3 posts tagged “design”
With this consolidation and unification of products, Adobe will expand its CS offerings in a variety of suite solutions that best fit an individual designer, developer or production artist. Suites include:
- Design Standard
- Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, InDesign CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional
- Design Premium
- Design Standard applications + Dreamweaver CS3, Flash CS3 Professional
- Web Standard
- Dreamweaver CS3, Flash CS3 Professional, Fireworks CS3, Contribute CS3
- Web Premium
- Web Standard applications + Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional
- Production Premium
- After Effects CS3 Professional, Premiere Pro CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended, Flash CS3 Professional, Illustrator CS3, Soundbooth CS3, Encore CS3
- Master Collection
- After Effects CS3 Professional, Premiere Pro CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended, Flash CS3 Professional, Illustrator CS3, Soundbooth CS3, Encore CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Flash CS3 Professional, Fireworks CS3, Contribute CS3
I have been fortunate enough to see the earlier versions of many these applications while attending Adobe MAX 2006. There are many compelling reasons to upgrade to these newest releases and amazing new capabilities. I have been a beta tester for Photoshop CS3, Fireworks 9 (CS3), and Soundbooth for several months. Each application has been tremendously improved. In particular, Adobe has leveraged Macromedia's expertise in interface design to improve application workflow and usability. The Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 is just one example. Its a much cleaner and usable solution. In line with these changes, Adobe modified its traditional pallettes to the more functional docks, but most importantly added a single bar rollover for each dock to increase workspace and lessen visual clutter. It rocks.
I'm sure there will be much more to write here after I receive my official release. Adobe is one of my favorite companies and one of the most respected innovators in software. So get your creative juices flowing and check out these kick-butt applications!
Adobe recently released a new web-hosted application, Kuler, in their Labs on November 21. Kuler, pronounced "Color", is a Flash-based application (requires Flash Player 9 plug-in) that allows designers to develop harmonious color schemes and themes for creative works.
The application is pretty awesome. You can create different color schemes or browse the schemes of other users, a nice web 2.0 touch. If you want to modify a scheme, you can double-click the scheme and a full-screen color managment system opens. In the color management system, a designer has the options to adjust colors by CMYK, Lab, RGB, HSV and Hexadecimal. The really huge advantage to using Kuler over other color scheming applications is the ability to download your completed scheme as an Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ASE) file for use in Creative Suite 2 components, as well as in individual versions of Adobe Illustrator® CS2, InDesign® CS2, Photoshop® CS2, and GoLive® CS2. Currently, the application is free while in Labs.
I personally use ColorSchemer and would highly recommend it as another option for developing color schemes for creative. There is an online version and a desktop application ($50 USD). The online version is fairly basic (hey, it's free to use!) but the desktop application adds much more functionality and is worth the upgrade IMO, if you regularly design digital media. The application is available for both Windows and Mac OS X. The desktop apps provide functionality for finding a variety of harmonious color schemes (analogous, complementary, monochromatic, triadic, tetradic, etc.) for a base color. ColorSchemer allows you to add colors to your scheme and there does not appear to be a limit. This was a real drawback for me with Kuler as it only allows 5 colors in a scheme. ColorSchemer also has color picking tools for the screen or from a photo. Schemes can be exported and saved for future use and/or uploaded to the ColorSchemer site for sharing and community rating. There is a large community of schemers sharing their schemes that can be downloaded to the desktop application's library of schemes. Schemes can be also added to "favorites" in your account. I would give the application 5 out of 5 stars.
I'm still going to check out Kuler and become familiar with its capabilities and interface. Kuler will be a bigger value to my print/graphic-oriented colleagues. Since I spend most of my time in Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash and Flex, the swatch downloads are not applicable feature for my work. I suspect that this feature will be added into the next release of Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Flash. Although, I'm beta testing Fireworks 9 currently and don't believe it yet applies to the application in its current beta status.
So go check out Kuler and all the other great technologies that are free to use in Adobe Labs. There is some great stuff there for the creative in you!
If you are a designer and/or developer that needs to collaborate on works with others or clients, ConceptShare is a new service that offers just those functionalities. ConceptShare is a ASP.Net-based Flex-based application used with Flash Remoting that allows a designer to post their projects and related works to a secure site for sharing with colleagues or clients.
The real power of the ConceptShare workspace is the ability for others to review, comment and markup concepts. While reviewing, a user can easily move images and zoom to various magnifications. Users can post comments to a work including dragging a link from the comment to a specific position on the concept. The marker tool allows for more visual editing cues that can also be related to a comment.
Currently, the ConceptShare workspace is only applicable to images. It has plans for adding audio and video to the service in the near future. Pricing for the service is offered in monthly plans of free, $19, $49, $99, and $199. Plan pricing is based on storage and number of users. You can take a short interactive tour on the ConceptShare site.
Additional Resources: TechCrunch: Two Approaches to Visual Collaboration
