Mike's doodle illustrating his thoughts on PS6
Hi Don,
I sympathise... I'm a Design Premium owner too and there are a few applications in my suite that don't get any exercise. I pretty much have to upgrade as I do some training as an Adobe Certified Instructor - so I need to stay current on the programs I teach - currently Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects.
Would I upgrade if I didn't have to? That would be a much closer call. There are some nice enhancements in PS6 - but a lot of the headline features (content aware move, the blur gallery, video improvements etc etc) do nothing for me. It's the smaller workflow improvements that I find attractive - and of course their value depends on exactly the sort of work you tend to do.
For me, and I have to be honest even as a guy who makes part of his living teaching this stuff, I feel Photoshop is losing it's focus.
Yes, it's always been something of a generalist image editing tool - but CS6 leaves me wondering where it's heading with the 3D, video features et al. Maybe it's a personal thing, but I like my software to be specific. If I want to work in image editing I want a specific and powerful tool for that. If I want to work in 3D, or vector illustration, or video, or page layout - I want the best tools I can lay may hands on for those tasks.
With Photoshop CS6 we seem to be heading towards the Swiss army penknife. Handy to have around, OK as a knife, but all the other tools are really 'get me by's' - far from the best tool for the job.
There's one thing that Photoshop CS6 is still desperately missing: a decent competitor.
