[Mac] A mess called Adobe CS5

[Boz]

You're grateful? Last time I checked Adobe is a commercial company that has to innovate to keep their customers and sell their software to, not a charity organization.

Not really.. they own the market with their tools and they could've just reiterated another version of the Creative Suite and added some minor things and charged the same amount as for any new suite. But I'm grateful that despite the fact they don't need to do anything as there is simply no software package out there that matches their features (even from CS4) they keep pushing the boundaries and introduce technology and improvements that are some sci-fi stuff. Content-Aware scaling and filling is alone some truly unbelievable stuff.

[.Neo]

It's not that customers would immediately drop the Creative Suite software and switch to the competition. Customers, however, would see very little reason to upgrade to the newly released version if it offers hardly anything over its predecessor, which could be equally damaging to Adobe's sales.

Adobe isn't doing us a favor.

[Xtreme $niper]

Photoshop stopped adding features that would be useful to me when CS3 came out. Maybe even CS2. The new offerings in CS5 are "nice to haves". I'm waiting for the day when I'll actually need to use any of them. They sound great on paper, but incorporating it into your workflow is not as seamless as one would think.

[Xtreme $niper]

It took me only a few minutes to install the Photoshop CS5 trial version... It still installs everything that the retail version would have, so I think it's a fair comparison. It's just not off a disk, so read times would be faster.

[.Neo]

I know on the PC version CS5 was wayyyyyyyyyyyyy faster to install than CS4. Took about 5-10mins to install all when it took like 25 mins to install the same programs in CS4.

Same thing applies to the Mac version. CS4 takes for ever to install (and that on a 2009 Mac Pro, go figure). CS5 installs fairly quickly on Mac OS X as well (depending on the package of course).

It's just a shame the installers scatters crap everywhere, and not one uninstaller from Adobe manages to get rid of it all. Surely a company like Adobe should be able to do a better job at this?

[rawr_boy81]

Same thing applies to the Mac version. CS4 takes for ever to install (and that on a 2009 Mac Pro, go figure). CS5 installs fairly quickly on Mac OS X as well (depending on the package of course).

It's just a shame the installers scatters crap everywhere, and not one uninstaller from Adobe manages to get rid of it all. Surely a company like Adobe should be able to do a better job at this?

What are the other components of Creative Suite like? Illustrator? Fireworks? etc. Is there an across the board improvement when compared to CS4?

[Elliott]

What are the other components of Creative Suite like? Illustrator? Fireworks? etc. Is there an across the board improvement when compared to CS4?

Other than added features, no. Illustrator and Fireworks aren't any faster or behave any better than they used to.

Photoshop is the only one that got a nice boost, and that's because they switched enough of it to Cocoa so they could compile it as a universal (32/64-bit) binary. Photoshop is also the only one using OpenGL rendering, and since they fixed the "blurry guide" bug (by being able to separate the guides and shape boundaries off into CPU rendering), it's usable and fast.

I'm still scratching my head over the close/min/zoom widgets in Photoshop CS5, though. I can't figure out how they managed to do that. :laugh:

[.Neo]

I'm still scratching my head over the close/min/zoom widgets in Photoshop CS5, though. I can't figure out how they managed to do that. :laugh:

Adobe hired the same guy who did Google Chrome for Mac OS X.

[Elliott]

Adobe hired the same guy who did Google Chrome for Mac OS X.

You know what kills me about the Google Chrome widgets? They did it on purpose. There's a "bug report" in their tracker where some idiot thought it was a good idea and the rest of the devs just went "Yea, sure!"

[.Neo]

Retards. Luckily I don't have to deal with Google's stupidity being a full-time Safari user. :p

[Quillz]

Google might have used Flash to develop part of the interface the way Adobe did with CS5, which is why they have non-standard window widgets.

[Elliott]

Google might have used Flash to develop part of the interface the way Adobe did with CS5, which is why they have non-standard window widgets.

Nope. Google has actually been really good about keeping Chrome fully Cocoa. The problem is that they just made a few bad design decisions.

[.Neo]

Nope. Google has actually been really good about keeping Chrome fully Cocoa. The problem is that they just made a few bad design decisions.

So where does its non-native interface come from? It also lacks many build-in features from the OS.

[Elliott]

So where does its non-native interface come from? It also lacks many build-in features from the OS.

Like I said, they made some bad design and programming decisions, many of which to keep it theme-able (same problem Firefox has although Chrome "themes" are much, much worse).

In terms of non-standard web page widgets, they borrow a lot from WebKit, which would give them things like standard widgets in webpages, and then decide that they want to do their own thing (like have a non-standard spell-checking system). Then again, it took Safari a pretty long time to get its own in-page widgets to the point where they could look/act both standard and be themed by CSS if the web designer so chose.

[.Neo]

Oh well, guess that's another application that will never make it onto my Mac. ;)

[Boz]

It's not that customers would immediately drop the Creative Suite software and switch to the competition. Customers, however, would see very little reason to upgrade to the newly released version if it offers hardly anything over its predecessor, which could be equally damaging to Adobe's sales.

Adobe isn't doing us a favor.

Use CS5 in a professional manner.. what the hell are you even talking about.. CS5 is a mass update with features that make my life easier with new things they've added. Improved 3D layers, content-aware scaling, content-aware filling, new unbelievable selection tools and so forth.. there are tons of thing in Photoshop that make my work so much faster now.

If you use pirated Photoshop for playing with a few layers and then say how it doesn't have new features then that's your inability to use the software not that they didn't add anything.

Other than added features, no. Illustrator and Fireworks aren't any faster or behave any better than they used to.

Photoshop is the only one that got a nice boost, and that's because they switched enough of it to Cocoa so they could compile it as a universal (32/64-bit) binary. Photoshop is also the only one using OpenGL rendering, and since they fixed the "blurry guide" bug (by being able to separate the guides and shape boundaries off into CPU rendering), it's usable and fast.

I'm still scratching my head over the close/min/zoom widgets in Photoshop CS5, though. I can't figure out how they managed to do that. :laugh:

Speed is not the only measurement of an update.. it's adding new features that I need.. Photoshop works just fine.. if you want to do it professionally you already have a very fast machine, but features they add that make me do something now in 2 minutes that took me 2 hours are INDISPENSABLE.

Photoshop stopped adding features that would be useful to me when CS3 came out. Maybe even CS2. The new offerings in CS5 are "nice to haves". I'm waiting for the day when I'll actually need to use any of them. They sound great on paper, but incorporating it into your workflow is not as seamless as one would think.

That's because obviously you don't use it in a way that you explore all features.. I think you would be fine with Photoshop 3.5 as most people use layers and simple stuff like this.

With every iteration of their suite they introduced features that cut my workflow time-wise in half. This is all I can ask from software.

[.Neo]

Use CS5 in a professional manner.. what the hell are you even talking about.. CS5 is a mass update with features that make my life easier with new things they've added. Improved 3D layers, content-aware scaling, content-aware filling, new unbelievable selection tools and so forth.. there are tons of thing in Photoshop that make my work so much faster now.

If you use pirated Photoshop for playing with a few layers and then say how it doesn't have new features then that's your inability to use the software not that they didn't add anything.

What the hell are you talking about? You said that Adobe doesn't have to innovate in order to keep its customers because there is very little competition. I didn't agree to that, because if Adobe stopped innovating people simply wouldn't upgrade to the next version. That's what my reply was about in regards to what you said earlier. I'm not saying in any way that CS5 isn't a major upgrade.

Speed is not the only measurement of an update.. it's adding new features that I need.. Photoshop works just fine.. if you want to do it professionally you already have a very fast machine, but features they add that make me do something now in 2 minutes that took me 2 hours are INDISPENSABLE.

Elliot clearly stated that while there are added features the overall performance of the applications are pretty much the same. Nowhere did he claim that performance is the only measurement of an update.

Do us all a favor and read the posts we replied to for a change. Just out of curiosity, do you get paid by the Adobe PR team for advertising?

[Boz]

What the hell are you talking about? You said that Adobe doesn't have to innovate in order to keep its customers because there is very little competition. I didn't agree to that, because if Adobe stopped innovating people simply wouldn't upgrade to the next version. I'm not saying in any way that CS5 isn't a major upgrade.

Nope.. I said they didn't have to.. but they do..

Do us all a favor and read the posts we replied to for a change. And just out of curiosity, do you get paid by the Adobe PR team?

No I don't, but I am an Adobe partner and I am involved with testing and evaluating new features for Adobe tools while they are in development.. and I use their tools at pretty much 100% and use them professionally every day.. and not only Photoshop but the whole suite.. I'm much more aware of the shortcomings and issues and features they add than a regular person who just uses it for simple edits or layers that complain how they don't add stuff and how it's a mess.

There is no tool or suite that has so much flexibility, power and features as Adobe stuff.. I would use other things if they were better, but they are not. It's a free market and if someone made a suite that was better people would switch, but there's a reason why professionals in creative industry use their tools, it's not because they have to, it's because they are absolutely the best.

[.Neo]

There is no tool or suite that has so much flexibility, power and features as Adobe stuff.. I would use other things if they were better, but they are not. It's a free market and if someone made a suite that was better people would switch, but there's a reason why professionals in creative industry use their tools, it's not because they have to, it's because they are absolutely the best.

[Elliott]

Use CS5 in a professional manner.. what the hell are you even talking about.. CS5 is a mass update with features that make my life easier with new things they've added. Improved 3D layers, content-aware scaling, content-aware filling, new unbelievable selection tools and so forth.. there are tons of thing in Photoshop that make my work so much faster now.

If you use pirated Photoshop for playing with a few layers and then say how it doesn't have new features then that's your inability to use the software not that they didn't add anything.

You're right, CS5 is a massive update, but CS5 had to be a massive update. If they just rehashed CS4, everybody would stick with CS4 and not buy CS5. I think you're really missing the point we're making here.

Speed is not the only measurement of an update.. it's adding new features that I need.. Photoshop works just fine.. if you want to do it professionally you already have a very fast machine, but features they add that make me do something now in 2 minutes that took me 2 hours are INDISPENSABLE.

Of course speed isn't the only measure of an update (nor did I say it was), but speed and usability are extremely important. I don't see why Adobe can't improve both when updating their suite. Just because they have some guys working on some magical algorithms doesn't mean they can't have other guys working on improving other aspects of the suite.

[Superchase]

Anyone out there, tell me, is CS3 a good version compared with CS4 or CS5? I was thinking of getting the Adobe Master Collection CS3. Is that better than getting either the CS4 or CS5? Seems to me every time I read a review about either CS4 or CS5, it's just a lot of complaints about their stability and bugs.

What's your take? What should I do? Should I just stick to CS3 or upgrade to CS4 or CS5?

Which in your opinion is the best version?

Thanks. I'm so confused because Adobe keeps updating every year and last year's version becomes obsolete before I've even learned it.

[Superchase]

Perhaps this step to 64 bit computing was a bit too much of a leap for Adobe to take? First try on any product it seems, is always the most unstable/wonky. If CS5 were strictly a 32 bit app, it might have beeen really good. But having to jump to 64 bit with its increased memory and coding requirements is perhaps to daunting a task? I dunno just a thought. Perhaps CS5 is the 'revolutionary' release, and CS6 will be the 'Bug Fix' Release? Maybe it's CS6 that we're all waiting for...and it'll be the really good one.

Comments?

[+virtorio MVC]

Anyone out there, tell me, is CS3 a good version compared with CS4 or CS5? I was thinking of getting the Adobe Master Collection CS3. Is that better than getting either the CS4 or CS5? Seems to me every time I read a review about either CS4 or CS5, it's just a lot of complaints about their stability and bugs.

What's your take? What should I do? Should I just stick to CS3 or upgrade to CS4 or CS5?

Which in your opinion is the best version?

Thanks. I'm so confused because Adobe keeps updating every year and last year's version becomes obsolete before I've even learned it.

If CS 4 or 5 have some new functionality you want or need then upgrade.

Either way, CS4 and 5 and great. People just love and bitch and moan.

[.Neo]

What's your take? What should I do? Should I just stick to CS3 or upgrade to CS4 or CS5?

Keep in mind that Adobe CS3 isn't supported on Mac OS X Snow Leopard in any way (neither is CS4 officially, but I could be wrong). Some Adobe CS3 applications refuse to run on Mac OS X Snow Leopard all together, but this is supposedly being fixed with the v10.6.4 update.

[rawr_boy81]

Just installed Master Suite CS5 and I'm happy with Media Encoder which is really fast now - and the quality is really good too. All the other applications are either the same or slightly slower but from what I see there have been updates which improve things a bit. I hope that maybe CS6 will be 100% 64bit goodness :D