The star feature: Multiple artboards (up to 100) with independent dimensions, rulers, and export settings. Blob Brush (merge brush strokes into a single path), Gradients on strokes , and Separations Preview . Appearance palette now allowed multiple fills/strokes per object. GPU acceleration (NVIDIA) for zoom and pan. CS4 also introduced Artboard tool and Align to artboard .
A highly stable, beloved version. Added Live Trace (powerful raster-to-vector, replacing Streamline) and Live Paint (intuitive fill of overlapping paths without merging). Control Palette (context-sensitive options bar) debuted. Spot color links to InDesign. Also introduced Wacom tablet pressure for opacity and size. First universal binary for Mac Intel (early 2006). Many professionals stuck with CS2 for years.
Added 3D and Materials panel (ray-traced 3D extrude/revolve, drag 3D objects, apply materials – via Adobe Dimension tech). Font activation from Adobe Fonts without leaving app. Background saving and Japanese typography enhancements.
Released exclusively for Windows 3.1 —a controversial move that angered Mac loyalists. The UI was rewritten in C++ to run on Windows, but it lacked Mac’s native features (e.g., no pressure-sensitive drawing). It introduced the Transform Each command and basic Align palette. However, the Windows version was buggy and slow, allowing Macromedia FreeHand 5.0 to gain market share.