Adobe.com's online CS3 tutorials have received 5 million plays over the first year.
(Credit: Adobe Systems, Inc.)So you got yourself some Adobe CS3 products, but you're still trying to get your workspace organized or iron out your cross-product workflow or how to use the Puppet tool in After Effects? Apparently lots of other people are in the same position according to a case study from EffectiveUI, developers of Adobe's online Video Workshop application built using Adobe Flex. The tutorials have seen more than 5 million plays over its first year.
The video tutorials cover 22 of Adobe's products including all the CS3 components and span 47 topics. The information comes from product experts across the Adobe community and the videos are produced by Lynda.com. And aside from viewing them online, a number of the tutorials can be downloaded for viewing offline.
Oh and in related news, You Suck at Photoshop is back on, fresh from a Webby win.
Update: Contrary to what Adobe initially said, Premiere Elements doesn't support HD DVD output after all. Sorry for the confusion.
Adobe Systems updated its hobbyist-oriented Elements family on Monday, grafting in some new DNA from Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom into Photoshop Elements 6 and giving Premiere Elements 4 a direct connection to YouTube.
Adobe Photoshop Elements lets multiple photos be combined into one to get around problems such as subjects caught mid-blink.
(Credit: Adobe)Both the Elements family members, which cost $99 individually or $149 together, sport a new dark interface that resembles Lightroom, Apple Aperture and several other applications that set off images and videos more smartly than the usual Windows software. Less superficially, they also get Lightroom's tabbed interface designed to walk users through tasks in a sensible progression.
From Photoshop CS3, the little-brother Elements gets Photomerge and a new Quick Selection Tool. The first of these fancier features lets users join the best parts of multiple photos, such as those with faces of subjects who aren't blinking or grimacing, and create better panoramas. The second is for more sophisticated selection of complicated areas, for example junior minus a distracting background you don't want in the birthday card photo.
Another Photoshop Elements feature is smart albums, which directs the software to create dynamically updated groups of photos based on user-specified attributes such as whether they've been edited, when they were shot or what camera was used. The software also is faster than version 5 when it comes to importing, searching and tagging photos.
Premiere Elements always could be used to produce video files and DVDs, but some new output options are in version 4. For those who like the latest in rotating optical media, Premiere Elements has high-def support for Blu-ray Disc. It's also got a three-channel audio mixer for more elaborate sound control.
And for those who want to skip straight to the virtual realm, a module lets users upload videos directly to YouTube in its native Flash video format, complete with tags.
Photoshop Elements doesn't have any equivalent, though, for photo-sharing sites such as Flickr.
The two components of Elements also are designed to work better together, sharing tags, ratings, styles and a file-browser interface called Organizer, Adobe said.
Both packages are available for Windows users now; a Mac version of Photoshop Elements is planned for early 2008. Though Adobe un-canceled its Mac OS X version of full-fledged Premiere, there's no Mac version of Premiere Elements.
Since Adobe bought Macromedia nearly two years ago, rumors have flown about what mutant offspring might emerge from this marriage of software makers.
Although a leak on a blog revealed bits of this closely guarded secret about a day early, Adobe has officially taken the wraps off the pricing and packaging of its Creative Suite 3--most of which will work on Intel-based or PowerPC Macs, as well as with Windows Vista and XP. (See our coverage of the CS3 Master Collection to start.).
(Credit:
Adobe)
The six flavors of CS3 are built for different types of digital designers. So far, we've checked out beta editions of the CS3 Web and Design packages, which offer a blend of tools, including the new Photoshop (read Lori Grunin's first take), Illustrator, Flash, and Dreamweaver. Web and Design will each be available in Standard and Premium editions. The rumor mill pegs April 20 as their final release, although Adobe hasn't confirmed that with us.
As for the CS3 summer releases (on July 1?), there's not much else on the market that will rival the scope of capabilities offered by Creative Suite 3 Production Premium, which handles videographers' needs, from shooting on-site all the way through postproduction. Cross-platform support might even turn the heads of some FinalCut Pro fans. Starving artists may salivate at the Adobe CS3 Master Collection, a comprehensive toolkit that well-equipped corporate design departments will likely snap up for creating Web, mobile, interactive, video, and print content.
There's integration galore throughout the applications, such as native support for Photoshop and Illustrator files in Flash and Fireworks. As anticipated, Macromedia GoLive seems to be dying quietly, while other former Macromedia apps, such as Flash, are adopting the look and feel of their Adobe step-parent. There's no sign yet of a Web-based Photoshop.
That's just a taste of the ballyhooed new features within Adobe Creative Suite 3. Unfortunately, Adobe's big packages come with big price tags. We'll cover any quirks we encounter as we continue to test the betas and then get our hands on final editions of the many applications.
Creative types everywhere are sure to take note of Adobe's release of Creative Suite 3 on Tuesday, but there's also a new component aimed specifically at mobile content creators.
Adobe Device Central is integrated across each of the upgraded Adobe products like Photoshop, After Effects, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator and more, and is compatible with both the Windows and Mac OS.
Device Central CS3 is made for Windows and Mac users. Above is a screen shot of the Mac version.
(Credit: Adobe)Developers creating Flash-based content for mobile handsets are given a lot of control with Device Central. They can now see how their work will appear on more than 100 brands of phones before loading it onto any device. Device profiles from all the major handset makers are pre-loaded, and will be periodically updated, by Adobe. The profiles include checklists to ensure that applications are created to match each phone's capabilities.
Device Central also adds the ability to see how content will appear in real-world situations. There are check boxes that will show how an application will appear in direct sunlight, with and without backlighting, at different levels of battery power and service signal strength.
Adobe's announcement of Creative Suite 3, the biggest release in the company's history, coincides with the CTIA wireless trade show in Orlando, Fla.
Adobe's CS2 (box above) may soon be obsolete.
(Credit: Adobe)Adobe has learned that it's hard to keep a secret these days. It seems that the announcement date for the third version of Creative Suite (aka CS3) has been leaked.
The company has now officially said that it will announce the details of the product on March 27, at a press event in New York City. The event will be Webcast at 3:30 p.m. EST. Details on the Webcast will be posted on the Adobe Web site later this week.
Adobe doesn't plan to ship the new version of Creative Suite until this spring. Previous versions of Adobe Creative Suite have included such popular software titles such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and GoLive. As always, we can likely expect numerous permutations of CS3, which will include packages of titles geared toward different audiences, as well as individual titles for those who don't need the entire package. Adobe hasn't released pricing.
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