Comments on: Adobe’s CS4: Updating The Army Of Davids’ Toolkit

By: Kirk Turner

Kirk Turner — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 14:01:32 +0000

Professionals use Adobe’s Creative Suite or Madcap products; they are well worth the price if you understand the software and can make use of all its components. In addition,they produce web and print documents that are far superior than cheap shareware or freeware software programs. If you don’t use software often and want freeware or shareware programs – that’s different. I produce printed and web documents for a living, and wouldn’t be caught dead using most of the programs listed above, Corel being the exeption. But then again, I have to produce first-rate products, or my reputation is finished.

By: Ratatosk

Ratatosk — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:04:22 +0000

If there was a competitor for Flash, Adobe would be in serious trouble.

By: Dave in Texas

Dave in Texas — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:48:29 +0000

Apple’s suite, Final Cut Studio, is as good as or better than Adobe, with the added benefit that Macs don’t usually crash and burn every ten minutes and have almost no viruses and malware written for them… they run for weeks without getting slower, they are simpler to use and do the tech stuff on.. they even defrag automatically without even asking them to.

I have become a Mac guy over the past two years… once you go Mac, etc.

And I agree with the article’s premise.. I now have the tools to produce a major motion picture, all for a few hundred bucks and the right computer. Of course it’s about lighting and expensive cameras and actors and all that, but without any of those I can still produce what looks like a quality television show… amazing stuff, in such a short time.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:41:42 +0000

In my experience the only thing Adobe has going for it is Dreamweaver which they bought from another company. Their new stuff is over priced to the point that, for me at least, it is just not worth the cost. Dreamweaver 8 is as far as I am willing to go with them. And yeah, like others have pointed out, there are lots of freeware and lower cost alternatives out there.
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By the way, I hope all you rich liberals out there are going to pay a bunch of taxes because Joe Biden said it’s your patriotic duty to do so and I am waiting for my share of the free stuff Obama promised me.

By: bobdog

bobdog — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:43:20 +0000

I fundamentally disagree with Adobe that Acrobat Professional is worth $500.00 and is so bloated it requires a DVD or multiple CD’s to install it.

I also disagree that a program as obtuse and complex as Photoshop is somehow worth $800.00.

By: locomotivebreath1901

locomotivebreath1901 — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:00:51 +0000

I too, agree with Paddy O’s comments on Corel. Much more intuitive the Adobe. Particularly, why anyone would use Illustrator over Draw is beyond me.

Now, I’ve never been a video guy, but After Effects CS4 sounds promising. Viral video just got more interesting.

As for photoshop, I only know enough to be dangerous, but I’m sure the media boys n girls will have fun w/ the added bells & whistles manufacturing more ‘news’!

TY EBD, Jr for the review.

By: Yehudit

Yehudit — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:45:36 +0000

There are tons of shareware and freeware – for Windows, Mac, and Linux – which include most of the features of these expensive expert tools. They are not implemented as beautifully, but if you are doing rough and ready guerilla multimedia you shouldn’t care. This is like buying a Ferrari to drive to the grocery store every week.

if you want to turn out a slick product, ok. But not only are the tools you’ve described going to run you $2000 total, they have a steep learning curve. Not to mention why you want to do fauxtography in the first place.

Anyway, the real action is in social software, which is free or pretty cheap. As in I got a good twitter client for my iphone for $3, and ok ones for free. And most of the web spaces are free. What counts is the communication and organization, not production values.

By: Paddy O

Paddy O — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:10:13 +0000

I heartily recommend the Corel products as well. I've got CS2, and still use it, but have found myself increasingly opening Corel's products more and more, especially for less complex tasks. Their Painter series is, of course, always top notch, without comparison. But, now, I've really started appreciating their CorelDraw X4, which is a significantly cheaper alternative to Adobe's design suite, with associated programs that make Photoshop and Illustrator mostly unneeded. Corel has a really top-notch video program as well. I'm not done HD video with it yet, but it's otherwise been extremely useful. What I love about Corel is that they know they're not market leaders, and so have made everything immensely user friendly and able to play well with others. They are much, more more intuitive and less menu driven. Instead of having purposeful lapses in working with other companies, they offer the ability to save or export in a massive amount of file formats. To be sure, Adobe is better. But, for 95% of what needs to be done Corel is equally good, generally easier, and has other benefits, such as being significantly cheaper. Corel deserves a little applause for their efforts.

By: Scratch my back

Scratch my back — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 16:14:27 +0000

Be honest: did Adobe give you a free evaluation copy?

By: Screen Sleuth

Screen Sleuth — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:50:06 +0000

Adobe’s “upgrades” continue to get larger and bulkier, and is this one really worth the price tag assigned to it?