I just upgraded to CS5 yesterday, thought I’d give you my first impressions.
Coexistence
For those of you worried about compatibility etc. the first thing to understand is that the installation of CS5 doesn’t replace earlier versions of Photoshop (or at least not my version of CS4). So you can continue to run both versions in parrallel until such time that you are fully migrated to CS5.
Speed
Because CS5 runs in 64bit mode it is fast… really fast. There is one filter that I use for an effect called the Surface Blur. In CS4 this filter would take forever to run, however in CS5 it runs in just a few seconds which is way cool. I haven’t tested out other aspects of the speed, but it certainly does run faster.
Plug-in compatibility
I did get a bit of a shock when I copied my major plug-ins (Nik Sharpener, Nik Silver Effex Pro and Noise Ninja) to the plug-ins folder and then re-started Photoshop only to discover that they didn’t appear in the drop-down list for filters. I read the FAQ on Nik’s site and they clearly state that their plug-ins are NOT yet 64bit compatible but that they were working on it.
My plan tonight is to run CS5 in 32bit mode (just tick the box on the Cmd+I screen on the mac). That should give me access to all my Plug-ins.
However I did get a chance to play with the new content aware fill and it is freaking awesome!!!!
More later as I start getting used to it.
Brent