Creative revolution in a box with Adobe CS3
By Susan Ferroa, channelnewsasia.com | Posted: 30 March 2007 1322 hrs

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	Video What's Adobe CS3 all about?

When Adobe joined hands with Macromedia, the questioned most often asked was whether it was going to be a marriage made in heaven or a case of hell on earth. Now, the denizens of creative departments worldwide are breaking out their stash of champagne (or whatever is fashionably drinkable) to celebrate the union which has led to Adobe's Creative Suite 3 (CS3).

It is the largest software release in Adobe's 25-year history and promises to revolutionise creative workflows. More importantly, it blends the best of Adobe and Macromedia.

Adobe has described its new line-up as "revolutionary" and will probably remain unfazed like its Solutions Engineer for South East Asia, Marianne Young was, in facing any initial lukewarm reception by end-users to the new applications.

The suite showcased by Young at a recent Singapore launch, highlighted tightly integrated design and development tools available to creative teams who can now work across different media platforms without breaking out too much of a sweat.

There are six new bundled configurations in Adobe Creative Suite 3, all dressed in fresh designs and colours. These include, Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium and Design Standard; Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium and Web Standard; and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium. The mother of them all is the Master Collection which combines 12 of Adobe's new design and development applications in a single box.

In a nutshell, what each of the boxes contain are tools that will allow designers to start off creating for one media and from there, take it to a range of other plaforms, from web to print, film and mobile.

Most editions of Adobe Creative Suite 3 will be able to run on both Windows (XP and Vista) and Mac (PowerPC and Intel-based) and for those who don't want a bundled configuration, there are 12 stand-alone CS3 applications that users can upgrade to, including Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, Adobe Premiere and After Effects.

The different bundled CS3 configurations serve a breadth of design needs, Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium for instance, takes care of design work in print, interactive and mobile, while Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium offers web design and development tools such as Dreamweaver and Photoshop with the ease of copy and paste options to build websites for delivery on different browers and also handheld devices.

The Master Collection with its combination of applications, should serve professionals who design across all media - print, web, interactive, mobile, video and film.

Apart from new versions of old favourites such as Flash, Encore and Soundbooth which will be bundled in the Master Collection, there will also be Device Central for developing content on mobile handsets and In Design that offers more flexiblity and versatility in the layout as well as production of complex documents.

The CS3 sets will see some Macromedia products such as Freehand missing on the line up but Tan Wee Ling, Marketing Manager, Creative Solutions (SEA) assured that the software is still available, but as a stand alone product.

The roll out of the CS3 range will be in stages, starting with the Design and Web bundles coming out first in April, and the entire range unveiled by June 2007.