Another new feature in Photoshop CS4 is the Live Preview when using the Cloning and Stamping tool. What this does for you is show you exactly what the effect of the tool is going to be while you are using it. Where you will probably find this to be the most useful is lining things up with the clone tool or making sure color tones and brightness levels match well.

It seems like we just got into our groove with Photoshop CS3 and now CS4 is out and everyone is wondering if its really a signifigant upgrade or not. I just spent the day with the folks from Adobe to get a deep dive into the entire CS4 family and let me just say, one day was not nearly enough time to learn about everything. There are very cool changes in virtually every product in the entire suite. Today we are going to go deep into Photoshop CS4 and find out what some of the new features are and try to explain in layman’s terms what each of the new features can do for you.

The 5th major iteration of the Camera Raw plug-in is now shipping as part of Photoshop CS4. Camera Raw 5 has a number of new features:

* Local adjustment brush
* Graduated Filter
* “Post Crop” Vignetting
* Opacity for the cloning/healing tool
* Improved Auto Adjustment
* Support for the new Camera Profiles that are still in beta form