Lucille

This one took 4 days to create (with a 2 week break in between). I've been enjoying CS4. It's far more stable than CS3. It hasn't crashed at all. Works smoothly, except that I've not been able to get the OpenGL features to work. I'm not sure if this is due to my graphics card or operating system.

I was also playing with the 3D features and the 3D axis is not visible, even though I've selected it in the View menu. A mystery I need to figure out soon because I'll be teaching Photoshop at the college in April and need to be able to demonstrate how all these features work.

When Flickr resizes images it seems to add sharp edges, so this view isn't as soft as the original view. Best viewed at the larger size.

If you'd like to read more about the process I used to make this you can read more on my blog: galefraney.wordpress.com/2009/02/

Happy Update
Miraculously, The OpenGL features have begun working, along with the 3D Axis tool. I’m not certain what caused this because I did a number of different things while trying to troubleshoot the problem. I went to the NVIDIA website to update my Video card driver. You can choose an option to have the website automatically detect your video card and download the appropriate driver. However, after I installed the new driver, I noticed that the version number was lower than my prior version. This worried me, so I then went to my PC’s Windows Update by right clicking my Desktop, choosing Properties / Settings / Advanced / Adaptor / Properties / Driver / Update Driver. Although I had done this before and received a message that my driver was up to date, this time it actually updated the driver. I think this is what corrected the problem.

I can now do neat functions like Rotate Canvas which comes in handy for painting with a Wacom tablet. And Image Toss, which might sound like some mere gimmick, but believe me, when you have an enormuos document and are zoomed in to some detail and you need to pan to another area of the image, the pan glides as effortlessly as an Olympic skater and there is no blocky redraw lag time, Yipeeeeee !!!

There is also a new handy shortcut in CS4, if you Hold down your mouse while pressing the “H” Key while you are on any other tool. While still holding down both, you can slide around to any area of the image, then when you release the mouse it zooms into that area of the image. Very quick and wonderful way to get around a large, zoomed in image.

I also finally see the 3D Axis Tool, which is the most efficient way to manipulate the X, Y, and Z movements and rotations. I was so happy and relieved when these features began working that I felt tears come to my eyes. I never realized how important they were to me until I saw my reaction when they magically appeared. I am one very happy Photoshopper today !!!