Adobe Creative Suite 3: First Thoughts

Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 arrived this morning, and was immediately installed on both my trusty G4 and the MacBook. Here are my very initial thoughts on the first run of the main software applications: Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign.

I ran the Photoshop CS3 beta release many moons ago - for about 14 seconds on both machines - the brush cursors weren’t showing the brush size, and I can’t work without those. Anyways, I bring this up because you need to do an uninstall of the PS CS3 beta before installing the Creative Suite, and if you have any problems there’s another cleanup program you can download from Adobe.

I didn’t need to run it on the G4, but did need to do so on the MacBook, and I think because I don’t run my main accounts as Administrator accounts (for extra security), I had to actually log in to the Admin account to run the script. It just wouldn’t run under my regular non-Admin user account (”not enough permissions” blah blah blah).

Installation took a bit longer than I thought, but I did go for the CS3 Design Premium version as I wanted/needed Dreamweaver CS3 and to a lesser extent Flash CS3.

Today was not the best day to get new software (especially for a geek like me) as I had a client meeting this afternoon, and also have a bunch of projects on my plate right now. I knew I could still use the CS1 versions I had been using, so I knew it wouldn’t hurt to install.

I have not had much time to play with all of the software, but just launching the programs is significantly faster on both machines, especially the MacBook (both Macs are maxed out at 2Gb of RAM). I have not really used any of the apps at all on the MacBook, so I will hold off on that review for another post.

Of course I opened up Illustrator first on the G4, and tried out the new features I was most looking forward to - OK, I admit it; the features I was most excited about (yes, I was excited about software features). For Illustrator it was the Zooming Anchor Points and Isolation Mode. Isolation Mode kicks butt, and it’s something you immediately know the first time you use it that it will speed up workflow and make things much easier.

Isolation Mode allows you to double-click on a group (a collection of objects that have been grouped), and once you double click you enter into Isolation Mode which fades out the rest of the artwork, and then allows you to work on just the group. The killer thing here is that the objects are no longer grouped, meaning you don’t have to switch over to the Group Selection tool (white arrow with the plus sign) to select individual objects. You are in a “virtual space” inside the group. If you’ve worked with Flash at all you’ll know exactly what I mean, and I am sure Adobe’s acquisition of Macromedia played a part in this. It’s awesome.

Zooming Anchor Points are a feature that I was really amped about, but it’s implementation - unless I am missing something - is just not all that great. Granted, I have yet to work seriously with Illustrator CS3, but just trying them out left me unimpressed. Still handy, but I felt they could have allowed for more customization of the size of the zoom. It’s pretty minor. I’ll hold off judgement until I have used them more though.

Photoshop CS3 I used for a while today on a drawing project that I am finishing up. Purely layers with color and line art, so I though working on a copy couldn’t hurt anything. The great thing was that I jumped into things immediately, and while I didn’t notice any major speed improvements, it also seemed just as if I picked up where I left off with CS1. That in itself is important. Everything worked fine with the Wacom tablets (which I had to reconfigure for the new software, as well as update my brushes for CS3 - I never saved the previous brushes as an actual set).

I also dipped into InDesign a bit and there are some really cool new features in there as well. I am curious how many are CS2 features I never had, since I skipped a version for the upgrade. Regardless, lots of cool and time-saving stuff in all the apps so far, and this is just a few hours for all of them combined.

All in all, things installed smoothly, I was able to use the new software with existing work and transition just fine. As I mentioned I haven’t yet grasped the full extent of all the new features - I’m actually not even aware of all them them for each program yet. But so far, a satisfying purchase, and I am really looking forward to immersing myself into CS3 and sharing all the good stuff I discover.

More to come.

by George Coghill -
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