Adobe Creative Suite:
Bundle Up for Success

BY EDEN MAXWELL

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To better reflect the increased level of integration among its creative professional tools, Adobe has dropped version denominators and re-christened its collection of design and layout programs with Creative Suite (CS) branding. For example, Photoshop CS is the new, full-upgrade version of Photoshop instead of Photoshop 8.0. Similarly, Adobe Illustrator CS replaces Illustrator 11, InDesign CS replaces InDesign 3.0, and GoLive CS replaces GoLive 7.0. Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional is the only application that keeps a version number. All of the CS products will be upgraded on the same schedule, and you can, of course, buy any of them as standalone apps. Although the programs in the CS Suites are packaged together, they are no more integrated than if you purchase them separately.

The Suite is available from Adobe in a Standard ($999) or Premium ($1,229) package. If you’re involved in print-only jobs, you can get by with the Standard Edition, which bundles Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, and InDesign CS. For users immersed in print and web design, the Premium Edition includes the apps in the Standard plus GoLive CS and Acrobat 6 Professional. With many useful new features, enhanced performance, and more subtle control of over image editing, Adobe Creative Suite is much more than a cosmetic upgrade. It also introduces Version Cue, a file management system designed to help keep track of files in a workgroup situation.

PHOTOSHOP CS: MORE PIXEL MUSCLE

As an artist, if I had to choose one image editing and creation app, I wouldn’t have to think about it. There is no more powerful and versatile, graphic, software application than Adobe Photoshop.

Photoshop CS boasts improvements to existing tools, adds a few essential filters, and promotes the handy File Browser to digital, imaging hub status. From it you can preview, search, sort, flag, edit metadata and keywords, and nearly anything else you can imagine.

Photoshop CS gives photographers tools spanning the breadth of digital photography workflow. For example, Camera Raw provides precise control over the raw image files in a professional-grade camera and Photo Filters creates effects as easily as twisting a filter onto a lens. Other new features allow you to: Match Color schemes within a series of shots, instantly fix exposure problems with Shadow/Highlight correction, create subtle Lens Blur effects, and much more.

With many useful new

features, enhanced

performance, and

more subtle control of

over image editing,

Adobe Creative Suite

is much more than

a skin deep upgrade.

Photoshop CS also provides a live Histogram palette throughout your workflow, and comprehensive support for 16-bit color images up to 100-times larger than previous versions. It includes a host of shortcuts and efficiencies, including the ability to: Crop and Straighten scanned images quickly and easily, change colors as easily as painting in the image by using the Color Replacement tool, and use Photomerge to create panoramic photographs by stitching together overlapping images. Red-eye removal (borrowed from Photoshop Elements) is part of the Color Replacement tool.

Layer Comps: In the Flow
The new (and fast) Layer Comps tool in Photoshop CS saves multiple versions within a document. The new text engine generates fully editable text on any path or inside any shape. The new Layer Comps palette permits combinations of layers to exist within a single Photoshop CS file. Each saved Layer Comp is a snapshot of the Layers palette at that moment. It captures the combinations of the layer positions, visibility, and appearance as defined by the layer style dialog. The Layers palette has also undergone a metamorphosis. Now it can nest layer-sets 5 deep.

With the new History Log, you are able to save a record of your files individually or together. Without this feature, capturing changes in layer appearance or position is a tedious process requiring their duplication and, thereby, the creation of large, complicated files.

Video and filmmakers will appreciate non-square image support while designing for DVD, video, and film. Images can be viewed with different aspect ratios exactly as they will appear on standards-compliant, external monitors without the distortion caused by non-square images. Photoshop CS is a must upgrade, even if you buy it as a standalone app.

Photoshop CS has promoted the File Browser to digital hub status where you can organize, search, and label files in one easy interface.

Adobe Photoshop CS: Easily fix highlight problems with the new
Shadow/Highlight correction tool.

ILLUSTRATOR CS: YOU’RE MY TYPE

For years, I’ve been looking forward to improvements in Illustrator’s typographical capabilities. Until now, its basic set of text tools has required switching back and forth between it and a page layout app. This is now ancient history. Adobe has essentially appropriated the text and typographic features from InDesign CS and placed them neatly in Illustrator CS.

Paragraph and Character Styles
Character and paragraph styles, support for the advanced layout features in OpenType fonts, automatic ligatures, optical kerning, and a new text composition engine, represent some of the new features in this release. From superior text composition that eliminates “rivers” of white space and bad line breaks in paragraphs, to ensuring that ligatures are used and punctuation is well positioned, you’ll quickly be setting great-looking type with Illustrator.

You can define and work with as many styles as necessary, including combinations of formatting attributes from the simplest to the most elaborate. In addition to standard formatting options, paragraph and character styles can include advanced OpenType options such as: titling, contextual, and swash alternates, ordinals, fractions and discretionary ligatures. For example, it is possible to define a style that automatically reformats number combinations as fractions.

With improved control over Character Styles and Paragraph
Styles,and support for the advanced layout features
built into OpenType fonts, Illustrator CS is a must have
upgrade for any graphic artist working with type.

Opentype Goodies
Adobe Illustrator CS introduces advanced support for OpenType fonts. The OpenType font standard was developed jointly by Adobe and Microsoft, and brings the advantages of both the TrueType and PostScript font formats into a new one that takes advantage of Unicode character encoding. In addition to expanding the number of glyphs (a font can contain from hundreds to tens of thousands of them), OpenType fonts offer two primary benefits: they make sharing documents across platforms easier because the same font file is used by Mac OS and Windows, and they enable you to set distinctive type by providing easy, context-sensitive access to the special characters designed into a font. Glyphs are visual representations of individual character designs.

Files now move between platforms without the problems of font substitution and reflow. A single OpenType font file can include many more glyphs than other font formats. This includes those previously available only in expert sets, and char-acters for non-western languages such as Greek and Cyrillic. Because OpenType fonts don’t assume a character is represented by only one glyph (as in earlier font formats), programs that provide advanced OpenType support (such as Illustrator) permit the substitution of one letterform for another. For example, the lowercase “f” might appear as the default character, a small cap, with other characters as part of a ligature (a glyph that combines multiple letters into a single visual form), or as a swash with fancy flourishes.

In addition to these benefits, Illustrator CS includes special OpenType commands for automatic, con-text-sensitive substitution of alternative glyphs. For example, if you select the Fractions option then type 3/16 in an OpenType font that supports arbitrary fractions, the numbers will automatically be reformatted as a fraction. When the Swash is selected, alternate Swash glyphs of the OpenType font are used.

Illustrator CS includes more than 100 fonts from 24, western-language OpenType font families, as well as Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Unfortunately, the text in legacy Illustrator files (earlier versions) is not compatible with the new type. Even though you can update the text as you open a file, this procedure causes type to reflow with unwanted results.

Optical Adjustments
With many fonts, the default spacing between characters is uneven (even with the kerning pairs built into the font). Designers have been using manual kerning to adjust type, but the process is time-consuming. To help balance the desire for quality and the drive to meet schedules, Illustrator CS introduced two features to automate the method. They are Optical Kerning and Optical Margin Alignment.

Optical kerning (located in the Character palette) kerns text for optimal spacing by analyzing the text’s visual charac-teristics, and determines the ideal spacing even when fonts and sizes are mixed. Kerning is cumulative. Optically kerned text is adjustable to your satisfaction.

Optical Margin Alignment automatically adjusts punctuation and text charac-ters at either end of a line so block edges appear more even. It’s most often used to hang quotation marks and hyphens, but other characters are also shifted for good-looking results.

Rivers Do Not Run Through It
The Every-Line composer option eliminates having to fine-tune line breaks by hand. The main goal when setting longer runs of text is to produce elegant line breaks using minimal hyphenation and consistent spacing, and no “rivers” of white space. The Every-line Composer, a unique, Adobe composition engine that is also used in both Adobe InDesign and Adobe Photoshop, determines the best line breaks across an entire run of text (a capability exclusive to Adobe’s professional graphics applications). By optimizing earlier lines in order to avoid potentially unattractive breaks, it accomplishes its goal with ease.

3D for Effect
Rendering objects in perspective goes back to the Renaissance, and is a time-honored way to bring the illusion of depth to printed matter. Illustrator CS simplifies adding 3D elements to graphic and video projects. The new, integrated 3D Effect option transforms type and drawn shapes into 3D objects that can be rotated.You can also customize lighting effects. The 3D shapes are “live,” meaning changes made to 2D objects reflect in the 3D shapes. The Preview option facilitates viewing the new 3D element, in context, before printing.

You can extrude, revolve, and rotate shapes. The Extrude command extends the shape into space by adding sides and a top. It’s ideal for creating geometric forms and 3D type. By selecting the Bevel option, objects appear to be chiseled. Beveled edges are widely used for designing buttons and other navigational aids.

Illustrator CS now offers a handy 3D tool that works well for designing simple elements. Hot Door, developers of plug-ins for Illustrator, offers CADTools 3.0 that features Isometric drawing tools for creating 2D and 3D shapes – especially useful for precise architectural and engineering drawings.

The Revolve command converts a simple path to 3D by revolving it around a central axis. It’s ideal when producing circular forms like bottles and glasses. The Rotate option transforms a shape into a 3D object and eliminates the tedium of mapping artwork onto 3D surfaces.

Although Illustrator’s 3-D vector-based tools are no substitute for dedicated 3-D modeling software, they are excellent for creating interface elements, logos, and other simple 3-D objects.

Expanded Print Capabilites
Illustrator’s streamlined user interface eliminates the Page Setup and Separations Setup dialog boxes, and consolidates their functions into the Print dialog box. This more unified interface makes it easier to specify print-ing options quickly and accurately. Visual feedback is available in the Print dialog box. Print Preview displays a thumbnail of the artwork and detailed, visual information about the interaction between current print settings and selected media. The thumbnail is always visible.

Illustrator also provides flexible Adobe PDF layer support. You can save layered Illustrator CS files as layered Acrobat 6.0 (PDF 1.5) files so other users can display optional content when viewing the file in Adobe’s latest PDF format. Two examples of such content might be alternative designs or multilingual text. You can make variations of your design, save them out as a PDF, and let the client view the variations via Acrobat’s Layer window feature. Adobe Illustrator CS is another slam-dunk upgrade.

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