Well its an exciting moment, I’ll tell you folks! Adobe CS3 Web Premium includes Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, and Acrobat Professional, among other assorted odds and ends. Most of this software I’ve been using for years, some legitimately.. some on the down low…  I generally have ethical problems with using software illegally.. and some of this software… well I haven’t been able to afford upgrades to.. some I’ve been using OS9 versions of for years.. some of it I’ve never even used.. So to go legit.. to full versions.. on a new Mac Pro.. OMG, its just awesome…  So lets talk a little bit about this suite, and what its all about.

Dreamweaver 

In the design and development world, opinions probably very.. as far as what’s the right tools for what job.. Dreamweaver was, for quite a long time, the only WYWYG (what you see is what you get) web design tool to.. to be taken seriously… well there was a little battle between Dreamweaver and GoLive.. but Dreamweaver would eventually win the day.

Today, however, the story is a little bit different. Today, good web design is done via web standards.. which involves things like CSS, DOM Scripting, and Unobtrusive JavaScript…   And the truth is that Dreamweaver doesn’t really do all these things, the right way, right out of the box.. If you want to use these kind of technologies.. you’re probably not going to be using Dreamweaver as a WYWYG editor.. but as a code editor and site management tool. Still, its not quite fair to say these tools aren’t pushing in the right direction… It’s just they’re not quite moving fast enough..

Fireworks

It’s been a long time since I was up to date on Photoshop.. in fact, for a number of years I became a kind of Fireworks guys. Fireworks is a funny kind of app.. one of the interesting cool features of Fireworks is that it does both bit map and vector art.. I shant explain this here.. but there will be some explanation coming. 

Fireworks is a graphics app for the web.. and includes things like.. well means of adding code.. and what have you.. It’s not a bad tool.. but as with Dreamweaver.. it’s had a little bit of a problem when it’s come to web standards design.. which, again, is not to say you can’t use it for web standards design… but you need that extra level of understanding to make it happen.

The new version of Fireworks, however.. is a little bit of a different tool.. See Fireworks was a tool from Macromedia.. and Fireworks’s closest competitor was probably Image Ready, which was bundled with Photoshop back in the day… Fireworks was the better tool.. but everybody needs Photoshop.. so to get it free with Photoshop.. aww, well you see the war that was being waged! Then, Adobe bought Macromedia, and Adobe CS3 Web Standard and Web Premium.. are the first post acquisition offering.. Which means, obviously enough, that the niches these programs occupy had to change a little. And so it is that we see Fireworks moving in a “rapid prototyping direction.”

I’m very interested to figure out what the hell this means in practice.. But basically it means you could layout an entire web site inside of Fireworks.. as a part of the early design phase.. and it will model out interactivity for you.. and shows you what’s up.. prior to going into actually coding stuff.  So.. that’s a pretty cool thing… We’ll, no doubt, be see how well this works in future blog entries.

Photoshop Extended

Seems like Photoshop has been the industry standard graphics app since the early 90s. Photoshop rocks! That’s my long held position. My view has always been that photoshop is a great tool to just kind of jump in and play with.. learn it that way my friend..

Again.. this is one of those programs that I haven’t used a new version since the OS9 days.. some folks will argue that nothing much has changed in all that time.. the real reason for upgrading is just to get it so it’ll run on the your current OS with your current processor. Seeing as I haven’t dipped in too far yet, I couldn’t really dispute that too much.. Though I can say that.. I, the once Photoshop Master of Disaster.. feel a little disorientated.. and I’m no longer so sure of myself.. so sure that the way I’m approaching a problem is the fastest / bestest (bestest being a technical term) way of doing something…  So I’m feeling like I have a whole lot of catching up to do / skill set atrophy to take care of.

On the positive side.. the extended version of Photoshop.. which is the one that’ll run you a hell of a lot of money.. is a tool that now goes into the world of video.. has special tools and abilities for this space.. which is rather exciting.. and for me, with my upcoming video projects.. a very very good thing.

Illustrator

Illustrator is what we call in “the biz” a “drawing tool.” How “drawing tool” got to be a technical term, I shall never know.. particularly as one can “draw” with photoshop, flash, fireworks, or even painter for that matter.. But any who.. Illustrator is a “vector” drawing tool.

Vectors are all about “resolution independent” graphics. Another words, you could make a graphic that is 1″ by 1″ and scale that sucker up to cover the empire state building if you wanted to..  This has certain advantages over bit map graphics.. that would look like a bunch of squares at that point.. While Illustrator’s history has been to cater to print designers.. the resolution independent nature of vectors has always played a large roll in Flash, as vectors also have the advantage of having a very small file size..  generally.. and so now Illustrator’s integration with Flash is supposed to be better then ever.

The biggest draw back to Illustrator is its learning curve.. it’s a little tricky to wrap your head around.. once you do, you realize the advantages of the Illustrator process. Further.. I think the way you really want to be using Illustrator.. most of the time at least.. is by integrating it into a larger work flow.. which would likely include photoshop, among other things.

Flash

Flash is, arguably, a strange bird. It started off as the best tool for web based animation.. but has since evolved into a full fledged web application development environment. The hard core Flash developer uses Flex.. not Flash.. but those of us on the design side of things.. we use Flash.

The biggest update to Flash is ActionScript 3. AS3, as we say, is way more powerful then past versions.. for animation based on AS3, it runs a hell of a lot faster.. and now has a more native support for XML.. for working with things like RSS.. and web services.. which is to say “the web 2.0 shtick.” 

The only problem, of course, is AS3 is a very complex sort of universe to try and explore.. you really have to learn to think like a developer.. and the real developer skill set is not one easily acquired ..

Acrobat Professional

Acrobat, as you may know, is a great way of distributing web documents, other wise known as PDFs.. and Acrobat is the authoring tool for this. Much of the significants of this is the E-Book.. which is still an evolving space.. what has be excited about Acrobat is that there is, apparently, now a way of integrating a kind of Google adsense into Acrobat.. so you could create free E-Books, with integrated adds.. with the opportunity to make money via the adds.. which is a very very cool thing… and is something I’m planning on exploring as I move forward…  

Also.. I’m planning on using Acrobat as a means of creating my resume.. 

There’s much more to this story… which we will be going into in future posts.. one assumes.. but for now.. this is a big event in my life.. and it is now time to orientate myself to this exciting new world..  

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 12:43 am and is filed under Flash, Media Arts, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.