Nice to see so mnay people talking about Adobe CS because:
I am a freelance writer for Computer Arts magazine and would like to hear from people who have used Adobe CS. We are doing an article profiling and interviewing designers and artists to get a feel of how it has/will influence their working practice. This would be a great opportunity for people to get their URL and work in print.
Unfortunately I'm running against an ultra tight-deadline - have to get this in the bag for Monday, so if you're interested, be sure to contact me asap!
Other points of interest: the Match Color command is pretty cool when used in tandem with a custom brush. What it does is basically map a particular color over your existing one, while maintaining the lighting and texture characteristics. It's a little bit like painting in Color mode at a low setting vs. painting a color in Normal mode.
Huh? I don't get how you tie Match Color to a brush.
Derrrr, which way did he go George, which way did he go??
Sorry, feel like an idiot.
I was trying to describe the Color Replacement Tool (hence the brush) earlier... I must've been thinking of something else I was working on at the time and wrote Match Color (which is new also) when I didn't intend to.
if you open illustrator 10, 9, 8 docs in CS, text becomes uneditable (probably flattened or converted to outlines).
This sucks.
Tell me about it! What it does is bust up your text paths into lots of little ones. For example, if you had text that said "This sucks" the paths would be broken to three or four paths that say "Thi" "s S" "uck" "s". It's not a problem as long as you never want to change the text, but you can easily see the problem if you wanted to change something. I spent 8 hours doing just that the other day.
I'm a freelance Art director, so I have to send files to agencies all the time. Since they haven't upgraded yet, they can't open my CS files and I have to export "Legacy" ai files with broken paths and go into Illustrator 10 and basically recreate the entire document there. I'm done with Illustrator CS until they fix this or everyone on the planet upgrades so I can send out files.
I understand that Adobe wants to force everyone to upgrade, but this is a terrible way to do it. I think it will have the reverse effect. They did a great job of keeping it quiet though. they got my $600.
I got it for christmas, and i love it (ps and imageready). I had a demo of 7.0, and it's a lot better and faster. The only time that i know it will freeze in Windows is trying to import a .mov file of any length, and doing something else at the same time
Adobe maintains its recent record of punishing Illustrator and Mac users. Right-click or control-click on the Illustrator CS icon in the Dock while its running. Where the *!#$%& is the open window listing. And that's only the start of the rant. Maybe Adobe will start to figure out that OS X is different from Windows. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
My personal fortune to anyone who carbonizes Illustrator 8.
The only CS app that gets regular use is InDesign. The rest SUCK in that special Adobe "Apple is our friend" way.
Installed the "reseller copy" of CS on my G5. Been running and testing it for two weeks....
My impression.
Acrobat Pro
I am kind of suprised that it's not the updated 6.01 . It's not a real big deal but I really don't know why they put the 6.0 when 6.01 was out before the CS suite came.
Launching this app still takes forever even on a G5. But browing and jumping pages are so much quicker than v 5.05. Getting PDF converted to HTML works but very very very very very very very very limited.
Photoshop
Honestly I really don't like the filter window. It makes things a lot more complicated. File Browser is SLOWER than version 7 especially when you are clicking the menu commands (Files, Edit, etc) on the browswer window. Feels like pointing and clicking in Limewire.
Speed (filters and other general operations) seems to be about the same to v7 (with G5 plug in). There is one 3rd party plug ins worked in v7 don't work with CS - Genuine Fractal Print Pro.
The highlight/shadow enhance feature comes in quite handy but if the picture is bad it's totally useless.
Illustrator
Much faster than v10 IN EVERYTHING THING. Double clicking the window's title bar doesn't shrink the window to dock.
Auto Trace tool is the pure joke. I can't believe Adobe hasn't update this tool since v5.5!
Text tool is much better but if you save it back to older version those properties will be lost. Or save as v11 file but forget about other people running older Illustrator can read your file.
Haven't touch the "3D Tool" too much so I can't comment.
InDesign
Much quicker than v2. Finally supports scroll wheel in the document window. But still don't know why Adobe didn't make scroll wheel work with the page palette!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The PageMaker/XPress property like palette helps to reduce the palette clutter a bit. But the app is still very palette heavy.
Even with tons of transparencies and drop shadows applied to pics, shapes, text, the app still runs smooth. I am suprised.
Bummer - Can't save back to older version
GoLive
I never am a fan of GoLive. This latest version doesn't help either. Even with the major overhaul on interface it's still way too palette heavy.
Some simple operations like making rollover (separate palette just for this operation?!) and setting layers, tables require more mouse clicks than Dreamweaver.
Not to mention to the codes this app generates. There's still a lot of "pure junks"....not good
Only advantage this app above Dreamweaver MX 2004 is speed. If Macromedia finally get their lazy a$$ off their sofa and fix the speed issue GoLive won't even stand a chance to compete.
I personally like all of the CS upgrades now, I hated GoLive before CS, now it just kind of works, and I don't use Dreamweaver anymore. Illustrator is a whole lot better, it is a really nice upgrade... Photoshop does not have any real revolutionary changes, but it does support RAW now if your into photo... I think it is faster too. InDesign is deffinetly nicer now too...
None of the applications are oh man I have to get this it will change my workflow forever upgrades but if you can upgrade, you should.
There are a few things in this version of Photoshop that have made my life easier. One of them is their support for 16-Bit images. The fact that I don't have to use FilmGimp and I can use Photoshop (a program that I've used for more than 8 years) makes me a happy camper. We are working on a movie at work that uses Cineons. I can just laod up those Cineons and just paint in Photoshop using the brushes that I am used to. That is HUGE for me. Also I am a huge organizational freak, so the new nested layer sets are really nice. They should have been there when they first introduced layer sets but better late then never. Layer comps are pretty handy if you know how to use them. One feature I wish they would have kept but got dumped during the beta phase was the non-destructive layer adjustment (a la After Effects). People testing couldn't really figure out how this was useful during the beta phase, but I found them insanely useful. Hopefully they come back. I personally like the new File Browser. It does seem faster to me, either on my PowerBook or on my G5. One little feature that is in Photoshop that I like but I don't know if anyone really noticed is the sliders next to any numerical adjustments. This is something that was in After Effects but is now in Photoshop. To use it, just put your mouse cursor to the left of a numerical box and you should see a cursor with a double sided arrow. You can now scrub that value and see real-time feedback, this is kinda dependent on your hardware as some things might be computational intense so it might take a sec to update. There are other little things but that my general feel of it.
Illustrator CS:
ABOUT TIME I CAN OPEN UP A PSD AND EDIT ITS CONTENTS!! That alone makes me happy. I understand to an extent why they lost some backwards compatibility. The whole type engine got revamped, and I think for the better. I like that I can edit text in a PSD within Illustrator. Why it wasn't there before still boggles me. Another thing that I am happy about is the fact that it is faster now. Illustrator 9 and 10 were fat pigs that would make your computer feel 10 years older than they were. Like Leonis said, the Auto-Trace tool is a JOKE! Freehand MX's version of this tool is far beyond the Auto-Trace tool in Illustrator. Come on Adobe, get on ya asses and update this thing. I hate having to go into another package to do this. I know I can buy something like Silhouette but that is stupid. For most of my basic tracing needs the FREE tool in Freehand works right. All in all I think there is a lot of stuff under the hood that makes Illustrator better. I generally like it more than 9 and 10, mostly because now it is usable and I don't see the beach ball that often.
InDesign:
This app is starting to shape up really nicely. Quark is gonna die one of these days, and I understand why. Major magazines are starting to move away from Quark. One of them is Future Publishing. They publish a serious amount of magazines, and in one of their latest issues of CA Projects they talk about their move from Quark to InDesign. I agree that ID is a palette heavy application but it is getting better with each release. It is faster, more accurate and better integrated than Quark could ever be. I haven't had too much time to spend with it but I am going to when I start on a new project in a the next week or so. I CAN'T WAIT!!
GoLive:
I haven't used it much but I might start to, unless Macromedia gets off it's ass and speeds up DreamWeaver. That application is a FREAKING DOG!! I am going to try and deal with laying out a site n GoLive and see how it goes. I spend more time designing than actually coding, I leave that to others, at least recently I have, but I will see which one of these two end up being better for me.
Acrobat 6:
It is noticeably faster than 5.05 was. Some things are still slow, especially compared to the PC version of Acrobat, but it is getting better. Hopefully Adobe will actually give the Mac version some more love! We recently delivered a InDesign project to a client as PDFs and they were spot on! In the future,, we will continue using the inDesign and PDF system. We have also found a local print house that is AMAZING and now supports InDesign projects! THANK YOU!
My general feel of the CS is that it is a good start. There is a lot more under the hood stuff that went into this release. I think future releases will show even more integration because of the underlying code. We can only wait and see what it brings us.
Comments
Originally posted by foxtrotyankee
Nice to see so mnay people talking about Adobe CS because:
I am a freelance writer for Computer Arts magazine and would like to hear from people who have used Adobe CS. We are doing an article profiling and interviewing designers and artists to get a feel of how it has/will influence their working practice. This would be a great opportunity for people to get their URL and work in print.
Unfortunately I'm running against an ultra tight-deadline - have to get this in the bag for Monday, so if you're interested, be sure to contact me asap!
badgerbadger@badgerbadger.freeserve.co.uk
Hey there jerome. I was wondering if you got my email?
Originally posted by Moogs
Other points of interest: the Match Color command is pretty cool when used in tandem with a custom brush. What it does is basically map a particular color over your existing one, while maintaining the lighting and texture characteristics. It's a little bit like painting in Color mode at a low setting vs. painting a color in Normal mode.
Huh? I don't get how you tie Match Color to a brush.
Sorry, feel like an idiot.
I was trying to describe the Color Replacement Tool (hence the brush) earlier... I must've been thinking of something else I was working on at the time and wrote Match Color (which is new also) when I didn't intend to.
Originally posted by giant
Just installed CS, opened a document in indesign, fell in love.
Sounds good ...
Could you tell me (us) more about indesign-CS please!? How's the handling/speed with large/heavy documents? Is it finally as fast as Quark?
thanx
Originally posted by Outsider
if you open illustrator 10, 9, 8 docs in CS, text becomes uneditable (probably flattened or converted to outlines).
This sucks.
Tell me about it! What it does is bust up your text paths into lots of little ones. For example, if you had text that said "This sucks" the paths would be broken to three or four paths that say "Thi" "s S" "uck" "s". It's not a problem as long as you never want to change the text, but you can easily see the problem if you wanted to change something. I spent 8 hours doing just that the other day.
I'm a freelance Art director, so I have to send files to agencies all the time. Since they haven't upgraded yet, they can't open my CS files and I have to export "Legacy" ai files with broken paths and go into Illustrator 10 and basically recreate the entire document there. I'm done with Illustrator CS until they fix this or everyone on the planet upgrades so I can send out files.
I understand that Adobe wants to force everyone to upgrade, but this is a terrible way to do it. I think it will have the reverse effect. They did a great job of keeping it quiet though. they got my $600.
My personal fortune to anyone who carbonizes Illustrator 8.
The only CS app that gets regular use is InDesign. The rest SUCK in that special Adobe "Apple is our friend" way.
My impression.
Acrobat Pro
I am kind of suprised that it's not the updated 6.01 . It's not a real big deal but I really don't know why they put the 6.0 when 6.01 was out before the CS suite came.
Launching this app still takes forever even on a G5. But browing and jumping pages are so much quicker than v 5.05. Getting PDF converted to HTML works but very very very very very very very very limited.
Photoshop
Honestly I really don't like the filter window. It makes things a lot more complicated. File Browser is SLOWER than version 7 especially when you are clicking the menu commands (Files, Edit, etc) on the browswer window. Feels like pointing and clicking in Limewire.
Speed (filters and other general operations) seems to be about the same to v7 (with G5 plug in). There is one 3rd party plug ins worked in v7 don't work with CS - Genuine Fractal Print Pro.
The highlight/shadow enhance feature comes in quite handy but if the picture is bad it's totally useless.
Illustrator
Much faster than v10 IN EVERYTHING THING. Double clicking the window's title bar doesn't shrink the window to dock.
Auto Trace tool is the pure joke. I can't believe Adobe hasn't update this tool since v5.5!
Text tool is much better but if you save it back to older version those properties will be lost. Or save as v11 file but forget about other people running older Illustrator can read your file.
Haven't touch the "3D Tool" too much so I can't comment.
InDesign
Much quicker than v2. Finally supports scroll wheel in the document window. But still don't know why Adobe didn't make scroll wheel work with the page palette!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The PageMaker/XPress property like palette helps to reduce the palette clutter a bit. But the app is still very palette heavy.
Even with tons of transparencies and drop shadows applied to pics, shapes, text, the app still runs smooth. I am suprised.
Bummer - Can't save back to older version
GoLive
I never am a fan of GoLive. This latest version doesn't help either. Even with the major overhaul on interface it's still way too palette heavy.
Some simple operations like making rollover (separate palette just for this operation?!) and setting layers, tables require more mouse clicks than Dreamweaver.
Not to mention to the codes this app generates. There's still a lot of "pure junks"....not good
Only advantage this app above Dreamweaver MX 2004 is speed. If Macromedia finally get their lazy a$$ off their sofa and fix the speed issue GoLive won't even stand a chance to compete.
None of the applications are oh man I have to get this it will change my workflow forever upgrades but if you can upgrade, you should.
Photoshop CS:
There are a few things in this version of Photoshop that have made my life easier. One of them is their support for 16-Bit images. The fact that I don't have to use FilmGimp and I can use Photoshop (a program that I've used for more than 8 years) makes me a happy camper. We are working on a movie at work that uses Cineons. I can just laod up those Cineons and just paint in Photoshop using the brushes that I am used to. That is HUGE for me. Also I am a huge organizational freak, so the new nested layer sets are really nice. They should have been there when they first introduced layer sets but better late then never. Layer comps are pretty handy if you know how to use them. One feature I wish they would have kept but got dumped during the beta phase was the non-destructive layer adjustment (a la After Effects). People testing couldn't really figure out how this was useful during the beta phase, but I found them insanely useful. Hopefully they come back. I personally like the new File Browser. It does seem faster to me, either on my PowerBook or on my G5. One little feature that is in Photoshop that I like but I don't know if anyone really noticed is the sliders next to any numerical adjustments. This is something that was in After Effects but is now in Photoshop. To use it, just put your mouse cursor to the left of a numerical box and you should see a cursor with a double sided arrow. You can now scrub that value and see real-time feedback, this is kinda dependent on your hardware as some things might be computational intense so it might take a sec to update. There are other little things but that my general feel of it.
Illustrator CS:
ABOUT TIME I CAN OPEN UP A PSD AND EDIT ITS CONTENTS!! That alone makes me happy. I understand to an extent why they lost some backwards compatibility. The whole type engine got revamped, and I think for the better. I like that I can edit text in a PSD within Illustrator. Why it wasn't there before still boggles me. Another thing that I am happy about is the fact that it is faster now. Illustrator 9 and 10 were fat pigs that would make your computer feel 10 years older than they were. Like Leonis said, the Auto-Trace tool is a JOKE! Freehand MX's version of this tool is far beyond the Auto-Trace tool in Illustrator. Come on Adobe, get on ya asses and update this thing. I hate having to go into another package to do this. I know I can buy something like Silhouette but that is stupid. For most of my basic tracing needs the FREE tool in Freehand works right. All in all I think there is a lot of stuff under the hood that makes Illustrator better. I generally like it more than 9 and 10, mostly because now it is usable and I don't see the beach ball that often.
InDesign:
This app is starting to shape up really nicely. Quark is gonna die one of these days, and I understand why. Major magazines are starting to move away from Quark. One of them is Future Publishing. They publish a serious amount of magazines, and in one of their latest issues of CA Projects they talk about their move from Quark to InDesign. I agree that ID is a palette heavy application but it is getting better with each release. It is faster, more accurate and better integrated than Quark could ever be. I haven't had too much time to spend with it but I am going to when I start on a new project in a the next week or so. I CAN'T WAIT!!
GoLive:
I haven't used it much but I might start to, unless Macromedia gets off it's ass and speeds up DreamWeaver. That application is a FREAKING DOG!! I am going to try and deal with laying out a site n GoLive and see how it goes. I spend more time designing than actually coding, I leave that to others, at least recently I have, but I will see which one of these two end up being better for me.
Acrobat 6:
It is noticeably faster than 5.05 was. Some things are still slow, especially compared to the PC version of Acrobat, but it is getting better. Hopefully Adobe will actually give the Mac version some more love! We recently delivered a InDesign project to a client as PDFs and they were spot on! In the future,, we will continue using the inDesign and PDF system. We have also found a local print house that is AMAZING and now supports InDesign projects! THANK YOU!
My general feel of the CS is that it is a good start. There is a lot more under the hood stuff that went into this release. I think future releases will show even more integration because of the underlying code. We can only wait and see what it brings us.