Adobe CS5, The Verdict

This is a forum topic for discussing the article "Adobe CS5, The Verdict":

http://www.elated.com/articles/adobe-cs5-the-verdict/

Is CS5 worth the upgrade price? Simon takes an honest look at the pros and cons. Will he fork out the cash, or stick with CS3 instead?

I think Adobe are in a difficult position, especially with Photoshop, because the app is a victim of its own success. They did such a great job of adding fantastic features over the years that it's now reached the point where it's hard to add anything genuinely useful. Look at the innovations in previous versions:

Photoshop 3: Layers (changed image editing for ever)

Photoshop 4: Adjustment Layers (made image adjustments so much nicer to do)

Photoshop 5: Editable Type (fantastically useful) and History palette (essential really)

Photoshop 5.5: Save for Web (again, essential for web designers)

Photoshop 6: Layer Styles (like Adjustment Layers, this really made adding layer effects easy)

How do you top ground-breaking features like that? Very tricky. And yet you need to have new versions out all the time so that your customer base keeps giving you money.

As far as I'm concerned, Photoshop finished its "quantum leaps" around version 6, and since then it's mostly been minor improvements, bugfixes, and new features that aren't hugely useful to me as a web designer. (That said, CS2's ability to select multiple layers was a bit of an "about time too!" moment, and CS3 had the odd lovely feature like the Quick Select tool.)

Personally I think Adobe needs to step back a bit from Photoshop, and think about how they can reinvent the software from the ground up to take advantage of the new paradigms and interfaces that are coming along now - mobile computing, multi-touch, Photosynth, face recognition, etc. In other words, produce a rebooted, slicker, nicer-to-use app that's more tailored to today's technologies, instead of just bolting on new features all the time.

Content-Aware fill does rock though

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@matt That's all true. I think that what they did with Lightroom was a very good bet - splitting a definite demographic away from the main Photoshop to create something new and very good, but within the "Photoshop" brand umbrella.

As I say in the article, Fireworks should be that for web designers, but it suffers from the CS interface visually, and under the GUI, the old underlying Macromedia interface approach still remains. Plus, they don't seem to be plugging it at all at the moment, which makes me wonder about its long-term future. It's not mentioned in the products menu and you really have to dig for it under "All Products".

Essentially, I don't think Adobe have the mix right for web designers yet, which makes me loathe to part with any cash.

Simon

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Your verdict is the same as mine, I see.

The Adobe tools I have at present are Studio CS2 and Macromedia Studio 8 (I've had them so long I can't even remember the names - one of them is definately Studio, though...<g>).

From CS2, I use Photoshop for web layouts which design company clients send me, InDesign and Illustrator for print work I handle myself, and that's it. From Macromedia Studio 8 I use Fireworks 8.

Yes, I'm way out of date - to the point of falling off the upgrade path. But do you know what? I don't care.

I used to use Dreamweaver 8 - but as I work mostly in code view using PHP/MySQL, I don't need the pretty graphic interfaces. I *do* need syntax highlighting, so I now work on Netbeans.

Why haven't I kept up? Not because I refuse to invest in my own business, but simply because I refuse to pay Adobes exhorbitant costs for bug fixes. I have several associates who are Adobe Community Experts, and the word I get from them is that Adobe don't particulary care about the upgrade pricing, because enough people pay it. There are bugs in Dreamweaver CS5 that were notified to them in the CS2 development process, but Adobe would rather spend their time putting pretty enhancements in the product instead of making it more stable.

Adobe, I don't need you any more.

What I *do* need, however, is a tool which takes the slicing facilities of Fireworks, and brings them to another level. Something offering slice layers, which I can turn off or on to show/hide slices of different layer combinations. Now that, I'd pay good money for. If it wasn't written by Adobe, of course.

p.s, Fireworks CS5 had, I'm told by someone with contacts in Adobe, only two people working on it, so they concentrated on bug fixes. I too would be worried about its long term viability as a product.

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@kpdirection. Interesting. 2 people did quite a lot then on the FW CS5 release. I'm quite impressed by their dedication to the cause!

That said, it's not reassuring for the next generation of that app. Frankly, even if they did revamp it, it'd still have that rotten interface.

As the only dedicated web design tool available, it's sad to see it languish like this. But maybe it creates an opening for another developer to do something great...

Simon

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hi all, i been working on a new design tool that let's you design your site as you do with photoshop. anyone care to try it? just email me at jae@stiqr.com and i'll send some code over to you via email. it's just a javascript widget.

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anyone wanna try out a new design tool?

Hello

I am a newbie in graphic designing and i am using CS5 creative
suite cs5 version . and i love it .. all the soft wares are easy to handle . i think with release of CS5 version of adobe artist work has become more effortless . I love the package
Thanks Adobe

Vitun

[Edited by vitun on 27-Jul-10 06:14]

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@vitun Thanks for posting, and welcome to the forums!

It's nice to see someone praising Adobe since it's easy to bash them!

Simon

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