Adobe also needs to adopt some of those Freehand features such as their Lens effects, Arrows, and some short-cuts such as the Command+Click to select layered objects, they have this short-cut in InDesign but it's lacking in Illustrator, you'd think that Illustrator would have had it first.
The ONE AND ONLY THING Adobe needs to fix with this software is the SPEED.
I cant accept that pressing ctrl-o requires 5 seconds before the open dialog appears!! (windows)
What about thumbnail caching in the Adobe "open" dialog????
I cant accept that it has to regenerate thumbnails from 1 GB illustrator files EVERYTIME i use the dialog!!!
Why Oh Why do they add new features (that nobody needs) before fixing the SPEED of this software. It has basically gone worse with every release since illustrator 9.0 /photoshop 5.0
And the RAM hunger of this software is just insane! You just cant have three programs with files open at once within the RAM limit of windows xp, which is 3GB.
And why do you need to close and reopen photoshop (windows) everytime you want to release some RAM??? Why....
And....What about fixing the f...ing arrowhead tool in illustrator!?? That tool is SO outdated, limited and lame to use....Why would you not update such a BASIC tool to something more useful?
The ONE AND ONLY THING Adobe needs to fix with this software is the SPEED.
I cant accept that pressing ctrl-o requires 5 seconds before the open dialog appears!! (windows)
What about thumbnail caching in the Adobe "open" dialog????
I cant accept that it has to regenerate thumbnails from 1 GB illustrator files EVERYTIME i use the dialog!!!
Why Oh Why do they add new features (that nobody needs) before fixing the SPEED of this software. It has basically gone worse with every release since illustrator 9.0 /photoshop 5.0
And the RAM hunger of this software is just insane! You just cant have three programs with files open at once within the RAM limit of windows xp, which is 3GB.
And why do you need to close and reopen photoshop (windows) everytime you want to release some RAM??? Why....
And....What about fixing the f...ing arrowhead tool in illustrator!?? That tool is SO outdated, limited and lame to use....Why would you not update such a BASIC tool to something more useful?
These are all legitimate complaints, and I think CS4 when released will be 64-bit on Windows which should give you larger memory allocation to individual apps if you use 64-bit VISTA.
I wholeheartedly agree with the Arrowhead tool shortcoming (Windows and Mac).
These are all legitimate complaints, and I think CS4 when released will be 64-bit on Windows which should give you larger memory allocation to individual apps if you use 64-bit VISTA.
I wholeheartedly agree with the Arrowhead tool shortcoming (Windows and Mac).
However, this is an Apple Fora not Windows.
Thanks....I got some air..
Ok Here is a list of things they should fix regardless of platform:
Photoshop:
- Add UNDO for accidentially closing a polygon lasso (it happens all the time, and there is nothing to do but start all over.....
- REMOVE the f...cking "go to photoshop's webpage" button which is right next to the most used tool: the move tool. WHO wants to visit a webpage while clicking on the toolbar? WHO? This is spam, and should be illegal. (EDIT: sorry that was in CS2, but they will probably re-introduce it in CS4)
- DONT ask questions about "if you really want to de-saturate an image" when a f..cking 20 step history is enabled.
- Alot of the tools disappears when using them on a grey background, this should be easy to fix.
- Make a way to go back in your history and record what you did, to use in an action.
Illustrator:
- Fix the f...cking arrowhead tool...
- MAKE short-cuts that people with non-us keyboards can actually USE!! How the f..ck do you find the [ or the + button on a european keyboard. Why don't they use some standard buttons??
While I know it's not one of the reviewed apps from this preview, I just love that in order to gain Office 2008 compatibility for copying and pasting into design mode in Dreamweaver, we'll have to upgrade to CS4 here.
I've been working with the beta for a while now, and it does fix many of the stability issues that CS3 had. The new interface is a major improvement over the old, at least in this one instance.
So far, it seems to me the advantage we've gotten from Adobe buying Macromedia is a little better integration between flash, illustrator, and Photoshop and the 'advantage' of having most of the major design aps one might use looking similar now that a single company owns them all. However, the price advantage of a 'suite' is beginning to seem questionable to me. Yes, there is an initial savings in buying a huge bundle of aps over buying them all separately the first time you get all the full applications. Now that I'm locked into the suite, the real cost of useful significant upgrades has to date, skyrocketed in real terms for me personally (key words 'useful' and 'significant'). Adobe makes a major update to one (maybe 2 aps) at a time and minor tweaks to others + global UI changes, charges to upgrade the whole suite and tells us we're getting a great discount because they're all bundled.
Last time around, the new things in DreamWeaver presented an upgrade I really wanted. Everything else was (for me) insignificant as a whole. In essence I had to pay $700 to get the upgrade I really wanted because it was part of the suite I'm locked into when before it would have cost me $200-$300 for DW alone. If the new animation model in Flash brings a more typical useful timeline like in AfterEffects or the one used in LiveMotion (Adobe's long defunct competitor to Macromedia's Flash) I'll welcome it. Or, if it brings something like Apple Motion's non-linear approach, I'd like that too. The updates to the other applications don't seem to me to be worthy of more than a ".x" release. So again, I'll have to pay 700 bucks to get an upgrade for one application I might want and for tweaks to others I could take or leave. I'm beginning to see the advantage of the 'suite' model of pricing. That is, it's an advantage for Adobe. Real significant increases in either function, integration, ease of use, added features or all of the above for EVERY product in the suite (or even more than 1 or 2) would be something I could live with. Instead Adobe appears to have chosen the suite as a way to rip us off at least in part. In Adobe's defense, trying to have major updates to every product they make in a 12-18 month cycle seems like a herculean task. But other than their own bean counters, who's demanding that? I can certainly see why they want us to buy a new product from them every 12-18 months but I don't want them to twist my arm to get me to go along with it. It would be a lot easier to drink that particular cool aid if it wasn't so obviously watered down. I hope I'll have to eat my words about the latest CS4 update.
As much as Adobe uses the term 'integration' in their marketing, there are still a few major holes. For one, click an image in DreamWeaver to edit it. It doesn't automatically open the image in Photoshop/Fireworks/Illustrator (which ever it was created in or last saved from). I still have to find the original image manually. If you work with a lot of small subtle images mixed with CSS design to build a web page, cut a page design automatically using slices, or mix and match elements from different aps, this is a significant oversight. Finding one image numerically named from slices among a long list of files in the 'images' folder is a pain. Trying to name a high number of web images in a way that lets you quickly identify each by name alone is also difficult. Adobe has launch to edit graphic in original program feature for InDesign, they can do it for DreamWeaver. Where is the added integration we're supposed to be getting? Also, Adobe ignored Director for 4 years. I can't use anything after Flash 5 in Director. Flash animations played from within Director are so slow as to be unusable. I can't import illustrator art to Director even though it supports vector art natively. I wouldn't attempt to create anything other than primary shapes with Director's native tools. Maybe all this is fixed in Director 11 but that does me no good unless I buy a new intel mac because Director 11 is not available for PPC. Let's see, Adobe wants me to buy the upgrade for CS4, buy the upgrade for Director AND buy a new computer so I can run Director 11. Given the current economy, this is SUCH a great time for that kind of cash outlay. Since Adobe won't allow Flash content to be played via a standalone player on disc without forcing your users to address Adobe's stupid security warning, you still need Director if you want to create that type of content. Adobe should just go ahead and incorporate all the features now unique to Director into Flash; allow Flash to generate a projector file that doesn't need to be played over a web server; and get rid of Director all together. That way Adobe wouldn't have to maintain 2 applications that have some overlapping use and some unique use, and ignoring one in favor of another. They could offer a "pro" version of Flash that absorbs Director at an appropriately higher price for those who still need it (and there are still quite a few) without making them the bastard step children they've been since Adobe bought Macromedia.
I also think Adobe should get rid of the suite approach and offer a tiered non-specific volume discount. For instance, buy 2-4 (or whatever) any mix and match full applications and get a discount?same thing for upgrades no matter which ones you group together at any given time. Then offer a better discount if you buy a greater number of applications or upgrades for any of your choice of applications, and so on. They'll make more money per unit on those who want to upgrade one or a few applications at a time without making them pay an inflated upgrade price for the suite. The result would be less people skipping upgrades because they'll have the option to pay a smaller sum than the cost to upgrade all at once as a whole (but at less of a per unit discount) or paying a higher lump some for buying more upgrades at once (but at a better volume discount and lower cost per upgrade). IMO, unless Adobe addresses some of these things to offset the positives we've lost from having competition in the market evaporate, people will jump ship in higher numbers than they might otherwise do when the day eventually arrives another company comes along to challenge Adobe (nature abhors a vacuum). Apple, does this give you any ideas?
Adobe CS4 is to CS3 what Snow Leopard is to Leopard. Both are maintenance/bug fix updates with hardly no feature changes.
In other words, if you pay money for either of these software packages, you are basically paying for "continued development of the product." You are not getting much more than that. Of course, people who want to use Leopard but can't right now (i.e., not most G4 users like me) are going to "get stability" from Snow Leopard (hopefully). But with CS4 you basically get a non-standard title bar as your prize. Hmmm.
Okay, SL have some features that might benefit all of us so It might be worth it for us to upgrade.
I dont see it though in CS4 especially for Mac version, for Windows maybe (64 bit support) but I think Adobe has something up their sleeves for CS5. or maybe new and better features will be in CS6 and that will be 2 more years. So guess Adobe competitors got 2 years to catch up.
Downloading pixelmator now, it looks sweet from the pictures though, lets see how it performs.
Adobe CS4 is to CS3 what Snow Leopard is to Leopard. Both are maintenance/bug fix updates with hardly no feature changes.
bugfixes are the point updates. Snow Leopard is major advancement over Leopard. Not having a bells and whistles to play with doesn't mean that major changes haven't taken place.
I'm not sure you understand basic UI design principles (start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law). This is how the Mac works. Why do you need to move menus around? Learn to work on a single "master" display with extra displays used for palettes or reference images, like everyone else does. If you want it to work like Windows, use Windows. Like most Mac users, I'll keep my menus at the top of the main display, where they belong, thankyouverymuch.
Thank you for the advice, I am familiar with the concepts and I do understand having my tools on a separate monitor which I currently do as well.
On Windows I can have Photoshop on one display and Illustrator on another where I can drag n drop, eyeball, compare, and adjust my content from one display to the other without having to always run my mouse to display#1 to access my tools. I prefer using a full display for the two apps simultaneously so I can have a larger view of both images without having to bring an app to the foreground and send the other to the background. My third "monitor" is strictly for drawing and cannot be my main display, on the Mac I would have to navigate to a separate screen to access my drop-downs while in Windows they're right there on the same monitor.
Anyway, I'm not the only one with this complaints, many designers find it disappointing the Apple has not addressed this issue for so many years now and were hoping that Adobe would take the initiative. There goes nothing.
....in this whole discussion, it's how weak Adobe is in terms of some sort of workgroup server support.
And it sounds like CS4 continues the trend.
Bridge certainly isn't it, and there are no vendors out there who have any sort of solution for small groups of people collaborating on a common document.
Looks like Adobe will make the gradient tool less hard to use. Scroll through the screen shots. Other Illustrator CS4 features seem to include "better" multiple pages and multiple artboards.
Or even all that unusual anymore. I use an Apple 23" Al Cinema display, an EIZO 24" widescreen for color-accurate design, and a Dell 20" widescreen, all side by side off my Mac Pro. Desktop space is a cost-effective way to add productivity, and despite the recent reductions, I think it's still more bang for the buck to use multiple mid-size displays than a single large one.
I have been recently lamenting that the 1980's Macintosh "consistent user interface" standards I've loved for so long have actually reached a point where they can impede the flexibility of user needs. Mousing to menus located way up at the top of my center screen (the EIZO 24") are a hassle when I'm using applications on the far side of one of the others, and not all application functions can be available by keyboard shortcuts. I always hated how menus in Windows were at the top of the window rather than the top of the screen when I worked on 17", 19" and eventually 21" CRTs, but I actually think it having the option to display them as such on a Mac would benefit the way I work now (not that I would shift to Windows just to get that feature. Unless Vista support for multiple monitors is far better than prior versions, that's way too painful a price to pay. That would be like trading a svelte luxury sedan for a bloated SUV just because you liked the heater knob location better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpamSandwich
Three monitors? You would be the exception to the rule. The vast majority of users I know are 2 monitors at max. For them to design for a fraction of 1% of their users probably wouldn't make a lot of sense.
honestly just after doing some beta testing of photoshop I'm sold. the interface is customizable, it is just the default interface which has changed. You can view multiple files either through grids in tabbed view or open individual windows for each file as in previous versions of photoshop.
As for features, the only benefit seems to be the 3D controls.
Comments
I cant accept that pressing ctrl-o requires 5 seconds before the open dialog appears!! (windows)
What about thumbnail caching in the Adobe "open" dialog????
I cant accept that it has to regenerate thumbnails from 1 GB illustrator files EVERYTIME i use the dialog!!!
Why Oh Why do they add new features (that nobody needs) before fixing the SPEED of this software. It has basically gone worse with every release since illustrator 9.0 /photoshop 5.0
And the RAM hunger of this software is just insane! You just cant have three programs with files open at once within the RAM limit of windows xp, which is 3GB.
And why do you need to close and reopen photoshop (windows) everytime you want to release some RAM??? Why....
And....What about fixing the f...ing arrowhead tool in illustrator!?? That tool is SO outdated, limited and lame to use....Why would you not update such a BASIC tool to something more useful?
The ONE AND ONLY THING Adobe needs to fix with this software is the SPEED.
I cant accept that pressing ctrl-o requires 5 seconds before the open dialog appears!! (windows)
What about thumbnail caching in the Adobe "open" dialog????
I cant accept that it has to regenerate thumbnails from 1 GB illustrator files EVERYTIME i use the dialog!!!
Why Oh Why do they add new features (that nobody needs) before fixing the SPEED of this software. It has basically gone worse with every release since illustrator 9.0 /photoshop 5.0
And the RAM hunger of this software is just insane! You just cant have three programs with files open at once within the RAM limit of windows xp, which is 3GB.
And why do you need to close and reopen photoshop (windows) everytime you want to release some RAM??? Why....
And....What about fixing the f...ing arrowhead tool in illustrator!?? That tool is SO outdated, limited and lame to use....Why would you not update such a BASIC tool to something more useful?
These are all legitimate complaints, and I think CS4 when released will be 64-bit on Windows which should give you larger memory allocation to individual apps if you use 64-bit VISTA.
I wholeheartedly agree with the Arrowhead tool shortcoming (Windows and Mac).
However, this is an Apple Fora not Windows.
These are all legitimate complaints, and I think CS4 when released will be 64-bit on Windows which should give you larger memory allocation to individual apps if you use 64-bit VISTA.
I wholeheartedly agree with the Arrowhead tool shortcoming (Windows and Mac).
However, this is an Apple Fora not Windows.
Thanks....I got some air..
Ok Here is a list of things they should fix regardless of platform:
Photoshop:
- Add UNDO for accidentially closing a polygon lasso (it happens all the time, and there is nothing to do but start all over.....
- REMOVE the f...cking "go to photoshop's webpage" button which is right next to the most used tool: the move tool. WHO wants to visit a webpage while clicking on the toolbar? WHO? This is spam, and should be illegal. (EDIT: sorry that was in CS2, but they will probably re-introduce it in CS4)
- DONT ask questions about "if you really want to de-saturate an image" when a f..cking 20 step history is enabled.
- Alot of the tools disappears when using them on a grey background, this should be easy to fix.
- Make a way to go back in your history and record what you did, to use in an action.
Illustrator:
- Fix the f...cking arrowhead tool...
- MAKE short-cuts that people with non-us keyboards can actually USE!! How the f..ck do you find the [ or the + button on a european keyboard. Why don't they use some standard buttons??
- Make the gradient tool less hard to use....
...more to come
I've been working with the beta for a while now, and it does fix many of the stability issues that CS3 had. The new interface is a major improvement over the old, at least in this one instance.
Last time around, the new things in DreamWeaver presented an upgrade I really wanted. Everything else was (for me) insignificant as a whole. In essence I had to pay $700 to get the upgrade I really wanted because it was part of the suite I'm locked into when before it would have cost me $200-$300 for DW alone. If the new animation model in Flash brings a more typical useful timeline like in AfterEffects or the one used in LiveMotion (Adobe's long defunct competitor to Macromedia's Flash) I'll welcome it. Or, if it brings something like Apple Motion's non-linear approach, I'd like that too. The updates to the other applications don't seem to me to be worthy of more than a ".x" release. So again, I'll have to pay 700 bucks to get an upgrade for one application I might want and for tweaks to others I could take or leave. I'm beginning to see the advantage of the 'suite' model of pricing. That is, it's an advantage for Adobe. Real significant increases in either function, integration, ease of use, added features or all of the above for EVERY product in the suite (or even more than 1 or 2) would be something I could live with. Instead Adobe appears to have chosen the suite as a way to rip us off at least in part. In Adobe's defense, trying to have major updates to every product they make in a 12-18 month cycle seems like a herculean task. But other than their own bean counters, who's demanding that? I can certainly see why they want us to buy a new product from them every 12-18 months but I don't want them to twist my arm to get me to go along with it. It would be a lot easier to drink that particular cool aid if it wasn't so obviously watered down. I hope I'll have to eat my words about the latest CS4 update.
As much as Adobe uses the term 'integration' in their marketing, there are still a few major holes. For one, click an image in DreamWeaver to edit it. It doesn't automatically open the image in Photoshop/Fireworks/Illustrator (which ever it was created in or last saved from). I still have to find the original image manually. If you work with a lot of small subtle images mixed with CSS design to build a web page, cut a page design automatically using slices, or mix and match elements from different aps, this is a significant oversight. Finding one image numerically named from slices among a long list of files in the 'images' folder is a pain. Trying to name a high number of web images in a way that lets you quickly identify each by name alone is also difficult. Adobe has launch to edit graphic in original program feature for InDesign, they can do it for DreamWeaver. Where is the added integration we're supposed to be getting? Also, Adobe ignored Director for 4 years. I can't use anything after Flash 5 in Director. Flash animations played from within Director are so slow as to be unusable. I can't import illustrator art to Director even though it supports vector art natively. I wouldn't attempt to create anything other than primary shapes with Director's native tools. Maybe all this is fixed in Director 11 but that does me no good unless I buy a new intel mac because Director 11 is not available for PPC. Let's see, Adobe wants me to buy the upgrade for CS4, buy the upgrade for Director AND buy a new computer so I can run Director 11. Given the current economy, this is SUCH a great time for that kind of cash outlay. Since Adobe won't allow Flash content to be played via a standalone player on disc without forcing your users to address Adobe's stupid security warning, you still need Director if you want to create that type of content. Adobe should just go ahead and incorporate all the features now unique to Director into Flash; allow Flash to generate a projector file that doesn't need to be played over a web server; and get rid of Director all together. That way Adobe wouldn't have to maintain 2 applications that have some overlapping use and some unique use, and ignoring one in favor of another. They could offer a "pro" version of Flash that absorbs Director at an appropriately higher price for those who still need it (and there are still quite a few) without making them the bastard step children they've been since Adobe bought Macromedia.
I also think Adobe should get rid of the suite approach and offer a tiered non-specific volume discount. For instance, buy 2-4 (or whatever) any mix and match full applications and get a discount?same thing for upgrades no matter which ones you group together at any given time. Then offer a better discount if you buy a greater number of applications or upgrades for any of your choice of applications, and so on. They'll make more money per unit on those who want to upgrade one or a few applications at a time without making them pay an inflated upgrade price for the suite. The result would be less people skipping upgrades because they'll have the option to pay a smaller sum than the cost to upgrade all at once as a whole (but at less of a per unit discount) or paying a higher lump some for buying more upgrades at once (but at a better volume discount and lower cost per upgrade). IMO, unless Adobe addresses some of these things to offset the positives we've lost from having competition in the market evaporate, people will jump ship in higher numbers than they might otherwise do when the day eventually arrives another company comes along to challenge Adobe (nature abhors a vacuum). Apple, does this give you any ideas?
In other words, if you pay money for either of these software packages, you are basically paying for "continued development of the product." You are not getting much more than that. Of course, people who want to use Leopard but can't right now (i.e., not most G4 users like me) are going to "get stability" from Snow Leopard (hopefully). But with CS4 you basically get a non-standard title bar as your prize. Hmmm.
I dont see it though in CS4 especially for Mac version, for Windows maybe (64 bit support) but I think Adobe has something up their sleeves for CS5. or maybe new and better features will be in CS6 and that will be 2 more years. So guess Adobe competitors got 2 years to catch up.
Downloading pixelmator now, it looks sweet from the pictures though, lets see how it performs.
Adobe CS4 is to CS3 what Snow Leopard is to Leopard. Both are maintenance/bug fix updates with hardly no feature changes.
bugfixes are the point updates. Snow Leopard is major advancement over Leopard. Not having a bells and whistles to play with doesn't mean that major changes haven't taken place.
And you're working with a PAID version of the software?
Yes indeed. Academic price but still paid in full. Which is why I am so upset.
Worst software evah!
I'm not sure you understand basic UI design principles (start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitt%27s_law). This is how the Mac works. Why do you need to move menus around? Learn to work on a single "master" display with extra displays used for palettes or reference images, like everyone else does. If you want it to work like Windows, use Windows. Like most Mac users, I'll keep my menus at the top of the main display, where they belong, thankyouverymuch.
Thank you for the advice, I am familiar with the concepts and I do understand having my tools on a separate monitor which I currently do as well.
On Windows I can have Photoshop on one display and Illustrator on another where I can drag n drop, eyeball, compare, and adjust my content from one display to the other without having to always run my mouse to display#1 to access my tools. I prefer using a full display for the two apps simultaneously so I can have a larger view of both images without having to bring an app to the foreground and send the other to the background. My third "monitor" is strictly for drawing and cannot be my main display, on the Mac I would have to navigate to a separate screen to access my drop-downs while in Windows they're right there on the same monitor.
Anyway, I'm not the only one with this complaints, many designers find it disappointing the Apple has not addressed this issue for so many years now and were hoping that Adobe would take the initiative. There goes nothing.
Adobe's certicate of retardation
And it sounds like CS4 continues the trend.
Bridge certainly isn't it, and there are no vendors out there who have any sort of solution for small groups of people collaborating on a common document.
Illustrator:
- Make the gradient tool less hard to use....
...more to come
Looks like Adobe will make the gradient tool less hard to use. Scroll through the screen shots. Other Illustrator CS4 features seem to include "better" multiple pages and multiple artboards.
http://www.adobeegitim.com/dersler/d...=77&dersno=641
http://rwillustrator.blogspot.com/20...r-23-2008.html
"Adobe showed a paintbrush-like tool that paints with expanded paths and that can auto merge with other existing paths."
Seems like AI could have dug a little deeper and offered a bit more in the story.
I have been recently lamenting that the 1980's Macintosh "consistent user interface" standards I've loved for so long have actually reached a point where they can impede the flexibility of user needs. Mousing to menus located way up at the top of my center screen (the EIZO 24") are a hassle when I'm using applications on the far side of one of the others, and not all application functions can be available by keyboard shortcuts. I always hated how menus in Windows were at the top of the window rather than the top of the screen when I worked on 17", 19" and eventually 21" CRTs, but I actually think it having the option to display them as such on a Mac would benefit the way I work now (not that I would shift to Windows just to get that feature. Unless Vista support for multiple monitors is far better than prior versions, that's way too painful a price to pay. That would be like trading a svelte luxury sedan for a bloated SUV just because you liked the heater knob location better.
Three monitors? You would be the exception to the rule. The vast majority of users I know are 2 monitors at max. For them to design for a fraction of 1% of their users probably wouldn't make a lot of sense.
As for features, the only benefit seems to be the 3D controls.
As for features, the only benefit seems to be the 3D controls.
Can you go into more detail about the 3D controls? Any screen shots?
Can't you at least fake 20 posts and try to make your posts semi legit?
IP check anyone?
Interesting how two members on here with one post each both give glowing reviews for CS4.
Can't you at least fake 20 posts and try to make your posts semi legit?
IP check anyone?
Well, both of them registered years ago. Did Adobe plan this 4 years ago? I hope not, though it would explain where their priorities are...