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Adobe Releases Updated Creative Suite
jonknee writes "MacMerc just noted that Adobe has dropped the motherload and updated most of its core non-video apps in a bundle called the Creative Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, InDesign and InCopy (a new product).It looks like Adobe PR popped the press releases a little early as not much is up on their site yet. The official debut will be tomorrow at a press event that looks to have a webcast."
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
They released the MX 2004 versions of all their tools a week or so ago.
http://www.macromedia.com/software/mx2004/
For example Dreamweaver now supports CSS Layout.
Here
Apple's first page points to this article about the new tools.
Don't be painting *Microsoft* as clean either!
Microsoft abuses it's power in order to attempt to invade new markets.
Microsoft believes strongly in vendor lock; good for them, not for the customer.
Microsoft encourages a monoculture as well as a monopoly, and in doing so weakens and damages all of us.
If you want an alternative to Adobe, even if slightly crappier, there is Macromedia, Quark, and Corel. Microsoft is the *last* company I would willingly invest with my cash and give any more power than they can force out of me.
GPL Deconstructed
Now with Product Activation
http://www.adobe.com/activation/main.html
I wouldn't think of the "X" in "Mac OS X" as a letter version. Mac OS X is the whole name of the operating system, as I understand it. The 10.2, 10.3, etc. denote the version. I'm sure, given enough time, you will see a Mac OS X 11.1.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
Along those lines, I see that Adobe has also started requiring product activation (web or phone) as well. Can forced upgrades via short-term licenses be in the near future as well?
Looking at the new features list, I have to agree with there be little reason to upgrade. While this may mean the products are mature in their scope, it doesn't necessarily mean OSS is going to catch up and pass them soon. It just means that if they keep the tools limited to their current scope, they have little room to grow. A few years ago Adobe tried to sell ImageReady as a separate product, a Photoshop for the web, and fairly quickly realized their customers wouldn't go for it. They folded it into Photoshop. They may be forced to integrate some of their products in the future, too, (Golive and Indesign?) though not until competition forces them to. Their current products may also undergo some drastic change from new technology (semantic markup or copyright enforcement beyond watermarking or whatever), like the web before.
Look it's even easy to click!
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/
Karma Eats
Those who think that Adobe software is overpriced clearly are hobbyists, not professionals. If you bill by the hour, this stuff pays for itself in a couple of days.
For example, one single feature of Photoshop CS would make it worth the full purchase price for me, let alone the upgrade price, let alone the other new features:
Native non-square pixel support!
Since video doesn't have square pixels, it's always been something of a pain to author graphics in Photoshop. Getting this to work right will save me 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. At $300/hour, I only need to use this feature three times for it to pay for the upgrade!
For those who aren't professionals, the cheap Photoshop Elements is a great alternative at fraction of the price.
My video compression blog
Great article at http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5083087.html dealing with the issue a little more in depth than the listed ones.
According to Think Secret pro users are not happy with the small upgrades the new versions of the Adobe apps have got.
Note that Think Secret is a rumor site but it has probably the best reputation of any rumor site.
You can run Photoshop easy in WINE... It works great too! Seems to run just as fast in most areas, I was very impressed!
(It should also be noted that I tried it with Crossover Office, haven't used it with the regular version of WINE)
a good rundown of the impact of Photoshop CS on those using it to tweak digital camera photos is at DPReviews hopcsreview.asp
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0309/03092903photo
a generally useful site for digital photography news
According to Adobe's product activation information page (emphasis mine):
What happens after I activate Adobe software?
Q:
What effect do you expect activation will have on Photoshop customers?
A:
Most users will see no change in their ability to use the software the way they always have done. Adobe recognizes that software license activation systems can create a few more steps for the user and has worked hard to minimize customer inconvenience. The Adobe activation process supports installation on a primary and secondary PC as well as most system upgrades (e.g. operating system, motherboard, memory or processor). In most cases, customers can change computing environments without needing to contact Adobe Customer Support or needing to re-activate any installed Adobe software.
"Correct me if we're talking about different things here, but I'm of the impression that this couldn't be any more obvious in Photoshop 7.0 -- go to the Resize Image dialog box, use the dropdowns to change the units to "inches", and type in your desired size and DPI."
No, it's not so obvious. If you change the DPI, you change the resolution of the pixels. So if you have a 640 by 480 image at 300dpi, it'll print a 2 inch wide image. If you change that DPI down to 72 in order to print it larger, your image will drop down to 154 by 115. Not cool. What you have to do is turn off the 'Resample Image' checkbox so it'll avoid making the physical resolution change.
This is something they could improve in the UI.
"Derp de derp."