Review of Adobe Creative Suite 5 204
Barence writes "Adobe today updated its Creative Suite software to version 5, and PC Pro has an absolutely massive collection of reviews. Along with an overview of the entire suite, from Design to Web to Production bundles, every individual component gets the full in-depth treatment. It includes video demonstrations of Photoshop CS5's fabulous Content-Aware fill trick and new Puppet Warp function; a long-awaited step up to 64-bit for Premiere Pro CS5; and big updates to Dreamweaver CS5, After Effects CS5, and the rest."
Any update on the export to iPhone? (Score:1, Insightful)
Hope they atleast release the Actionscript to Obj-C cross compiler so that people can at least attempt to use it for themselves, if not distribute it through the App Store.
Aaaaargghh (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Gushing, ignoring the important issues (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been dabbling with these products for years now and it just never seems like the extra bloat and resource hogging provides enough additional return to make it worth the effort.
I predict (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Content-Aware Fill = Old (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Gushing, ignoring the important issues (Score:4, Insightful)
PROTIP: Stop caring about the UI, learn some keyboard shortcuts every day, and use Photoshop in fullscreen mode with as few panels as possible (e.g. histogram, layers and layers adjustments)
Re:Any update on the export to iPhone? (Score:1, Insightful)
The Zealotry is now in full-force over this Flash thing - any comment that is remotely positive about Adobe is getting modbombed, either by an Apple catamite or a dirty freetard hippie.
Its funny to think about the tears of rage spewing forth inside of mom's basements across the world over something so trivial.
Re:Content-Aware Fill = Old (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that actually involves using GIMP... GIMP. People like me can't stand the interface despite the nifty features it may or may not have.
From what I can gather, the main reason people despise the GIMP UI is because they're so used to the designs of other programs. I've heard it said before that people that get used to GIMP, when they try Photoshop, find its UI to be "horrible" as well. Personally I like the GIMP interface and I don't see what's so horrible about it; might I remind you that if you hate its current UI so much, GIMP 2.8 (being released later this year) will have a single window mode so people don't complain as loud.
Re:FLOSS alternative? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no FLOSS alternative to the Adobe suite.
Photoshop vs GIMP = No contest
Illustrator vs Inkscape = Maybe passable alternative
Premiere vs Cinelerra = Don't make me vomit
OnLocation vs dvgrab+kino+some other misc tools = Well, it's like saying that you can do anything emacs can do with sed, awk, grep and cat.
InDesign has no FLOSS alternative. Yea, there are toolsets that can do the things that OnLocation, Encore, AfterEffects etc can do, but they're just a bunch of tools with no integration. The Adobe suite is a whole, integrated polished set of products.
I think if you want to see an example of what the open source method of software design (many people scratching their own little itch and putting the resultant code into a gigantic unsorted global code library) can *not* do, look at the Adobe Suite.
Re:FLOSS alternative? (Score:3, Insightful)
Translation:
"I believe in morality but I don't think I'm significant enough to have to abide by it".
Biggest Improvement They Could Make (Score:3, Insightful)
Unbundle the fscking apps already.
Even Microsoft lets you buy "just Word" for less than the price of Office.
All I want is Photoshop, so why am I paying for all of those other marquee apps as well? I'm using them on a Mac mini which cost less than the price of the suite.
Wait... don't tell me... that IS the price for Photoshop, and you just get all the other apps for free. I knew it! Damn you, Adobe!
Re:FLOSS alternative? (Score:2, Insightful)
Illustrator vs Inkscape = Maybe passable alternative
*sigh* Inkscape is not trying to ape Illustrator. Inkscape is a clone of Xara. And that's the way I like it. The sooner the world can forget an over-complicated monstrosity like Illustrator ever existed, the better. =)
(...Still sort of bitter that the Xara open source project went nowhere, but hey, Inkscape keeps getting more awesome with every release...)
The Adobe suite is a whole, integrated polished set of products.
We don't need a "whole integrated set of products". We don't need a walled-garden comfort zone where we have a set of "working" applications, and when you step outside of that boundary, you start griping about everything.
You're looking for one application that does everything you need. I'm looking for applications that do everything I need. We need to accept the fact that programs may have deficiencies that they make up with extra features. I don't need one application that does everything; I just need applications that do what I need with minimum hassle. If I need to save a file in one program and open it in another, that's generally not slowing me down too much.
I love the GIMP, but I recently really, really started to love MyPaint. MyPaint doesn't do everything The GIMP does. It doesn't claim to do that. It makes it up by focusing on the infinite-canvas/natural-paint-tools features. I need to use both programs, and I accept this isn't a bad thing. I draw sketches on paper, scan in GIMP/XSane, ink and colour in MyPaint and give final touches in GIMP again. No problems.
Yet, I've seen a lot of Photoshop zealots who just can't accept the fact that there's programs out there that might complement their existing set of tools. No infinite canvas in Photoshop? Tough cookies, you're not allowed to leave the comfort zone. Because once you do, you start craving for the missing features in the other programs. Missing features are evil... unless they're missing from Photoshop, in which case you can't mention them. Because the Suite is perfect.
So, we don't want integrated suites. We want an universally implemented set of file formats. This works to some extent; if I want to feed in text data, OpenDocument or HTML copy/paste usually works. Vector images? Just use SVG or export to PDF. Plain old bitmaps? PNG or JPEG. What we really need right now is a commonly agreed multi-layer image format; PSD is generally considered too difficult to implement. GIMP's .xcf isn't implemented any-frigging-where, and no one cares about the formats other OSS apps have for this purpose. I'm hoping OpenRaster will be an interesting direction.
Re:Adobe has been taking Creative Suite backwards. (Score:3, Insightful)
The day you drop $350 of your own money to buy a current version of a piece of software that won't even install and don't complain about it, you'll be allowed to complain about my complaining. Until then, piss off.