Where to begin. WOW! If you've been waiting to upgrade your Adobe products now's the time. I"ve
been through 4 upgrades, and yes each one had a new tool or cool interface or something that was neat.
But this upgrade is unbelievable.
The first thing to mention is the new palettes that PhotoShop and Illustrator has. The fly out menus save
screen real-estate and the ability to customize the position of the palettes on the fly is awesome.
Need to create a quick video for the web or a presentation but want to do more than the typical
Keynote/Powerpoint. PhotoShop Extended now has the ability to import video directly into Photoshop.
Then you can create design around the video itself in PhotoShop then export the entire file out in most
of the popular video formats. Just a few to mention is MPEG-4, QuickTime, DV and AVI.
Illustrator has 2 new features that i depend on more and more. Plug-ins that create helpful palettes that
you can call on directly in Illustrator’s work environment. One palette links directly to Adobe's color
creator site http://kuler.adobe.com. From Illustrator you can go to kuler, create new colors, search
through other user's colors by newest or highest rated, then bring the selected palette selection directly
into Illustrator as a new set of swatches. The other is the "know how" palette. Have a question about a
tool or want to know how to create a certain look. While in Illustrator you can search for the answer
directly in Illustrator. Sound like the help button? If so i'm not doing a good job explaining because its
so much more than Illustrators normal help feature.
Do you dabble in Flash but don't know Action Script. No worries. Flash now has the ability to create
your timeline animations into Action Script. Then you can see how the program has written the code that
makes your animation. A great way to learn!
And i'm saving the best for last. The puppet tool in After Effects has to be one of the coolest things i've
seen in any program in years. All i can say is its AMAZING! The puppet tool allows the user to set pins
where the "puppet" action is to bend, then move/animate the graphic/image/person using those points. I
know i'm not doing this tool the justice it deserves so do yourself a favor and search for a video on AE
puppet tool.
My only wish, and its a small one, is Adobe should have made all the palettes like PhotoShop and
Illustrator. The new CS3 Flash kept the look/design of the palettes in Flash 8. But hey, if I didn’t gripe
about something you wouldn’t believe this review.
I give the new Adobe CS3 products 5 out of 5 stars. It is well worth the time and money. Now stop
reading and get your own copy.