Design Tour 2012

Ken380, Video Designer

A very worthwhile upgrade, even from CS5

I've been using Adobe products for over 10 years, and they just keep getting better and better! Usually, I wait some time before upgrading to the latest CS version, in fact I only upgraded to CS5 back in February, but when CS5.5 came out, I went ahead and upgraded to it.

Some of the new features in 5.5 After Effects, Premiere Pro and Audition have raised the bar very high for other makers of Professional Design tools. I've been very happy with Final Cut Pro for several years (in fact I went from an earlier Premiere Pro version to FCP), but now I'm migrating back the other direction! I did purchase and evaluate the FCP X product that came out in June, but due to its current lack of features that I use daily, I haven't been able to use it for any of my primary editing projects.

CS5.5, on the other hand, has all the features I need to build the kind of professional/high-end and memorable projects that my clients demand. Give it a try, I'm sure you'll agree this suite lives.

pwbtoast, Photographer

Best Software Change in Years

I finally purchased CS5 after years of using PhotoShop v7.

Pros: The layout and operation are very similar to PSv7 which reduces the learning curve.

I've started shooting more RAW photos so I can wring the finest detail out of what would have been throw away photos. My ability to produce images that I consider to be keepers has greatly increased.

HDR - Still learning and am not sure I like the enhanced images yet have to say they are very eye catching.

Speed, this is much quicker than the earlier versions.

Some of the features that were an add on, such as lens correction, for earlier versions have been incorporated.

Mini Bridge looks interesting yet I've not fully explored the capabilities.

Cons: The online help is somewhat confusing, at least to me.

This was well worth the price & I'm sorry I didn't purchase it earlier. I'm also considering taking a class to speed up my education.

ZenZenPup, Digital Image Editing

Finally!

The long and short (both good and bad) of CS5.5 comes down to 5 factors:

Good: Subscription-based payments - instead of saving up for a year, just pay the same amount per month and get productive.

Value for the Money - Buying a standalone version of Photoshop Extended for $999 makes no sense when you can get Design Premium (which includes it) for $1895, spread out over the the course of many months.

Head Scratchers: Lack of Control Awareness - Slider controls from one program to another do not match. You want to perform the same action, but you have learn three different ways of doing it in different applications.... why? Also, older filter control view windows have different means of viewing objects being manipulated...

64-bit v. 32-bit: Having a bunch of 64-bit applications vie for their own piece of the 8GB RAM pie is not a pleasant prospect. Photoshop HAS to be a 64-bit app. But why not bring the rest of the suite into the 2011 world and just put limits on their RAM access?

If you own a CANON TWAIN scanner, you're never going to get it to scan in 64-bit Photoshop CS5. So, you have to scan images in the 32-bit version first, then go back to the 64-bit version. Yikes

Overlap: There is no clear road map for the differences between Bridge and Lightroom. Lightroom uses a different color labeling schema and Bridge uses a different set of criteria for creating automatic collections - neither of which can be translated to the other.

amattas, Digital Image editing

Perfect Blend

Creative Suite Design Premium is the perfect blend for my needs. I'm an aspiring photographer and digital design enthusiast and this suite allows me to effectively edit my digital photos, design print materials, and web sites.

svrra, Painting/fine art

Good product

Favorite features: Complex selections, Content-Aware Fill, HDR imaging, Painting effects, Lens correction

kg32, Vector graphic creation

yep, it's suite.

It's been great to use for the past few months. I mostly use Illustrator and Photoshop but have also gone into InDesign to do a couple of quick layouts.

Smooth running and intuitive for me at least.The last version I had was 3 so this is a huge jump in many respects.
I'm diggin' it. months. I mostly use Illustrator and Photoshop but have also gone into InDesign to do a couple of quick layouts.

Smooth running and intuitive for me at least. The last version I had was 3 so this is a huge jump in many respects.
I'm diggin' it.

Brak, Graphic Designer

Great but....

I love the Creative Suite set of products. I've been using Adobe products for 17 years and I really like all the improvements over time. The content aware fill is absolutely incredible. I'd still like 4 more features:

InDesign: Export to PNG (with transparency). You have JPG, why not PNG.

InDesign: When exporting, export pages using their assigned page numbers instead of sequential from 1..x

Photoshop: Ability to apply dynamic effects to Layer Sets (Folders)

Photoshop: More dynamic effects. There's a flat drop-shadow, but how about a perspective based shadow. A shadow that, instead of giving the appearance of the shape being flat against a wall, it's sitting perpendicular to the wall with a diagonal light source. Would save a lot of manual processes.

AnyaC, Graphic Designer

Blew my mind

I absolutely adore CS5. It works perfectly and does everything I need to do and more. The only reason I did not rate it excellent for the ease of use is because I am personally just a novice, and I am still learning how to do things--when I do learn, though, it is incredible. One of the best investments I have made in a long time.

Calypso42, eBook producer

Great for eBook creation

I've produced half a dozen ebooks using InDesign now, and it creates great ebooks... and InDesign is a life saver because it makes it easy to make the inevitable changes which the authors ALWAYS want to make after you thought you were finished! "Rewrite that chapter? Sure, we can do that!"

The one thing missing from InDesign is support for moving the embedded index, which works well in print, into the ebook world. I've successfully used links and anchors to make a working ebook index, but it was a lot of effort.

Photoshop is fabulous and Bridge is the best way to organize images I've ever found.

Overall, a great suite of products.

tmorvay, Printing

Creative Suite 5.5 Design Standard monthly lease

Our company Trade Show Flooring Direct - recently entered into the wide format Graphic printing arena - Custom Graphics Direct. We needed to have a product that would give us the ability to create and modify our customers Graphic files or ideas - Being new to the industry we didn't want to have a large outlay of funds for a product we were not sure would fit our needs - after some recommendations from industry colleges we decided to go with the Creative Suite 5.5 Design Standard on a month to month lease. - This has been a great choice - We are still in the learning stages – and a little overwhelmed by what these programs can do. Great Product – Good Value-

Jaketronic, Rich app and mobile app development

The Future Is Now

Adobe does it again - harnessing the light of the future into my toolkit.

Strong standards and the new subscription service are a critical part of my workflow.

I'm excited to be a `part of the team`, and the subscription service was a vital part of the choice.

Kudos.

chaloupe, Build standards-based websites

A must have at a low price

This piece of software is a must have. The monthly subscription is also a great deal for starting businesses when dealing with cashflow.

Have been using Dreamweaver since college in 2003 and it is the only software that I have always choose to work. I've tried many more but always return to Dreamweaver before starting a project.

magicDamo, Build standards-based websites

Great Steps Forward

CS 5.5 Web Premium is a great move forward. Dreamweaver's support of jQuery mobile, CSS3 and HTML 5 makes this product much more contemporary and can easily keep up with any code editor with some really nice features. The Multi-Screen preview is one of those hidden gems that I use quite often to get a quick view of things while proto-typing layouts, especially responsive ones.

...and Flash just keeps going with it's internal support for Actionscript. The workspace is great.

hillary, Video Editor

A worthwhile investment

I am producing short videos for our company website, and debated going with Premiere Elements. I am so glad I sprang for the full professional suite. As with the rest of the creative suite line (I'm well versed in the Design Premium suite, and this was an upgrade), it's a brilliant product.

The learning curve isn't all that short, but the reward for effort is pretty spectacular. Not only is the output brilliant, but once I established a work flow, the editing process is fast and efficient. Also, I find that the Adobe.tv range of tutorials is more than adequate for getting one up to speed. If you are wondering whether or not this software is worth the investment, the answer is a resounding yes. It will pay you back more quickly than you can imagine.

quinnmcguee, Post Production

Premiere Pro > FCP

I've been using FCP since version 3 and stuck to it because it's what I knew. I tried PP before but I was so familiar with FCP that I always went back. With the release of FCPX, I had no choice but to switch. Looking back, the thing that stopped me from switching earlier was just that I was so familiar with FCP and knew the shortcuts like the back of my hand. Since switching, just the fact that there is no transcoding is reason enough never to use anything but Premiere. How many hours of my life did I waste transcoding to Pro Res? How many hard drives did I needlessly fill up with my original media and my transcoded media? What a waste.

The other things I love is the tight integration with After Effects and, most importantly, Adobe appears to be really listening and caring about what it's customers needs are. I sent a feature request to Adobe and received an email reply, from an actual person, detailing how Premier already did what I was looking for but in a different way. That would NEVER happen with Apple.

The only issue I have now is getting people to switch. A lot of people are still stuck in what they know. So far, I've converted one friend and he said what I stated earlier. "Just not having to transcode is reason enough to use Premiere."

kg32, Graphic Designer

The best there is but upgrade prices are too high!

I own CS3 Master Collection and know what a great product it is so getting a 5.5 upgrade is very desirable but upgrade prices are steep. Rather than getting the upgrade I opted to get a lesser packaged full version, the Production Premium CS5.5 for a newer 64 bit supercomputer so i could keep my older CS3 on an older 32bit computer and laptop.

If i had a newer 64bit laptop in addition to my new supercomputer i would have probably gone for the updated Master Collection 5.5 but the laptop was not within my budget. The upgrade prices are so steep i didn't bother with the CS4 or the CS5. maybe I will be rolling in dough someday soon and can get the new laptop and upgrade my Production Premium CS5.5 to the Master Collection x.x down the road. Otherwise, the product is the best.

There are plenty of addons out there for video and photos that work great with the product too like red giant, onone, topaz, and nik.