Jan 19 2009
Missing Plug-Ins in Photoshop CS4
If you’ve recently upgraded to CS4, you may wonder why you can’t find some familiar Photoshop plug-ins: hey, where’s Pattern Maker? And how about Extract?! A number of our old favorites are not installed by default: you’ll find them on the “Content” disk in your Creative Suite disks. If you obtained your software via download, you can also find the missing plug-ins, presets, and extensions here.
PDF Package and Web Gallery are now accessed through Bridge. I guess that makes sense, but you have to play detective to find the features. Choose the Output icon at the left end of the Bridge Application bar (the strip just under the menu items), or select the “OUPUT” workspace at the far right end of the Application bar to access the “Output to Web or PDF” function:
Output to Web or PDF
You’re probably expecting a dialog box, but instead, the righthand panel of Bridge changes to give you the Output options. At the top of the panel, choose the appropriate option, PDF or Web. The panel changes to display your options for PDF or Web output; they’re fairly intuitive.
Where has the “Jump to Graphics Editor” feature gone – I used this endlessly for taking a file into Illustrator or Fireworks. I can’t believe they would remove such a useful facility.
Simon,
Do you want to edit vector content in Illustrator, or do you want to open the Photoshop file in Illustrator? If the content is a Smart Object, double-click on the vector Smart Object in the Layers panel and Illustrator will launch for editing.
Hi Claudia,
What I am missing is the facility to set up a PSD file and then “jump” the file into either Illustrator or Fireworks using the “Jump to graphics editor” link at the bottom of the file menu.
With CS2 (and earlier) you were able to place an alias of the relevant software (illustrator, fireworks, painter etc) into a folder called “Helpers” within the Photoshop software folder which then became available in the “jump to” menu.
This was invaluable when working on an image that would form part of an illustrator file (for example a scan that you wanted to draw vectors over) or to take an image from Photoshop into Fireworks to utilise its superior optimisation. It meant that you didn’t have to search for the file all over again through Illustrator/Firework’s menu.
The loss of this facility has slowed my workflow measureably and is very frustrating. I keep hoping a third party might bring out a similar extension or plug in to reinstate it.
What I find most incredible is that the interaction between Photoshop and Fireworks is now less than it was in the days before Adobe owned Fireworks!
Simon,
I confess I never used the Jump feature
But I tried copying the Helpers folder from Photoshop CS2 into the CS4 application folder, and it was ignored, so that approach won’t work. I really hate it when a product is “improved” by removing useful features!
I wish I had an answer for you; it might be time to flood the Feature Request box on the Adobe site: http://www.claudiamccue.com/go/fxh97XeJ
I also tried moving the CS2 helpers folder to no avail.
I agree that it is the most frustrating thing that instead of getting an upgrade with new (added) features what we are often getting is replacement features.
This is particularly galling with a behemoth like Adobe who effectively own all the applications (bar dear old Quark) I use!
Thanks for your time anyway Claudia.