Martin LaMonica
Adobe on Tuesday launched Creative Suite 3, a showcase for the company's merger with rival Macromedia that is designed to smoothly combine Web design with content creation.
Creative Suite 3, which focuses on print designers, multimedia editors and Web designers, was two years in development. CS3 comes in six editions. People can also purchase its individual applications, such as Photoshop, Illustrator or Flash.
The estimated price for Creative Suite 3 Design Standard is $1,199 (£609) and for the Premium version, $1,799. The Web editions of the Adobe applications are $999 or $1,599. The Creative Suite 3 Production Premium is $1,699. And the Master Collection, the most comprehensive package, is $2,499.
The Design and Web editions will begin shipping in April, while the Production Premium and Master Collection editions will ship this summer, said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Adobe's Creative Solutions Business Unit.
Integration among different products was done with specific tasks, or workflows, in mind, Loiacono said.
To ease collaboration between photographers and Web designers, for example, people will be able to view and modify images from Dreamweaver, Adobe's Web development tool. By contrast, people now send images back and forth and make changes in the Photoshop image-editing program.
Or, rather than having to render a modified video clip a second time in After Effects, video editors can make changes to the clip directly in Premiere Pro, explained Loiacono.
"The difference between previous things we've done with Creative Suite and CS3 is the enhancements around the user interface and unification -- a whole host of things to make it look and function more cohesively," he said.
The updated suite will also include new tools for audio editing and mobile content creation.
With its streamlined tools, enhanced non-destructive editing capabilities and better performance, Adobe's Photoshop CS3 will look very attractive to almost any user
Soundbooth, an audio editing program aimed primarily at video editors, will replace Audition in the suite. And Adobe Device Central will let designers view how content, such as videos or illustrations, will display on a variety of mobile devices.
Applications in CS3 have been optimised for Mac OS X on Intel-based Macintosh computers and work with PowerPC-based Macs as well. The applications also run on Windows Vista and Windows XP.
On a related note, Loiacono said that he is not aware of any substantial problems with running Creative Suite 2 on Windows Vista but that the company is not officially recommending that usage because it has not done a full barrage of tests.
"The only way we can feel comfortable [recommending Creative Suite 2 for Vista] is to do full testing," he said.
Company executives contend that Creative Suite 3 is the most significant product launch in the company's history.
Loiacono said that more than 50 per cent of the company's revenue comes from the Creative Solutions Business Unit and that the upgrade will have a big effect financially.
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