Dear Adobe

[RobertB]

8 years later I still hit this board everyday despite only using an AMS product as .01% of my workflow. Which speaks volumes to the IR folks. I am a heavy Adobe user as I spend 6-8 hours a day in a multitude of their CS3 products.

A couple of other Adobe users came up with a venting website.....I am posting this not as an idea for IR products; IR is typically very responsive to anyone on this board....but, as Adobe has their next gen release of CS4 at the end of month.....I suspect there is going to be a huge lag of buyers for CS4 as the product improvements this time are less significant for the $1000 upgrade.

The good and bad news about a larger software company....arrogance can alienate their users...and, since there are literally millions of photoshop users things could backfire. Corporate Adobe has gotten fat as Photoshop has allowed them to show profits to their shareholders for the past years. With the economy in the tank, I suspect their palace might have to entertain the paupers finally.

http://dearadobe.com/top_rated.php

[bule]

With CS4, the myth of a Mac necessity for graphics design will hopefully finally die.

AFAIK. CS4 will offer 64bit support and much better performance only on a Windows platform.

The same old rule applies here as well... if you don't like it, don't buy it. :yes

[Derek]

...as Adobe has their next gen release of CS4 at the end of month...I wasn't aware it was so close. We just bought CS3 master collection on a site licence for £9,800/$17,200US.
Lucky we opted for the 2yr upgrade protection too :yes

[AGRO]

With CS4, the myth of a Mac necessity for graphics design will hopefully finally die.


Myth? I take it you have never used a mac.

[Haydeng]

I don't understand why they make this crap so expensive.

[ShadowUK]

I love photoshop but I wasn't happy with the money i paid for it.

[bule]

Myth? I take it you have never used a mac.

Hm, can you please specify what it exactly it that makes mac a graphics design requirement? I mean, by default, the thing ships with a one mouse button... and basically all the once exclusive software for mac is now available for pc. Unless I am missing something?

[AGRO]

I am not going to get into a mac vs pc debate with you. It will end in a stalemate. Die hard mac and pc guys stand by there choice with a chip on there shoulder. I have used both for many, many years for business and personal projects. I am not a mac guy, nor am I a pc guy. I use what is best for the present job I am doing. I use my mac about 90% of the time. The work flow is much faster on my mac, and I find there is less "banging my head against the monitor". I have the same programs installed on both. Adobe products run much faster on my mac, by far.

I dont think that a mac is a "design requirement", I think it is a professional choice based on using a mac and a pc, then making your own decision.

Use what you want. Almost every professional designer I know in the same field, who has been doing this professionally for more than 6 years, uses a mac.

If you have ever been burned by a pc, you will have a little bad taste in your mouth.

Talking to people I have found that most people who bad mouth mac, have never used a mac. To me that is just ignorance.


To each his own.

cheers.

[bule]

Well I am not a graphics designer myself, nor do I want to debate this as well... but to elaborate my rash statement: It's just that several colleagues of mine used both macs and (properly configured) pcs and their opinion is that today's pcs match macs in both speed and workflow (macs are technically expensive pcs today). AFAIK, most of these by-hand performance speed measures between macs and pcs didn't take into account that there was an antivirus installed on the pc. Also, when you take performance/price ratio between pc and macs, pcs are quite ahead of macs. As they say, geek it till it MHz - more MHz for a same price, less waiting for a rendering process.

Again, let's not forget the nasty surprise Apple delivered to Adobe by canceling 64bit carbon:
http://www.macworld.com/article/132810/2008/04/photoshop64.html

To conclude, I did not intend to criticize macs since they are very nice computers; I'm just criticizing the myth (and today it is really a myth) that you absolutely need a MacOS to work in a graphics design field.

[rhosk]

I am not a mac guy, nor am I a pc guy. I use my mac about 90% of the time.

I've been around here long enough to know that you're a MAC guy and I knew you would chime in here - quickly :D

All you have to do is look at market share. Got to admit, though, you guys still fight to the death backing them up.

Keep on truckin', AGRO :)

[AGRO]

Talking to people I have found that most people who bad mouth mac, have never used a mac. To me that is just ignorance.


To each his own.

cheers.

Just thought I would recap :D

[RobertB]

I have been self employed for almost 10 years....PC's work fine for me.....but, I do really enjoy the slamming PC's MAC commercials...pretty funny and I am sure effective for new market share.

[AGRO]

Have you seen this one with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz6amk3P-hY&feature=related

[RobertB]

Yea, an unlikely combo....but, I like how they did not try to copy cat Apple...and, it seems Vista is around for awhile but they are really trying to re-brand and extinquish the rumbling in the XP camps.

[ScottDuncan]

I have a PC and a MAC, and personally believe the PC is a better system today. Not because it's somehow more superior in functionality to the MAC, i think they're very simular in ability, but software, parts, etc.. are far easier to aquire for a PC than a MAC. It's just getting around on each differs. That old myth applied in the 90's when MACs were much more stable than PCs.


Almost every professional designer I know in the same field, who has been doing this professionally for more than 6 years, uses a mac.


I think about 6 years ago is when the PC established itself as a solid computer. I think XP was the point in time. XP Pro is a solid system. I think nowadays it's not about which one can get it done, they both can, it's about which system flows the way your brain likes to flow.

[RobertB]

FLASH has always overwhelmed me on the creative side. There maybe is hope for guys like me.

http://rhystague.com/2008/06/30/diesel-flash-cs4/

[RobertB]

http://www.adobe.com/special/cs4event/?trackingid=DNJLZ

[RobertB]

Well, I pulled the switch and ordered CS4 yesterday...dang, Adobe dinged me for $45 for tax.....Amazon would not have....so FYI.

I am mostly interested in Acrobat Pro 9 Extended allowing full blown multimedia to be more easily viewed in PDF's.....I could embed flash files in 8 but it seems everyone's default security settings for their version of Acrobat Reader made it very clunkey. I hope this is improved. Stay tuned for the review.

[RobertB]

I have only had the CS4 Premium Design Suite installed for a few days...

Overall I am very please the upgrades but still delving into some key features.

Mostly, the layout nuances take a little getting used to but ultimately should be more efficient.

Per product:

Photoshop - Loads faster...no new filters or anything like that. Combined with Bridge the export go web and/or pdf is very nice. Here is a standard quick and easy gallery sample from CS4. http://patrickpattison.com/headshots/content/index_8.html

Illustrator - The multiple artboards and the blob tool....finally up to speed with CorelDraw. Very nice. I use the Cvalley plugins and those are not ready yet for CS4.

InDesign - I export at least 10-20 projects per day in InDesign and the interface is still strange for me but some nice new features.

FLASH - I am such a flash noob I have not done too much but the workspace is allot different.

Dreamweaver - I like it.

So, despite my grumblings....it was worth $600 to upgrade... just a few jobs will pay for the time savings.

[RobertB]

Ok...here is an example of the new Acrobat pro portfolio component...I just slapped this together...but, mostly interested if anyone has problem figuring out the slideshow part and viewing the images full screen?

http://vegasbaker.com/test.pdf

Thanks in advance.