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Graphics Software Upgrades

Adobe Releases Updated Creative Suite 307

Posted by Hemos from the new-features-new-bugs dept.
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."
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Adobe Releases Updated Creative Suite More

Adobe Releases Updated Creative Suite

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  • These applications have historically been updated annually, or at the longest, every other year. Is this "news" supposed to be exciting?

    Couldn't Adobe have purchased traditional advertisement space?

    • Rather close to my reaction of "So what?".

      I used to hate Acrobat with a passion, but KDE's PS/PDF viewer acts like a normal app, and I just don't care anymore.
    • According to the webcast, it's the "only true cross-media solution". I think the emphasis is meant to be on the *suite*, not the products. Numerous people have posted comments to the effect of 'nothing's new'. I disagree. From the webcast, it looks like they've done a lot of work closely integrating these products; it's the integration that is the selling of the 'creative suite', and integration saves money and time for designers who are already on tight schedules. *shrug*

    • Re:* = no Ads when I don't want them (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      When you're a mac user, any software update is exciting.

      They have what, a whole 20 titles to look forward to?
    • Updating all your design apps at once is a huge project. It looks like Adobe might be taking advantage of developers overseas.

      Hopefully Adobe's software doesn't become a huge bug-filled mess like Macromedia's (especially Macromedia god awful Mac ports).

    • Mao --

      As much as I respect you and your posts, I have to question this one. Slashdot has LONG been used as an advertising forum via its articles. Do you also complain about the book reviews (which are even more blantant -- complete with the BN partner links)? The answer might very well be "yes" I realize, but my point is that it should come as no shock nor suprise anymore.

  • Not that amazing... (Score:3, Informative)

    by JanusFury ( 452699 ) <kevin.gadd@gmail.COBOLcom minus language> on Monday September 29, 2003 @12:32PM (#7085700) Homepage Journal
    Photoshop CS - improved file browser, layer comps, text on a path (finally)

    GoLive CS - buffed up CSS and PDF features
    InDesign CS - improved cross-media support
    Illustrator CS - 3D Effects, Refined Typography and Lightning Performance
    This doesn't sound that amazing. What's newsworthy about this? Anyone in the know care to comment? The story's links seem to be extremely light on content.

    • Re:Not that amazing... (Score:3, Informative)

      by tonywong ( 96839 )
      There's a review of PS CS on dpreview.com

      Too lazy to link, sorry.
    • ...direct from Adobe [adobe.com], natch. Not sure exactly who it's for, but it looks like a cross between InDesign page layout software and a creative word processor.
    • As I posted in another thread, the emphasis of the webcast was on the creative suite being the "only true cross-media solution". Adobe are big on the integration between their products; one of the presenters emphasised the fact that the suite is backed up by these applications; from his phraseology, I'm guessing that the suite isn't simply a bundling of the software - it looks like they have actually done a lot of work integrating these apps, for what it's worth.

    • Re:Not that amazing... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by badasscat ( 563442 ) <basscadet75@@@yahoo...com> on Monday September 29, 2003 @01:18PM (#7086208)
      This doesn't sound that amazing. What's newsworthy about this?

      This. [com.com]

      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.

  • Macromedia too (Score:4, Informative)

    by axlrosen ( 88070 ) * on Monday September 29, 2003 @12:33PM (#7085712) Homepage
    They released the MX 2004 versions of all their tools a week or so ago.

    http://www.macromedia.com/software/mx2004/ [macromedia.com]

    For example Dreamweaver now supports CSS Layout.

  • Sorry. (Score:5, Funny)

    by cybermace5 ( 446439 ) <g.ryan@macetech.com> on Monday September 29, 2003 @12:36PM (#7085741) Homepage Journal
    I don't know what a "motherload" is. Is that about two toddlers, three bags of groceries, a purse, keys, coffee mug and cellphone?

    It also occurs to me that perhaps we're talking about a mother lode, taken from gold mining and referring to a specific area of rich quartz veins, and now used to indicate "striking it big" or discovering a wealth of materials or information.
    • And don't get me started on that last sentence. Sometimes I wish I was ignorant, and none of this would bother me.

  • Application maturity (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @12:38PM (#7085772)

    The interesting thing is that Abode is having exactly the same problems as Microsoft. That is, of application maturity.

    Photoshop as a tool is completely mature. It has been for quite a while now. For many people that use it, there is no reason to upgrade. This is also true of Microsoft Office, and to an extent some of Macromedia's tools such as Dreamweaver.

    The sad thing about all of this is that these companies are trying to find ways of forcing people to upgrade. Macromedia is especially guilty to this I think - it is trying myriad ways of squeezing more money out of the purchasers of their software. Well, I for one am not playing their game - I don't like being strong armed into purchases.

    In the long run, I think these companies are going to die out, because they can't improve their applications much more but OSS solutions are going to evenutally catch up and become equally mature. Still, they've got a few years yet. I give them a decade.
    • 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 f

    • Re:Application maturity (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tonywong ( 96839 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @01:00PM (#7086046) Homepage
      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.
    • The sad thing about all of this is that these companies are trying to find ways of forcing people to upgrade. Macromedia is especially guilty to this I think - it is trying myriad ways of squeezing more money out of the purchasers of their software. Well, I for one am not playing their game - I don't like being strong armed into purchases.

      I've always had trouble getting the notion of being "forced" and "strong-armed" into upgrading a product. How do you feel like someone is trying to force you into buying
      • I've always had trouble getting the notion of being "forced" and "strong-armed" into upgrading a product.

        Well, I know Macromedia's products better, so I'll talk about those. They have started to make lots of components for them, and to sell them individually. Prevously these would have been considered part of the application product.

        The components in Flash MX for instance had small faults in them (which Macromedia never corrected) and now they've just released Flash MX 2004, which needs completely new co
        • 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 pr
    • The biggest victim of application maturity is Autodesk. AutoCAD has had nowhere to go for a long time now.

    • Sure, unless you use a DSLR (Score:4, Interesting)

      by neile ( 139369 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @01:18PM (#7086222)
      Sorry, but have you actually tried to use Photoshop 7.0 to process images from a digital SLR like the Canon 10D? I have, and I can tell you I'm eagerly awaiting Photoshop 8.0.

      Adobe has no built-in support for RAW image processing, you have to buy their $99 add-in, and even that doesn't support the Canon 10D without gross hacks. With Photoshop 8.0 this should now be included and cleaned up.

      Photoshop 7.0 still only has rudimentary support for 16-bit editing. Try going and applying the vast majority of the filters when working with a 16-bit image. Sorry, out of luck, need to drop back to 8-bit.

      Want to resize your picture to a specific inch dimension and resolution so you can print out your digital print at your favourite Costco or on your home printer? Sure, it's possible, but it's not exactly obvious how to do it.

      Photoshop 7.0 went a long way to helping web designers use Photoshop for web content. Hopefully Photoshop 8.0 will go just as far to make it a valuable tool for digital photographers.
    • They could open a whole new market for themselves by doing Linux ports.
    • Photoshop as a tool is completely mature. It has been for quite a while now.

      Uh... no. The problem with Photoshop is that it's developers are lacking in imagination. There are a lot of things that can be done to speed up the workflow, a lot of things that could be animated. There are still no symbols, no sub folders. There's only very basic grouping of layers and elements. You can't change the font of more than one text object at once. There's no multiple redo, etc.

      There are a lot of functions, small, eas
      • I agree absolutely.

        Photoshop and Illustrator should be one application. In fact, almost every "new" feature in Photoshop over the past few version has simply been a "raster" version of something already available in Illustrator. It's ridiculous.

        The only reason they are still separate is because Adobe knows that they can sell you both for twice the price.

      • The next logical step would be to combine Photoshop and Illustrator.

        Right on. There's no reason to approach vector and raster art through different programs. Jumping is innefficient and kludgy and leads to a "when my only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" approach instead of using both tools for what they do best.

        (Adobe seems to realize that things need to be further integrated. That's why they have the stupid 'CS' tacked on to the end of program names.)

        The only reason I see that A

    • I'd love for the GIMP to catch up to photoshop. I'd love for the GIMP to just catch up enough to use CMYK (iirc) pallets rather than RGB. I'd love for the GIMP to grok enough about the propriatary RAW formats from digital cameras.

      The GIMP hasn't had a significan't update in forever. I love it as a tool, but it can't compete with photoshop.

      Blind faith in OSS sollutions won't help you. When YOU contribute to the software (documentation, user education (not user flaming), code, test cases, bug reports, e
  • Apple's first page points to this article [apple.com] about the new tools.

  • I wish they'd get on and do a Linux Photoshop... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by EnglishTim ( 9662 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @12:40PM (#7085803)
    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.
    • Riiiiiiiight. Adobe has a hard enough time keeping the program work correctly across two platforms. Imagine what kind of seizures they would have if you added in all the Linux flavors out there. I prefer my Adobe products without dependency issues.
    • Adobe did a version of Photoshop 3.0 for IRIX in the mid-90's. Even though SGI was the king of VFX back then, and *everyone* doing VFX had SGI's, it never sold.
    • With OS X versions, how hard could it be?

      You'd also think the intelligent thing to do would be to make as much of the code base as platform neutral as possible so you're not writing two versions for two platforms anyway.
      • i see this a lot. OS X is not linux. It is OS X. completely different. OS X and Linux are both UNIX based but that is where the similarity ends.

        that is like saying "photoshop runs on windows, windows runs on x86 and linux does too, so shouldn't photoshop run on linux?"
        • One can write code that will work correctly and cleanly in both, and retain all the look and feel of both environments. There's even three different toolkits under Linux that also work under MacOS X. In fact, LGP is wondering what to do with our Ballistics port once we get PPC Linux support working- it's just a VERY small hop over to MacOS X from there for the codebase.

          Just because they're UNIX based but "different" is NOT an excuse for needing or even doing two different codebases.
          • ok the real reason adobe won't port it to linux is simple. there is no money in it. the hobbyists won't pay because they are used to getting stuff for free, so it will be widely pirated in that group (as it is on windows/mac). this wouldn't be a big deal if linux had a large share of desktop users in corporate environments. but it doesn't. they would not be able to recoup the losses suffered for porting it or their percieved losses (a completely different discussion) for the hobbyist users pirating it.
    • 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)

  • Cripes, more ABC versioning (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @12:40PM (#7085807)
    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"?
    • 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.
    • It's called Longhorn -- just so you don't have to deal with numbers at all. :-)
  • The price of the new software will rise 13% with the new versions. Upgrade prices for individual copies of Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign will be $ 169, up from $149 for the previous upgrade. The premium suite will sell for $749 to customers that use Photoshop. The standard suite without Acrobat has a $549 price tag.

    The new Photoshop will include features to make it easier to match colors among photos and to store more information about photos, making them simpler to retrieve. Illustrator will include
  • and in a predictable manner at that.

    Remember when most people bought Microsoft Word as a standalone app for $400 or so? And way back in the early-1980s, I think the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet alone went for $595.

    Years ago, competition from Corel and others forced Microsoft to bundle Word with their other apps, and sell the whole thing for about what they used to get just for Word.

    Graphic apps aren't used by nearly so many people as office apps, so it makes sense the trend of bundling graphic apps would

  • Product Activation (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Geeky ( 90998 )
    It would appear that the Windows version will have product activation [adobe.com] as per Windows XP. This technology has apparently been bought from a third party.

    Sadly, I still think Photoshop beats the Gimp for high end photo editing. Is there anything available for Linux that uses colour profiles and allows on screen proof previews using those profiles?

  • Product Activation (Score:5, Informative)

    by mattso ( 578394 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @12:47PM (#7085883)
    Now with Product Activation
    http://www.adobe.com/activation/main.html [adobe.com]
    • One nice perk of being a Mac user is that the Mac version of Photoshop CS still has no activation. That will not last forever though, as in that same link they say that it's being tested on Windows to "strike the right balance with users", and then will be rolled out to other platforms and products.

      It will be interesting to see if activation which prevents casual piracy will help or hinder products like XP and CS. Sure they have more sales now, but also a smaller user base that will look for other produc

  • SVG Viewer 6 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by listen ( 20464 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @12:55PM (#7085991)
    But when will they actually release an updated SVG Viewer?

    The currently released version is just wbout 2 years old. The preview of version 6 is better, but won't get installed anywhere until its actually released officialy and bundled with Acrobat reader.

    And corporate muppets won't roll out preview releases.

    I have to wonder how commited Adobe is to SVG. Their preview release of ASV6 is good enough to discourage competitors (it would take quite an effort to match it in a ~2 year timeframe), but won't get installed anywhere until release. Are they scared that SVG will eat PDF as well as Flash?

  • Also worth checking out. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is gimp 1.3.20. It is a million times better than gimp 1.2. Complete with easier to use GUI, more filters, CMYK support and support for more image formats..

    If you wanted to switch to linux but you couldn't because the gimp sucked, try it again. You will be inpressed. Its a development version, so its not included in most distros, but its well worth a look.

  • More precisely about photoshop.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29, 2003 @01:10PM (#7086133)
    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)
    • Photoshop. This one software package is single-handedly keeping me from migrating to Linux

      Penguin Moves to Disney [eweek.com]

      Disney, along with two other motion picture animation studios ... decided to jointly fund the development of a Windows-to- Linux porting solution ... using the Wine emulator to run Adobe Photoshop on Linux.

    • who says? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bluGill ( 862 )

      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 you

    • it's color acuity precise

      On a Mac with properly set up and calibrated ColorSync yeah, but I have yet to meet a graphic designer who's had any real luck with color management on Win (if they dont' know about ColorSync, I show them mine...gets them every time.)
    • "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."

      That's not 'all' that they have. Many of their products are out there on their own.

      Freehand has something, but it's not Illustrator by a long-shot (and the opensource solution, SodiPodi, is good but not even playing the same game)

      Ever want to actually edit a PDF, or add notes to it, or give it a working index? What does that besides Acr

  • Adobe's site is up! (Score:4, Informative)

    by ProfessionalCookie ( 673314 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @01:18PM (#7086207) Journal
    Look it's even easy to click!
    http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/ [adobe.com]

    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.

    • Dude, at $300/hour, I'd expect you'd want to take your jolly time! =)

      • Well, my customers wouldn't pay me so much if they thought I was milking the job. $300/hour is the price for "works fast with obsessive quality on brutal deadlines applying unique skills."

        That said, I wind up doing most of my work these days with per-project billing.

        I did the math a while ago, and figured that I'd only get half as much work if I increased by rate from $150/hour to $300/hour. Working half as much for the same money seemed like a pretty good deal :).
    • For those who aren't professionals, the cheap Photoshop Elements is a great alternative at fraction of the price.
      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.
      • I know people love the GIMP, but man, is that UI confusing to a new user. It can do everything, but is a lot harder to use than Elements for Elements' sweet spot of consumer photo retouching and manipulation.

        That said, there is a ton of stuff that GIMP can't do that isn't possible in Elements. It really depends on the need.
      • "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.
  • Great article at http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5083087.html [com.com] dealing with the issue a little more in depth than the listed ones.
  • InCopy 1.0 came out in October 1999. [digitalproducer.com]

    InCopy 2.0 ame oout in June 2002 [adobe.co.uk].

    even if you don't do anything but regurgitate press releases, look at some of the older ones as well.

  • Pro users are not happy! (Score:2, Informative)

    by iJed ( 594606 )
    According to Think Secret [thinksecret.com] 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.

  • Missing the point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by reptilicus ( 605251 ) on Monday September 29, 2003 @01:42PM (#7086476)
    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.

    • Re:Missing the point (Score:3, Interesting)

      by FFFish ( 7567 )
      Kill off Quark? It'll never happen. Quark users have two distinguishing characteristics:
      - they are absolute masochists.
      - they refuse to learn.

      In support of the former point, I present the Quark UI. It is simply fucking awful. It makes it difficult to work quickly and efficiently, and holds itself to no known UI standard. Ugh.

      In support of the latter, I present FrameMaker, Ventura, and InDesign.

      In every domain, Quark is solidly trounced and thrashed by its competition: FrameMaker and Ventura fo
  • a good rundown of the impact of Photoshop CS on those using it to tweak digital camera photos is at DPReview
    http://www.dpreview.com/news/0309/03092903photos hopcsreview.asp
    a generally useful site for digital photography news
  • Aren't they evil, for some reason? I know that I am boycotting them, but I forgot why. It was something outrageous, that I am sure.

    Anyone care to remind me what was the issue?

    Electronic books and their decription? Am I close??

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