I use them all the time. (wish you had a choice between daily and occasional) many of us don’t edit every day ;)

Anyways I love B&D. I think it’s one of the most under appreciated tools in PS. I’ve recently been loving sponge too. Amazingly I never really played with it, but when I tried it I realized what I was missing.

As to the improvements in CS4. I know they’ve been updated, and their working great, but they don’t seem vastly different than in CS3 even with protect tones. I thought they worked well before.

On a side note I hate the post crop vignettes in LR2. Original vignette was nice and bold. Post crop tends to give a yucky faded look. OK I’m getting off topic… Gav

I use them every day, and I also wonder if the enhancements made carry over into things light the multiply and screen blending modes. I’ve noticed (it very well could be the placebo effect) that my custom Kill Highlights and Kill Shadows actions render even better results than they did in CS3.

As far as nondestructive use of the tools, just duplicate the layer before you use them.

I think it’s years of avoiding them like the plague; I have to retrain myself to use them.

This is my first time i go post. I collected so many interesting things in your site especially its discussion. From the tons of comments on your posts, I guess I am not the only one having all the enjoyment here! keep up the good work.Regards