Today I upgraded my version of Photoshop to Photoshop CS4. I was using CS. I don’t normally update until it is absolutely necessary and the upgrade requirements for CS4 listed CS as the oldest program eligible for an upgrade. So, upgrade I did! And wow! This program is really worth the upgrade price. It loads much faster on my system and all the new features are really useful.
One of the perks of upgrading was a choice of thank you gifts from Adobe for registering my new Photoshop. Of the gifts, I selected a free month subscription to Lynda.com which I’ve used before for Painter. Lynda offers really wonderful in depth videos on how to use programs. It’s a fabulous learning tool. As soon as I saw this as a choice I snapped it right up! I’ve been watching videos on what’s new in CS4 and let me tell you, these videos are a wonderfully useful gift. I have learned so much from them that would have taken me months to realize these features were available in CS4. I am also blown away by the new OpenGL feature which allows for beautiful and FAST zooms and much more. I’ve only watched 1/3 of the videos available for the ‘what’s new’ segment and already I feel I got my money’s worth.
The only bad thing I realized today was that soon I will need to upgrade my poor little computer. The requirements for both “Wrath of the Lich King” and “Photoshop CS4″ put me at the edge of the minimum requirements for new programs so soon my computer won’t be able to run new programs well. Which is a bummer, as I have maxed out the RAM on it and such. But it has lasted me for a good 5 years and it is still working great. I will, of course, limp along with it as long as I can but it is something that I need to be mindful of. It still runs everything really well for now, so maybe I can put off the upgrade for another year or so. 
