Adobe set to take the wraps off Creative Suite 4.0
Adobe plans to offer its customers the first overview of Creative Suite 4.0 later this month and could be ready to deliver the software to market as early as this fall, according to those close to the company.
The Mountain View, Calif-based software maker released public betas of CS4-bound applications Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth in late May, but has kept secret its plans for some of the suite's more prominent components, namely Photoshop and Flash.
That's about to change. The company this week began notifying its customers that it intends to host a webcast covering its next-generation software bundle at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, September 23rd.
"Are you ready for something brilliant?," the company wrote on the digital registration form for the presentation. "Be one of the first to see Adobe Creative Suite 4.0 in a special web broadcast."
Word of the event comes amid an increasing number of reports from Adobe's partners who say the company is aiming for a near 18-month refresh cycle of its bread and butter software suite, with a release as early as October. This comes despite earlier claims of an October release that were hotly contested by company representatives.
Creative Suite 3.0, which delivered universal binaries of all major component applications for the Mac, was announced in March of 2007. Adobe offered several different editions or bundles of the suite when it began shipping between the months of April and June that year.
People familiar with the ongoing development of Creative Suite 4.0 say a good chunk of Adobe's resources for the project were devoted to bringing two applications acquired from Macromedia -- Dreamweaver and Fireworks -- up to spec with its existing flagship offerings. However, the company is expected to tout a handful of significant enhancements to both Photoshop and Flash.
For example, the company is expected to announce that Photoshop CS4 (codenamed Stonehenge) will be capable of pulling in 3D objects as wireframes. Although UV mapping won't be supported, the feature will reportedly allow sales teams to perform quick color changes and color corrections.
The new version of Photoshop will also feature a Flash services panel, natural canvas rotation, content aware image resizing and deliver 64-bit support for Windows users.
Separately, Adobe is planning a slew of enhancements in Flash CS4 (codenamed Diesel) that have resonated well with early testers, leading some to bill upgrade as "the best thing" to happen to Flash in quite some time. Among these will be a completely new "and proper" timeline dubbed Motion Editor, as well as a new object-based motion tween model.
Other enhancements bound for Flash CS4 reportedly include an "Inverse kinematics" tool for building complex animations and 3D rotation support.
The Mountain View, Calif-based software maker released public betas of CS4-bound applications Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth in late May, but has kept secret its plans for some of the suite's more prominent components, namely Photoshop and Flash.
That's about to change. The company this week began notifying its customers that it intends to host a webcast covering its next-generation software bundle at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, September 23rd.
"Are you ready for something brilliant?," the company wrote on the digital registration form for the presentation. "Be one of the first to see Adobe Creative Suite 4.0 in a special web broadcast."
Word of the event comes amid an increasing number of reports from Adobe's partners who say the company is aiming for a near 18-month refresh cycle of its bread and butter software suite, with a release as early as October. This comes despite earlier claims of an October release that were hotly contested by company representatives.
Creative Suite 3.0, which delivered universal binaries of all major component applications for the Mac, was announced in March of 2007. Adobe offered several different editions or bundles of the suite when it began shipping between the months of April and June that year.
People familiar with the ongoing development of Creative Suite 4.0 say a good chunk of Adobe's resources for the project were devoted to bringing two applications acquired from Macromedia -- Dreamweaver and Fireworks -- up to spec with its existing flagship offerings. However, the company is expected to tout a handful of significant enhancements to both Photoshop and Flash.
For example, the company is expected to announce that Photoshop CS4 (codenamed Stonehenge) will be capable of pulling in 3D objects as wireframes. Although UV mapping won't be supported, the feature will reportedly allow sales teams to perform quick color changes and color corrections.
The new version of Photoshop will also feature a Flash services panel, natural canvas rotation, content aware image resizing and deliver 64-bit support for Windows users.
Separately, Adobe is planning a slew of enhancements in Flash CS4 (codenamed Diesel) that have resonated well with early testers, leading some to bill upgrade as "the best thing" to happen to Flash in quite some time. Among these will be a completely new "and proper" timeline dubbed Motion Editor, as well as a new object-based motion tween model.
Other enhancements bound for Flash CS4 reportedly include an "Inverse kinematics" tool for building complex animations and 3D rotation support.
Comments
I know Flash is the deal, but what about Director? It's a great and simple tool that has been used a lot for making dev tools, map editors, pixel animation exporters and stuff amongst network. Would love to see a priper update. It's not even universal binary yet!
Polish up these apps to the FEEL quick and stable and I'll be happier than any new features could provide!
Once upon a time when people said Apple should make a Photoshop competitor I thought--great, but I won't buy it. I'm happy with Photoshop.
I can't say that anymore. I WOULD consider a competitor now, and I hope a real contender emerges. Meanwhile, I'll keep my CS4 money. Chances are I'll get CS5 (with 64-bit support?) but if something else comes along that would be great.
Also agreed on Director. I still use it in Rosetta--it's great for certain things. Luckily, it does seem to be surviving. Between RealBasic, Flash (2D) and Unity (3D) I may not need Director, but I certainly wouldn't mind working with a new director if one of my clients asks for it.
Agreed about Flash's UI--needs SERIOUS help--but the same is somewhat true for CS3 as a whole, Photoshop included. These apps (well, not Flash!) used to be 99.9% stable and smooth, but these days they run maybe 95%. And I despise Adobe's docking thing, especially the sluggish fade-in and fade-out you get sometimes.
Polish up these apps to the FEEL quick and stable and I'll be happier than any new features could provide!
Once upon a time when people said Apple should make a Photoshop competitor I thought--great, but I won't buy it. I'm happy with Photoshop.
I can't say that anymore. I WOULD consider a competitor now, and I hope a real contender emerges. Meanwhile, I'll keep my CS4 money. Chances are I'll get CS5 (with 64-bit support?) but if something else comes along that would be great.
Agreed. I hate the instability of Photoshop and InDesign in CS3. I did a completely clean install too (zero-out the drive and re-installed Leopard), and it still runs like a dog on a MacPro. I could care less about CS4 unless it promised some serious stability enhancements. I say forget about 64-bit support - give us muti-core support! And for the love of god - stop trying to make Photoshop a one-all program, make it the best at what it used to be - photo manipulation.
Still, this Fall still feels too soon. The Production and Master CS3 bundles only came out like 14 months ago.
All I can say is that if Adobe is thinking of releasing a new CS suite every 18 months, it has to be literally hundreds of dollars cheaper to make it worthwhile.
Based on past performance, this will likely be only slightly less of a dud/rip-off/heap of dung than the last suite.
That is the ugliest press invite I have ever seen. What the hell, are there no designers actually working within Adobe? Those date boxes... yikes.
Still, this Fall still feels too soon. The Production and Master CS3 bundles only came out like 14 months ago.
I think the squares are supposed to represent the ugly-ass icons they use now. But I agree, this is one ugly invitation. It looks like something advertising an event in Second Life or something. i.e. - something your mum might have made.
I am really looking forward to the CS4 release. It sounds really promising. (I know I've posted a comment on this site mentioning that I'd never use their products again, but I was experimenting with GIMP.) I especially hope they integrate that THERMO product into the suite as well (see Adobe Labs for more details). That would really streamline the creative process. I was psyched when CS3 was released and I will still be psyched three weeks from now!
I didn't know Adobe staffers frequent AI!
Wow!
I didn't know Adobe staffers frequent AI!
Wow!
I'm not an Adobe staffer; just a college student.
Adobe plans to offer its customers the first overview of Creative Suite 4.0 later this month.
I hope they remember to brush the flies off it before they do.
I look forward to every expensive new upgrade from Adobe to be an ever increasing pile of @#$!
Come on small software projects like Pixelmator and show Adobe what they used to be, and maybe could be again, if they paid any attention to their Mac origins.
Seems that over the last few years, little or no innovation is being added to upgrades, other than GUI tweaks and existing bug fixes. Shouldn't these be free, and added as patches on an ongoing basis?
However, with expected double-digit growth from the market ANAL-cysts, is it any wonder? It starts to become impossible to maintain. Also, anybody notice how it seems that the software ind. is always moving closer to becoming a monopoly within it's area of "expertise"?
For example, now that Adobe swallowed MM, FreeHand was killed... and Illustrator still looks like 1999. No competition whatsoever in the vector/layout market, so why bother (from Adobe's point of view).
Anyway, it recently seems we've been taking 2 steps back to go one step forward, to use a cliché... overall. OSes on both sides of the divide included.
Someone wake me up when we hear some decent After Effects news.
Is it just me, or is the software and OS industry as a whole getting worse?
...
Anyway, it recently seems we've been taking 2 steps back to go one step forward, to use a cliché... overall. OSes on both sides of the divide included.
I agree with you as far as Adobe is concerned. I'd rather they just spend another 18 months streamlining CS3. It's a bloated piece of crap.
Let's hope that developments like Chrome and Snow Leopard are a step in the right direction, though, as far as responsible coding is concerned.
The flash things you mentioned sound really promising! But what Flash need the MOST is a stable and solid interface. ( It's very buggy.)
I know Flash is the deal, but what about Director? It's a great and simple tool that has been used a lot for making dev tools, map editors, pixel animation exporters and stuff amongst network. Would love to see a priper update. It's not even universal binary yet!
Director 11 has been out for a few months and the Mac version requires an Intel Mac -- I'd be very surprised if they were still using Rosetta. If by "universal" you mean that you're waiting for a new version that goes back to supporting older PPC Macs for authoring (instead of just playback), I wouldn't hold your breath.
For reference, I didn't "hotly deny" any particular announcement or shipping date for the next version of Photoshop and other products. I denied that I'd made any statements about when the apps would ship, and I took issue with some media outlets for simply fabricating details (and others for blindly echoing those fabrications).
J.
Hi there,
For reference, I didn't "hotly deny" any particular announcement or shipping date for the next version of Photoshop and other products. I denied that I'd made any statements about when the apps would ship, and I took issue with some media outlets for simply fabricating details (and others for blindly echoing those fabrications).
J.
Ok, I must be missing something here.
Who are you?