Adobe CS worthwhile ?

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
It's only just out now, but does anyone has already some expiriences with Adobe CS ? Speed & snappiness? (especially Illustrator) ? Are the new features worth the upgrade ? Is there some activation mumbo jumbo (wich they said they wouldn't at first. Windows only for now) ?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 31
    I'll be getting it in a few days. I'll keep you posted.
  • Reply 2 of 31
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    I get Photoshop CS from my work tomorrow, I'll let you knof it if it's better. If I am really impressed I'll grab Illustrator and InDesign also.
  • Reply 3 of 31
    nebagakidnebagakid Posts: 2,692member
    when is it shipping? like, the separate products/

  • Reply 4 of 31
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Nebagakid

    when is it shipping? like, the separate products/





    They already are...my boss just ordered PS.
  • Reply 5 of 31
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Just received my *ahem* free copy via Airborne Express this morning. Trick or Treat!



    I'll let you guys know, but initially I can tell you this:



    I am completely underwhelmed by the lack of manuals / printed documentation. In fact, had I payed $1200 like most people, I'd people rather pissed. The whole studio ships on 5 CDs and one thin "Design Guide" that walks you through different types of projects you can create (posters, etc). Hopefully the online help is better than usual.
  • Reply 6 of 31
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    I hear text is totally incompatible between illustrator 10 and illustrator CS. The text engine is much improved but if you open illustrator 10, 9, 8 docs in CS, text becomes uneditable (probably flattened or converted to outlines). I saw this on the Adobe forums from an Adobe admin.



    This sucks.
  • Reply 7 of 31
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    My initial impressions:





    Interfaces

    The Adobe Palette System is not as unified as I had expected it to be based on their marketing fluff. Basically, I thought the docking / stacking / saving conventions would be identical but there are really three different types now.



    A)GoLive has a new palette stacking metaphor that fixes the problem of the palettes above casting the Aqua shadown on the palettes below. Everything is sort of "melded" together with a new look. The little palette Option Triangle thingies are still screwy looking but they work fine. Might be better in Panther, dunno.



    The tabs take on the look of the system you are using: faded pinstripes for Jag, smooth for Panther. I suspect this part is true for all the apps, not just GoLive. Also, there are now disclosure triangles on the left side of each "group" that allow you to open or collapse the entire group (a la Macromedia's MX interface.). You can also remove individual tabs and "dock them" to the side of the monitor as before....



    B) Standard-issue Pre-CS Photoshop / Illustrator Tabs (nothing has changed in these two apps as far as palette management IOW). Illustrator still cannot save Workspaces AFAICT. This is weak IMO.



    C) InDesign has a completely new look. Everything now docks to the side of the monitor and slides in and out, instead of collapsing or stacking. You can literally make one single "mega-slider" and throw every palette the application has into it if you want to. This makes sense considering the app's purpose (you need more lateral viewing space than the others generally).



    Obviously, you can make two or three individual slider palettes and dock related items into those if you choose. You can also easily resize the height of the sliders, but not their width. Their either open or they're not. You can also have standard palettes just floating around by themselves or in groups (as with the other three apps). The one problem with this metaphor is if you cram too many palettes into one slider area, the tabs overlap each other so much you can't read them at a glance.



    Random thoughts: Photoshop's "Filter Manager" thing is a good idea, only it uses the Elements background images. For a professional product this is an abomination. That said, the File Browser is now MUCH more robust a tool and faster as well. I really like it. GoLive also has some new color management capabilities, taking on the color engine from the other three apps. Not sure how this will work but in theory it's a good idea -- especially for photographers, who happen to be the people I am desiging sites for right now so that's interesting.



    Overall, I think I like GoLive's mixed "Adobe meets MX" metaphor the best.







    Responsiveness

    While I am not using Panther or a G5, I do notice some nice launch speed and overall snappiness improvements to both Photoshop and InDesign. GoLive and Illustrator appear to be about the same on my 1GHz G4 under Jaguar. GoLive does seem to open large site files more quickly, which is nice. Beyond that I haven't used any of the apps enough to make a definitive judgement. Just mentioning basic stuff like launch times and ability to open files and browsers quickly.







    Documentation

    I fear Adobe has chosen this area to save on costs a bit. The online help is no more robust than before AFAICT. I think they realize many people use 3rd party books and so they are not pouring in the resources as far as printing manuals for everyone. You have to buy them separate and my understanding is they're about $70 for a set of them.





    Will post more in a few days after I've used the apps a bit more...
  • Reply 8 of 31
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Outsider

    I hear text is totally incompatible between illustrator 10 and illustrator CS. The text engine is much improved but if you open illustrator 10, 9, 8 docs in CS, text becomes uneditable (probably flattened or converted to outlines). I saw this on the Adobe forums from an Adobe admin.



    This sucks.




    I visited the forums and someone posted this. Your info is correct, to an extent.->

    "We'll start with the most common scenario. You launch Illustrator CS and open a file that was created in a previous version of Illustrator (say Illustrator 10 or Illustrator 8 ). The file contains text. When you open the file, you'll be presented with a dialog box that states that following: "This file contains text that was created in a previous version of Illustrator. This Legacy text must be updated before you can edit it." The dialog box gives you two options. UPDATE and OK. If you click UPDATE, then all the text in your file will be converted to the new text engine and some reflow may occur (usually kerning issues). If you click OK, none of the legacy text is affected at all -- the file will open just as it did in AI10 or before. Only you can't edit the text (the text appears like a placed EPS -- a box with an "X" through it). You can print the file and make other changes -- you just can't edit the text unless you convert the text to the new text engine.



    So just to review, when opening legacy files that contain text, you can either choose to leave the text and print your file with no issues whatsoever, or you can choose to edit the text and experience some possible text reflow.



    When you choose to update text to the new text engine, we give you the option to automatically create a locked grayed out layer underneath the new text with the old text, so that you can easily re-kern the new text to match the legacy version (you can then delete the locked layer when you've done that)."
  • Reply 9 of 31
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mattarino

    I visited the forums and someone posted this. Your info is correct, to an extent.->

    "We'll start with the most common scenario. You launch Illustrator CS and open a file that was created in a previous version of Illustrator (say Illustrator 10 or Illustrator 8 ). The file contains text. When you open the file, you'll be presented with a dialog box that states that following: "This file contains text that was created in a previous version of Illustrator. This Legacy text must be updated before you can edit it." The dialog box gives you two options. UPDATE and OK. If you click UPDATE, then all the text in your file will be converted to the new text engine and some reflow may occur (usually kerning issues). If you click OK, none of the legacy text is affected at all -- the file will open just as it did in AI10 or before. Only you can't edit the text (the text appears like a placed EPS -- a box with an "X" through it). You can print the file and make other changes -- you just can't edit the text unless you convert the text to the new text engine.



    So just to review, when opening legacy files that contain text, you can either choose to leave the text and print your file with no issues whatsoever, or you can choose to edit the text and experience some possible text reflow.



    When you choose to update text to the new text engine, we give you the option to automatically create a locked grayed out layer underneath the new text with the old text, so that you can easily re-kern the new text to match the legacy version (you can then delete the locked layer when you've done that)."




    Thanks for clearing that up. I had read another article in the forums that was more blunt and didn't go into the details. Interesting.
  • Reply 10 of 31
    hobbeshobbes Posts: 1,252member
    Nice review, Moogs.



    Sounds good for the most part.



    I'd be curious in hearing more about speed (improvements, hopefully) in Indy and Illustrator in day-to-day use...
  • Reply 11 of 31
    foadfoad Posts: 717member
    Well one killer thing for us at work is Cineon support. Being able to paint in 10-bit is freakin' great. I know you could do this type of painting in packages such as film gimp, but it is still too unrefined in Film Gimp so PS CS is a godsend.



    We are using it on our current film project. The guys that are using it are super stoked.
  • Reply 12 of 31
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Used Photoshop a bit more since my last post, and InDesign and GoLive also. My take at this point is that every Adobe app should use the GoLive interface next time around. It just rocks. Sort of the best of all worlds as far as Adobe interface conventions goes IMO.



    I am also finding that on older G4 hardware and Jaguar, the CS apps are marginally faster in terms of launch speed, opening and saving files, running filters, etc. Not really all that noticeable in general, but perceptible in spots. None of the apps are slower in any regard which is a first for Adobe AFAIC. One thing that IS much, much faster is Photoshop's Save for Web... command. It's at least twice as fast. Maybe 3x. So far though that's the only area I've found that is significantly faster than previous versions.



    Workflow-wise, I'd like to see a little better integration between placing PSD files inside ID layouts. By that I mean, I wish it were like GoLive. There, when you re-save a web graphic, the version on your layout page gets a little icon on it, and when you click it the image auto-updates to reflect your changes. This does not *appear* to be the case with ID still, but it could be I set something up wrong.



    As for PS, I haven't found the new Shadow and Highlight feature to be markedly better than a well placed dodge or burn, but I need to use it more / understand it better to be sure.



    I definitely like the improved file browsing. It's much faster and the window itself is a whole lot more flexible and useful in the way it allows you to display information. You can even assign a custom thumbnail size if you wish to use something other than their "medium, large, details" options. Also much easier to do things like rotate images inside the browser.



    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.



    The customize keyboard shortcuts thing is also very cool, although they've set it up so that the most obvious one (Undo), is permenantly matched up with Redo. So in order to get a setup where you can continuously hit one keystroke to undo multiple steps (and one to redo them to see the progression), you have to use the "Step Forward" and "Step Backward" settings instead.



    More to come....
  • Reply 13 of 31
    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!



    [email protected]
  • Reply 14 of 31
    bigbluebigblue Posts: 341member
    A friend just gave me his first impressions: he seemded a bit underwhelmed by Photoshop CS.

    OTOH, Illustrator CS made the biggest progress (especially in speed).
  • Reply 15 of 31
    This from BareFeats:



    We received our copy of Adobe Photoshop CS (8.0) today. We ran our two action files on our Dual G5. Is it faster than version 7.01 with G5 plugin? No. The old version was 17-18% faster:



    This from Think Secret:



    In his new book "Illustrator CS for Dummies," Ted Alspach, Adobe's Group Product Manager for Illustration Products, advises new computer buyers to get a PC: "As of 2003, Windows systems have taken a decisive lead over Macs when it comes to performance. The difference is most apparent with graphics applications such as Photoshop and Illustrator, but you?'ll notice it with other applications as well. If you?'re thinking of purchasing a new system, and speed and responsiveness is important (or at least more important than the feel of the OS, I suggest getting a zippy PC over a (comparably) sluggish Mac.?"



    My thoughts:



    I don't have the new versions of any of Adobe's products so I can't comment directly myself. I do continue to get the impression that Adobe sees that Mac plateform as the past and Apple as a competitor. I think they are putting more effort into writing good code for the Wintel world and doing just what's needed to get by on the Mac. I also think they have a problem in that their products are very mature and its getting harder and harder to justify major upgrades, which offcourse makes selling their products difficult. Perhaps InDesign still has a hill left to climb since they have a large number of Quark users they can go after. Overall, i think Adobe's game plan is to move as many users over to the Wintel world as possible so they don't face competition from Apple and they don't depend on the fate of Apple.
  • Reply 16 of 31
    newnew Posts: 3,244member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Moogs

    One thing that IS much, much faster is Photoshop's Save for Web... command. It's at least twice as fast. Maybe 3x. So far though that's the only area I've found that is significantly faster than previous versions.



    Thank you, this is good news... very good news!



    From what i hear, the new 16bit color abilities in PS CS is what most photographers are excited about.
  • Reply 17 of 31
    foadfoad Posts: 717member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by New

    Thank you, this is good news... very good news!



    From what i hear, the new 16bit color abilities in PS CS is what most photographers are excited about.




    not just photographers but many people in the film industry. at work we are loving the fact that we dont have to use FilmGimp to paint in Cineon files. This has been a long time coming.
  • Reply 18 of 31
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    I didn't take the time to figure out why, but while at work yesterday I noticed that when I opened a picture in PS 7 to acquire it (Kodak aquire module STILL not out for OS X) that when I opened the exact same picture in PS CS (rhymes) that it looks awesomely better. It just seemed more vivid and full, more like it's printed counterpart.



    Anyone else have professional grade digi cam they can test this with? I didn't get a chance to see if this was noticeable with the outdoor camera (D10) but I'll check it out later today if I head into work.
  • Reply 19 of 31
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Barefeats benchmarks are known to be pretty much -- if not completely -- worthless. The fact that he claims it's slower would almost compel me to reach the opposite conclusion. Again, I haven't seen anything in PSCS that is *slower* than before. Most things are the same, and a few are marginally faster. Excepting the Save for Web, which is a lot faster.



    Ted sounds like a Winlot. Anyone from a huge company like Adobe that markets products to both camps, who comes out and says "buy a PC!", tells me he would say the same thing even if he didn't work in the Illustrator group. Also, dollars to doughnuts that when he wrote that, he had never seen or used a G5.
  • Reply 20 of 31
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    Just installed CS, opened a document in indesign, fell in love.
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