To paraphrase Forrest Gump, software mergers are like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get. When Adobe Systems swallowed up its graphics and multimedia software competitor Macromedia, there were considerable concerns about what would happen. With the massive rollout of Adobe Creative Suite CS3, the reassuring answer is that the two product lineups actually have resulted in the much claimed, but rarely attained, objective of “synergy.”
Note upfront: CS3 is a product aimed primarily at professionals. It comes in a multiple versions organized around the needs of creative shops and has pricetags north of $1,000 in full versions. There are lower cost alternatives, some of which are from Adobe and some even are in the CS3 arsenal (more on that later).
Macromedia was strong in web-oriented products: its Flash animation/programming tools and the Dreamweaver web-site creation and design application. Adobe has dropped its equivalent applications, while retaining its own industry-leading software – Photoshop and Acrobat, of course, plus Illustrator (graphics design), InDesign (print layout), Premiere (video editing), and others.
After the merger, Adobe quietly upgraded its existing creative suites to include the Macromedia package, but CS3 moves to merge them all into a unified bundle. The suites include special software (VersionCue, Bridge) to expedite sharing design elements throughout a project. The application interfaces are now more consistent – but only to a point. The company very clearly took care to make sure that the professionals, who are the core customer base, didn’t face any steep learning curves.
Consumer sales likely will be limited to hardcore photo, movie, or web enthusiasts, or to small businesses needing specific components of the package. If you are one of them, I recommend you do extensive shopping research on the Internet to work your way thought the dizzying array of versions and upgrade options to ensure you find the best price. As a general rule, if you need three or more (and sometimes as few as two) of a suite’s component applications, you will do better on price with the suite.
This look at CS3 products, therefore, is organized in rough order of consumer and small business interest:
• Acrobat 8 Professional: Released on its own at the end of last year, it is part of about half the CS3 bundles. Acrobat Pro carries an intimidating $400+ pricetag, but is very much a must-have for businesses and free-lancers who need to distribute documents that retain their formatting and design. An impressive new feature in this version is its ability to printed or PDF forms into electronic versions that can be filled out on your computer with the results fed into a database.
• Contribute CS3: This web-content editor gets a modest update. It remains one of the easiest tools for revising pages on an existing site.
• Dreamweaver CS3 is now the definitive tool for building web sites. I don’t find it especially easy to use, but webmasters love it.
• Photoshop CS3: what can you say when the product’s name has entered the vocabulary as a verb? More complicated than most users need, it’s the serious photographers’ darkroom in the digital age.
For those of us, however, don’t quite have pockets deep enough for CS3. But there are a variety of alternative choices. A long list of both free and low-priced Acrobat creation and editing tools, for example, are just a Web search away. I previously recommended RapidWeaver (Macintosh) and Site Studio (Windows) for easy web creation. And Adobe’s own Photoshop Elements continues to be more than adequate to meet the graphic needs of most consumers. For creating print materials, Microsoft Publisher pretty much owns the Windows market while Mac users can chose such options as BeLight Software’s Printfolio bundle, which offers a big range of features (including mass mailing and CD/DVD label tools) for a small price ($85).
Also, consumers should know that most of the third party add-on enhancements for Photoshop also work with Photoshop Elements. These can be pricy, but in many cases they are a better investment than upgrading to Photoshop CS3 might be.
Alien Skin has at least three that consumers can benefit from: Image Doctor lets you easily eliminate the speckles (called “artifacts”) caused by JPEG compression, remove photo imperfections – and above all, retouch out unwanted picture elements (e.g., making power lines disappear from that otherwise scenic landscape shot you took or getting rid of a trash barrel in a lovely vista.) Its new Blow Up package lets you scale up a snapshot to large print or even poster size. The third, Snap Art, isn’t a must. But I am a sucker for tools that let you take photos and turn them into pseudo-paintings, so I think this tool is a lot of fun.
Note upfront: CS3 is a product aimed primarily at professionals. It comes in a multiple versions organized around the needs of creative shops and has pricetags north of $1,000 in full versions. There are lower cost alternatives, some of which are from Adobe and some even are in the CS3 arsenal (more on that later).
Macromedia was strong in web-oriented products: its Flash animation/programming tools and the Dreamweaver web-site creation and design application. Adobe has dropped its equivalent applications, while retaining its own industry-leading software – Photoshop and Acrobat, of course, plus Illustrator (graphics design), InDesign (print layout), Premiere (video editing), and others.
After the merger, Adobe quietly upgraded its existing creative suites to include the Macromedia package, but CS3 moves to merge them all into a unified bundle. The suites include special software (VersionCue, Bridge) to expedite sharing design elements throughout a project. The application interfaces are now more consistent – but only to a point. The company very clearly took care to make sure that the professionals, who are the core customer base, didn’t face any steep learning curves.
Consumer sales likely will be limited to hardcore photo, movie, or web enthusiasts, or to small businesses needing specific components of the package. If you are one of them, I recommend you do extensive shopping research on the Internet to work your way thought the dizzying array of versions and upgrade options to ensure you find the best price. As a general rule, if you need three or more (and sometimes as few as two) of a suite’s component applications, you will do better on price with the suite.
This look at CS3 products, therefore, is organized in rough order of consumer and small business interest:
• Acrobat 8 Professional: Released on its own at the end of last year, it is part of about half the CS3 bundles. Acrobat Pro carries an intimidating $400+ pricetag, but is very much a must-have for businesses and free-lancers who need to distribute documents that retain their formatting and design. An impressive new feature in this version is its ability to printed or PDF forms into electronic versions that can be filled out on your computer with the results fed into a database.
• Contribute CS3: This web-content editor gets a modest update. It remains one of the easiest tools for revising pages on an existing site.
• Dreamweaver CS3 is now the definitive tool for building web sites. I don’t find it especially easy to use, but webmasters love it.
• Photoshop CS3: what can you say when the product’s name has entered the vocabulary as a verb? More complicated than most users need, it’s the serious photographers’ darkroom in the digital age.
For those of us, however, don’t quite have pockets deep enough for CS3. But there are a variety of alternative choices. A long list of both free and low-priced Acrobat creation and editing tools, for example, are just a Web search away. I previously recommended RapidWeaver (Macintosh) and Site Studio (Windows) for easy web creation. And Adobe’s own Photoshop Elements continues to be more than adequate to meet the graphic needs of most consumers. For creating print materials, Microsoft Publisher pretty much owns the Windows market while Mac users can chose such options as BeLight Software’s Printfolio bundle, which offers a big range of features (including mass mailing and CD/DVD label tools) for a small price ($85).
Also, consumers should know that most of the third party add-on enhancements for Photoshop also work with Photoshop Elements. These can be pricy, but in many cases they are a better investment than upgrading to Photoshop CS3 might be.
Alien Skin has at least three that consumers can benefit from: Image Doctor lets you easily eliminate the speckles (called “artifacts”) caused by JPEG compression, remove photo imperfections – and above all, retouch out unwanted picture elements (e.g., making power lines disappear from that otherwise scenic landscape shot you took or getting rid of a trash barrel in a lovely vista.) Its new Blow Up package lets you scale up a snapshot to large print or even poster size. The third, Snap Art, isn’t a must. But I am a sucker for tools that let you take photos and turn them into pseudo-paintings, so I think this tool is a lot of fun.
