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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."
Couldn't Adobe have purchased traditional advertisement space?
Adobe puts developers in jail. Anytime you hear Adobe, think 'DMCA abuse'.
Hate to say it, but for the Windows platform Microsoft products are a much better price-efficiency alternative than Adobe. Unless you've spent two years at a community college learning Adobe toolset, Microsoft's PhotoDraw and Image Editor are easier to pick up and cheaper. Image Editor is distributed free with many Windows boxes, while PhotoDraw is part of the Office. For PDF generation you can use OpenOffice 1.1, which is in RC5 right now. Naturally a plethora of products exist for Linux platform that will spare you from buying any Adobe licenses in the future.
Do not support the companies that abuse DMCA and make security research illegal. There's a close relation between the current spread of viruses and worms on the Internet, and the fact that Adobe tried to jail the developer who publicized security weaknesses of a commercial product.
What option would I deselect in my Homepage preferences to not have new product press releases from commercial-ware show up on the front page ?
One of the areas that Linux has gained a lot of ground is the VFX industry. It's a right pain having to have NT/Mac boxes around just for the texture artists - it'd be a lot easier if we could just run Photoshop on Linux natively.
Adobe don't seem to be interested though.
Office XP. Dreamweaver MX. Mac OS X. And now Photoshop CS. I miss the days when version numbers let you know exactly how long it had been since you upgraded. It gets worse when they have to add numbers to the letters, a la "Dreamweaver XP 2004" or "Mac OS X 10.2". You practically have to hire a geek just to know if you still need to upgrade or not.
What's the next version of Windows supposed to be called, again? Is it "Windows XP 2005" or "Windows XP 6.0"?
Photoshop may be mature, but it is not feature complete. Some things that have been included in PS CS have been long awaited. 16-bit editing has been very poor in PS before CS and now it looks like you can actually apply filters without having to go down to 8-bit.
Someone mentioned non-destructive filters and better digital camera RAW support (even than what's in CS) would be appreciated.
Besides, no one is forcing you to upgrade PS. I'm still using 5.5 and 7.0 on various locations on client sites and I'm not telling they must upgrade, or even should upgrade.
Alot of people have animosity towards Adobe, myself included over various issues, but there is one thing that Adobe has that nobody else can hold a candle to:
Photoshop.
This one software package is single-handedly keeping me from migrating to Linux. For those who say "But what about Gimp? It's just as good..."
Those people have also never done professional graphics for print, video or even the web. The toolset within Photoshop is unrivaled, it's color acuity precise, and it's workflow caters to multiple mind sets. For every one way to do something there is a handfull of other, equally successful methods to achieve exactly the same result. It is an artist's tool.
Mature? Nope. There are dozens of features that the community has been begging to have integrated for years, and slowly but surely Adobe has listened. I can understand not implementing every little widget and gizmo that has been suggested by crackpot users over the years into their flagship product line, and each new upgrade offers something useful that can either save me time or opens up a new realm of creative flexibility. Photoshop has many years to grow, become better and more refined. Most people just don't see it because a histogram is this wierd spikey deal that screws up an image, filters are normally reserved for creating 'L3nZ FL4r3s', and the layer effects were the perfect time saving device for all those bubbly drop shadowed graphics with glowy mouse-overs your client is begging for.
There is no alternative, and by glancing at the top 10 new features, it seems that Adobe has not forgot that Photoshop is not a toy program. I didn't see any "Improved Applesque Button Creation" feature.
(yet)
This doesn't sound that amazing. What's newsworthy about this?
This.
It's not just individual application updates. It's groupware version management. Try having five different people in a team working on a file that's going to be used for both print and web with Adobe's current suite of apps. It's a nightmare. If things work the way they describe it in the above article, seamlessly letting all members of a team work on the same file, this upgrade will be a godsend.
Don't forget, graphic design is not just freelancers working on small projects from home, or l33td00dz who just want the latest "professional" program to "design" wallpapers for deskmod.com. It's also part of every business out there, and in the corporate world it's generally teams of people working on the same documents. This upgrade should hopefully finally bring Adobe's products in line with that reality.
Luckily the Web Standards Project has been talking to Macromedia since before the first MX product line, and MM has complied rather well according to them.
I am not sure how the auto generated code is, but I have used MX 2004 for a little tester, and the feature I saw was deeper integration with the CSS standard when making your pages, in the hand coding way. Which of course you can do with dreamweaver. I wouldnt even touch it if you couldnt.
Everyone here seems to be missing the point of this release. This is Adobe's attempt to kill off Quark. With InDesign, Adobe has arguably a better product than Quark, but most design houses have been slow to even give it a look. By selling the products design houses already use (Photoshop, Illustrator) as a package, and as a reasonably priced package ($1200 whereas Quark alone is $1000), they're going to put InDesign on the desktop of every graphic designer. Most will at least take a look, and many will probaby switch over. The production flow management tools are also a bonus.
I've heard many claims that GIMP is trying to be just as good as photshop, but not there yet. I've heard claims that there are one or two things GIMP does better, while overall it is worse. I've heard that it is a good start, but still not there yet. I've heard that "EVERYONE", or "a friend of a friend" claims it is better. I've never actually heard someone claim it is better.
If you are an artist, you should check it out, it might do one or two things that you need. It might be something to put on your todo list for one year from now to see if it is better. Because it is free (beer) you can check it out anytime. Don't do it when you have a big deadline, but most artists are having a hard time finding work now, if you have downtime with no leads check it out.
What strange language is this? You can hit the motherlode or find the motherlode. But drop the motherload?
"For those who aren't professionals, the Gimp is a great alternative for free. I know it isn't as good as Photoshop, but it has everything most users need."
The problem here is that users need something targetted at their usage range. GIMP and Photoshop are both High-Power tools, the only difference being that GIMP is worse and Photoshop is better.
Photoshop Elements is a Mid-Power tool, more like Paintshop Pro. So, as it turns out, Photoshop doesn't compete with GIMP.
I guess that makes sense... although if the components were buggy in the first place, why buy them again? Why not just keep using the ones you're using now and not upgrade?
And while the Flash Professional thing is kinda silly, you do still have the option to buy the lower-priced version.
It still seems to me that if Dreamweaver MX (for example) is doing the job for you, there's no reason to upgrade to MX 2004. If you need the functionality in 2004 (that's not in MX), then Macromedia is doing its job and providing additional value-add(-edness?) in its new product.
"Forcing" you to do something by releasing an improved product isn't strong-arming in the way I typically would imagine it. But I do understand where you're coming from.
In Adobe's case, the cost of the RAW plugin they were selling for $99 -- and now including in the CS upgrade -- is almost as much as the cost of the upgrade itself. Doesn't seem such a bad deal if you want that functionality.