In her blog Photography & Illustration, Adobe instructional designer Luanne Seymour writes that preliminary versions of Photoshop CS4 and Bridge CS4 Help are now on the Web.

Adobe Community Help is one way that the company hopes to answer users' questions. If you haven't heard about it before, don't be surprised -- it's still in beta. Adobe says that Community Help is based on a "new approach to search called Custom Search, an enterprise tool from Google that enables us to selectively index only the most high quality sites and resources.

"This search index includes content such as product Help, language references, TechNotes, Developer Connection articles, and Design Center tutorials as well as the best online content from the Adobe community. Searchable content is chosen by experts at Adobe and in the design and developer communities, meaning you find the focused answers you need faster than with any standard web search."

Once CS4 ships, you'll be able to comment on much of the information discoverable by Community Help's Custom Search. If your comments are noteworthy enough, you'll receive Adobe Community Help points. No word on what those points get you -- my vote is for pizza and beer discounts.

Because this is beta, there are still some bugs to squash, and the results quality isn't as good as it will be once these new pages are crawled by Google. But if you're curious about the evolution of software help from printed manuals to this Web 2.0 solution, you can check it out now. Here are some sample Help pages:

* Overview of the new Photoshop CS4 features

* Overview of what’s new in Bridge CS4

* Photoshop's new Adjustments panel

* Photoshop's new masking layers

* Bridge's new Review mode