available. A $2,000, $2,500, and $2,800 computer should come with no less than a GeForce 8800M GTX.

If Macs were priced like PCs, the entry level MacBook would have a DVD writer, 2GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8400M GS. The middle would have the 256MB GeForce 8600M GT. The black would have the 512MB version. The MBP would have the 8800M GTX 512 at $2,000. Dual at $2,500 with 1GB of memory and same for the 17".

[Tosser]

Like a lot of what is being said in this discussion - utter rubbish. Using the tool best suited to the job is why. What benefit does a Macbook Pro offer over a Macbook with Photoshop? - a bigger screen and slightly more speed.

And a matte screen, lest you forget. The glossy screen being the best tool for the job, is like saying those Bose 5.1 computer speakers is the best tool for monitoring while audio editing, imo.

Otoh, the MB has something the MBPs dont have: Small footprint and a sturdier frame.

[email2markt]

I think this story is probably mixed up with news that Flash Player 10 will support some GPU acceleration - and hence Photoshop Online Edition will likely take advantage of the GPU acceleration at the earliest opportunity.

[winterspan]

You forget that the GMA950 in the MacBook and mini is actually more powerful than what was in there before. Just because its dedicated doesnt mean that its not very good. Everyone always bashes the GMA950 for being crap, but I actually quite like it. I manage to run the programs I need on it (and that includes gaming in Windows occasionally) really well. Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work, and if you're doing heavy 3D work (although I use Cinema 4D on my MacBook perfectly) you should have a MacBook Pro anyway.

NO, that is wrong. The GMA950 is much slower than the older iBook GPU.

"Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work" - I'm sorry, but I think that it is rude to say that you know what everyone else needs. I'm sure your average Macbook user, having paid a LOT of money for their laptop compared to similar PCs, would like to have a modern GPU capable of :

1) decoding, de-interlacing, and enhancing HD video playback all without maxing out their processor and killing their battery life
2) decent gaming performance in modern windows games
3) decent performance in 3D modeling and animation apps

nVidia now has something called "Hybrid Graphics" on their platform that allows a computer to have BOTH integrated graphics AND a discrete GPU, and it keeps the discrete GPU off until it is needed in apps requiring heavy 3D processing. This would allow a macbook/any laptop to get great battery life by running on the integrated chipset when browsing the internet/writing in word/etc, and only powering up the fast 3D card when you open up certain applications like games, 3D modeling/animation apps, etc.



I'm sorry, but the GMA 950 is nowhere near as good as the Radeon 9550 that was in the last iBook or even the Radeon 9200.

....The GMA 950 does not support hardware T&L, while the 9200 does. The GMA X3100 supports hardware T&L, but the performance is so terrible that you see people on PC related forums coming up with all kinds of creative ways to disable it so the performance is at least as good as the GMA 950! Do some googling. You'll quickly find that both the 9200 and 9550 are rated WELL above any integrated GPU out there today, still. The GMA 950 and X3100 are simply pathetic.

Intel's integrated graphics are not good for anything. They offer no advanced video features like nVidia and ATI/AMD's integrated chipsets, their 3D performance is terrible.. Their DVD playback performance isn't even as good as desktop GPUs from nearly a decade ago! They're a joke. Look at my GeForce 8400M GS in my HP. It does full decoding of every video format, full hardware deinterlacing, deblocking, etc. It can play blu-ray discs without a sweat. The GMA 950? Even in Windows (since OS X does not take advantage of GPU features for video playback), CPU use is unnecessarily high because the GPU can't do anything for video playback.

The MacBook Pro isn't suited for "heavy 3D work" either. The GeForce 8600M GT it has is at the bottom of the "mid-range" cards currently available. A $2,000, $2,500, and $2,800 computer should come with no less than a GeForce 8800M GTX.

If Macs were priced like PCs, the entry level MacBook would have a DVD writer, 2GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8400M GS. The middle would have the 256MB GeForce 8600M GT. The black would have the 512MB version. The MBP would have the 8800M GTX 512 at $2,000. Dual at $2,500 with 1GB of memory and same for the 17".

I completely agree. It's sad that my 3-year old Dell laptop has a faster card than the top-of-the-line $3500 Macbook Pro. If i wanted, I could even swap it out for an Nvidia 7900M GTX or Quadro 3500M. Although that generation doesn't have the CUDA or HD decoding features, the 7900M GTX blows the doors off the 8600GT. It's literally over twice as fast.



I think this story is probably mixed up with news that Flash Player 10 will support some GPU acceleration - and hence Photoshop Online Edition will likely take advantage of the GPU acceleration at the earliest opportunity.

Not at all likely. The TGdaily.com story was only about the tech presentation given by Adobe. And Adobe WAS showing off GPGPU acceleration of Photoshop, they weren't disputing that part. They were disputing the information about haven given out a release date or even an acknowledgment that this technology will be in any version of photoshop.

[Padaung]

And a matte screen, lest you forget. The glossy screen being the best tool for the job, is like saying those Bose 5.1 computer speakers is the best tool for monitoring while audio editing, imo.

Otoh, the MB has something the MBPs dont have: Small footprint and a sturdier frame.

Lol, too true. This was the one reason I held off getting the Macbook for a long while - a vain hope Apple would make a matte version. However, it's not been such a pain once you get used to it (and properly calibrate it). A decent external screen also helps when at home/office...

So are you saying that my reliance on the laptop speakers explains why I am such a bad musician!!! :D

Interesting tooing and frowing on the various aspects of the integrated graphics cards between people. I have tried playing a game or two on this laptop and it did rather suck! PS runs great though, but it would be fab if future versions of PS were able to make some sort of use of the graphics chip for a even just a little more speed :)

[edenwaith]

I can't wait for this. Hopefully Bridge will get the same treatment.

It is because of Bridge CS3's abysmal performance that makes me suspect whether adding GPU acceleration to PS would be that beneficial or not. Unless you have a fairly current video card/GPU in your computer, Bridge doesn't work with hardware acceleration very well at all, and in such cases, it is best to just use software rendering.

But considering that most of my image work deals with smaller images, I'm not the ideal candidate for high-end PS features.

[edenwaith]

Agreed, it stills seems like CS3 was launched... yesterday.

Adobe certainly had a lot on its plate between CS2 and CS3 with supporting Intel-based Macs and integrating the Macromedia line of products. The wait (especially) for a UB version of Photoshop seemed to take forever, but it has already been a year since CS3 was released. If Adobe does stick to its promise of releasing new updates every 18-24 months, then we could theoretically be getting new updates by late October of this year. That still feels way too soon, though. Now, if they were making some minor updates, so it was CS 3.5, that would be neat, but Adobe only seems to make patch updates to its products these days, for the most part. When Photoshop even get up to a x.1+ version? I last count Photoshop 5.5 being the last version, all other updates have only received patch updates (i.e. PS 7.0.1).

For myself, I am not seeing enough additional value being added to Adobe's core products to entice me enough to upgrade. But then, this might be the problem with mature products. Consider how many people probably still use older versions of Microsoft Office. As long as it keeps working and does what you want, why bother upgrading? I would like to see Adobe perhaps slow down some on its product releases so I feel that each new release provides real value and incentive to buy the latest version.

[Shadow]

I'm sorry, but the GMA 950 is nowhere near as good as the Radeon 9550 that was in the last iBook or even the Radeon 9200.

I have the same MacBook as you do in your sig, just with 2.5GB of RAM instead of 3. I've also owned systems with the Radeon 9200 and 9550.

The only thing the GMA 950 has over the 9200 is that the GMA supports Pixel Shader 2.0, while the 9200 only supports 1.4.

The GMA 950 does not support hardware T&L, while the 9200 does. The GMA X3100 supports hardware T&L, but the performance is so terrible that you see people on PC related forums coming up with all kinds of creative ways to disable it so the performance is at least as good as the GMA 950!

Do some googling. You'll quickly find that both the 9200 and 9550 are rated WELL above any integrated GPU out there today, still.

My own experience, I had the Radeon 9550 in a Celeron based system. It was basically 1.2GHz Coppermine based Celeron (overclocked from 1.1GHz), 256MB of RAM, and the Radeon 9550. I was able to push UT2k4 and HL2 at full details at 1024x768 and still get around 40fps. My MacBook can't even choke out 30fps at 800x600 with medium settings.

The GMA 950 and X3100 are simply pathetic.

Intel's integrated graphics are not good for anything. They offer no advanced video features like nVidia and ATI/AMD's integrated chipsets, their 3D performance is terrible.. Their DVD playback performance isn't even as good as desktop GPUs from nearly a decade ago! They're a joke. Look at my GeForce 8400M GS in my HP. It does full decoding of every video format, full hardware deinterlacing, deblocking, etc. It can play blu-ray discs without a sweat. The GMA 950? Even in Windows (since OS X does not take advantage of GPU features for video playback), CPU use is unnecessarily high because the GPU can't do anything for video playback.

The MacBook Pro isn't suited for "heavy 3D work" either. The GeForce 8600M GT it has is at the bottom of the "mid-range" cards currently available. A $2,000, $2,500, and $2,800 computer should come with no less than a GeForce 8800M GTX.

If Macs were priced like PCs, the entry level MacBook would have a DVD writer, 2GB of RAM, and a GeForce 8400M GS. The middle would have the 256MB GeForce 8600M GT. The black would have the 512MB version. The MBP would have the 8800M GTX 512 at $2,000. Dual at $2,500 with 1GB of memory and same for the 17".

Thats funny, I could swear that the GMA in my MacBook absolutely destroys the Radeon 9whatever in the G4 minis. I am able to play Command and Conquer 3 at 1280x800 on my MacBook in Windows. I even have benchmarks that says the GMA950 is better than the 9550: http://www.macworld.com/article/50898/2006/05/macbookbench.html (its compared to the 1G MacBooks, but its only the CPU that changed when the GPU was the same).


NO, that is wrong. The GMA950 is much slower than the older iBook GPU.

"Integrated graphics is fine for everyone apart from those doing heavy 3D work" - I'm sorry, but I think that it is rude to say that you know what everyone else needs. I'm sure your average Macbook user, having paid a LOT of money for their laptop compared to similar PCs, would like to have a modern GPU capable of :

1) decoding, de-interlacing, and enhancing HD video playback all without maxing out their processor and killing their battery life
2) decent gaming performance in modern windows games
3) decent performance in 3D modeling and animation apps

nVidia now has something called "Hybrid Graphics" on their platform that allows a computer to have BOTH integrated graphics AND a discrete GPU, and it keeps the discrete GPU off until it is needed in apps requiring heavy 3D processing. This would allow a macbook/any laptop to get great battery life by running on the integrated chipset when browsing the internet/writing in word/etc, and only powering up the fast 3D card when you open up certain applications like games, 3D modeling/animation apps, etc.

I'm not trying to say that I know what everyone else needs; I'm saying that for what most people will use their MacBooks for: internet browsing, iTunes, IMing etc. There are exceptions to the rule - I use my MacBook for Cinema 4D amongst other things - but for what most people will be doing, the GMA is fine. Its widely accepted on this forum and many others that the GMA is fine unless you're doing 3D work, go check a few "MB vs MBP threads", you'll find the same.

1) How many people play HD video on a regular basis? No-one that I know does. Ever. I'm trying to say what most people will use their MacBooks for, not what everyone will use it for.
2) I get 30+ FPS in C&C3 at 1280x800 resolution in Windows.
3) Again, I use Cinema 4D fairly regularly on my MacBook and its fine.

Adding 2 graphics cards a MacBook? You've got to be joking. They get hot enough already! My CPU is at 59C now, and its on a desk. Adding a dedicated card into it would only make it even hotter. They can only put one in the MBP because it conducts heat better and it has 2 fans in whereas the MB only as 1.

[BenRoethig]

GMA would be sufficient on windows but unfortunately not on OSX. Apple doesn't put anywhere near the effort into the graphics drivers and the implementation of OpenGL is quite up to par either, let alone as good as DX. In short, the graphics situation is exactly the opposite of the rest of the OS where you see Microsoft paying attention to detail and Apple being lazy.

[edenwaith]

Honestly, I haven't seen any compelling new features in Photoshop since 7.0. Other than bringing the program up-to-date to run on newer hardware and mangling the interface more and more with each revision, I haven't seen anything on recent versions of Photoshop that makes me think Adobe has put much thought into it.


Pretty much feelings about Adobe's upgrades for many years. I haven't found too much that was compelling about Photoshop's upgrades since PS 6. The best reason to upgrade to PS7 was for Mac OS X compatibility, just as PS CS3 was for native Intel compatibility.

[winterspan]

I'm not trying to say that I know what everyone else needs; I'm saying that for what most people will use their MacBooks for: internet browsing, iTunes, IMing etc. There are exceptions to the rule - I use my MacBook for Cinema 4D amongst other things - but for what most people will be doing, the GMA is fine. Its widely accepted on this forum and many others that the GMA is fine unless you're doing 3D work, go check a few "MB vs MBP threads", you'll find the same.

1) How many people play HD video on a regular basis? No-one that I know does. Ever. I'm trying to say what most people will use their MacBooks for, not what everyone will use it for.
2) I get 30+ FPS in C&C3 at 1280x800 resolution in Windows.
3) Again, I use Cinema 4D fairly regularly on my MacBook and its fine.

Adding 2 graphics cards a MacBook? You've got to be joking. They get hot enough already! My CPU is at 59C now, and its on a desk. Adding a dedicated card into it would only make it even hotter. They can only put one in the MBP because it conducts heat better and it has 2 fans in whereas the MB only as 1.


Again, I'm not suggesting that every Macbook user needs a decent graphics experience, but they DESERVE one after paying what they do for a new computer.
And I have to ask: Have you actually used a computer with a modern, powerful video card? I'm trying to understand where you perspective is coming from because normally I would consider anyone who uses Intel's integrated graphics to run Cinema 4D to be a bit less than sane.

And regarding Nvidia's Hybrid graphics ---- First of all, it does not use "2 graphic cards" as integrated graphics can hardly be called a card for god sakes ---- Intel's IGP is a small chipset on the motherboard. Secondly, the heat output form a low-end GPU can be controlled quite easily, and theres no reason why Apple can engineer the Macbook with a better cooling solution. And the card would only run when needed, and would be turned off most of the time.

[Shadow]

Again, I'm not suggesting that every Macbook user needs a decent graphics experience, but they DESERVE one after paying what they do for a new computer.
And I have to ask: Have you actually used a computer with a modern, powerful video card? I'm trying to understand where you perspective is coming from because normally I would consider anyone who uses Intel's integrated graphics to run Cinema 4D to be a bit less than sane.

And regarding Nvidia's Hybrid graphics ---- First of all, it does not use "2 graphic cards" as integrated graphics can hardly be called a card for god sakes ---- Intel's IGP is a small chipset on the motherboard. Secondly, the heat output form a low-end GPU can be controlled quite easily, and theres no reason why Apple can engineer the Macbook with a better cooling solution. And the card would only run when needed, and would be turned off most of the time.

I agree with you there. I'm not saying that the GMA950 is good, I'm saying that its satisfactory for most people, although it should have a better graphics solution.
Actually and perhaps shamefully, the GMA950 is the best graphics card I have ever owned. The one in my last HP was a GeForce 4 MX 440, so even the GMA950 is better than that. Running a Cinema 4D on a GMA950 probably isnt a good experience, but for what I'm used to, its pretty good. The MacBook is actually a really good machine, they can handle pretty much everything you could throw at it, except obviously graphics work.

[MattZani]

The MacBook Pro isn't suited for "heavy 3D work" either. The GeForce 8600M GT it has is at the bottom of the "mid-range" cards currently available. A $2,000, $2,500, and $2,800 computer should come with no less than a GeForce 8800M GTX.


Im getting a MBP, and i love gaming, but i simply would not want an 8800 of any kind inside, firstly heat issues, The new Alienware with Dual 8800GTX's and 4Ghz Dual Core, Idles at 65C! Secondly, battery, the alienwares are lucky to get 2 hours of battery, the most powerful is lucky to get 1 hour, so its only good for moving to another room, and not shutting down. Third, weight, all Gaming laptops are about 8 - 14 Pounds, which is a real arm breaker. And finally, Design, all gaming laptops are pug ugly because they have to fit so many fans in, and they are over 2" thick!

I really wouldnt want an 8800, i like the MBP, because you can actually use it outside, where you cannot get power, and because you can carry it places.

Also, proffesionals wouldnt want an 8800 either, because its not made for Pro use, its for gaming, they would want a nVidia Quadro FX, but they are about the Price of a MBP, so its not a viable option.

The 8600M GT is perfect, it uses very little power, can kick out good gaming FPS when its needed to, and can handle the Semi Pro work people will do on a laptop.

After all, any Pro running OS X will have a Mac Pro, not a laptop.

[winterspan]

Im getting a MBP, and i love gaming, but i simply would not want an 8800 of any kind inside, firstly heat issues, The new Alienware with Dual 8800GTX's and 4Ghz Dual Core, Idles at 65C! Secondly, battery, the alienwares are lucky to get 2 hours of battery, the most powerful is lucky to get 1 hour, so its only good for moving to another room, and not shutting down. Third, weight, all Gaming laptops are about 8 - 14 Pounds, which is a real arm breaker. And finally, Design, all gaming laptops are pug ugly because they have to fit so many fans in, and they are over 2" thick!

The person you are responding to said the MB pro should come with an option of a 8800M GTX. That perhaps might be a bit much, but a 8800GTS or 8700GT should be included for the price being paid; not to mention a new high-powered Quadro should be available for Pros. It's a complete joke that a laptop with the word "Pro" in it doesn't have the option of a Quadro card.

Anyways, how can you possibly compare the size, weight, heat output and battery life of a Macbook Pro with a 8800M GTX versus an enormous alienware laptop with 4Ghz processors, 3 hard drives, 2 8800GTX cards, etc. That doesn't make any sense. Of course the Macbook Pro wouldn't be anywhere near as large, heavy, hot or power-hungry as that thing.



I really wouldnt want an 8800, i like the MBP, because you can actually use it outside, where you cannot get power, and because you can carry it places.
Also, proffesionals wouldnt want an 8800 either, because its not made for Pro use, its for gaming, they would want a nVidia Quadro FX, but they are about the Price of a MBP, so its not a viable option.

As i mentioned in a previous post, the technology already exists that allows a laptop to have both integrated graphics AND a discrete card --- it allows the discrete GPU to be turned off until needed, thus immensely lowering power usage and improving battery life when doing normal non-3D activities. Even Quartz/Quicktime/etc would be powered by the GMA, and only intensive 3D apps would need to turn on the 8800M GTX/GTS /8700M GT.

Also, I'll agree with you that Pros want Quadro cards, but NOT that its "not an option". Every PC manufacturer that makes laptop workstations offer Quadro cards. There is no justifiable reason why Apple shouldn't, other than them being to lazy to implement it and not wanting to have to deal with more BTO options.


The 8600M GT is perfect, it uses very little power, can kick out good gaming FPS when its needed to, and can handle the Semi Pro work people will do on a laptop.

It may be "perfect" for you, but it's shameful that the 8600M GT is the best thing you can get on a $3,000 "Pro" machine.



After all, any Pro running OS X will have a Mac Pro, not a laptop.

Oh really? You seen any "Pro" dragging around a Mac Pro lately? What do you think they use when they are away from the workstation? Most major PC manufacturers offer some form of professional laptop workstation, e.g. Dell Precision -- Which by the way are excellent machines with steel/carbon/magnesium cases and available with high-end screens and Quadro cards.

[Bucnawesome]

I just really hope CS4 is a sign the macbooks are getting a decent discrete gpu like the HD 2400 or the 8400 gs in the next revision. Apple knows many people who have macs run photoshop so hopefully they will cater their next revisions of products to support it