Kasper Jade
The Mountain View, Calif-based software maker released public betas of CS4-bound applications Dreamweaver, Fireworks and Soundbooth in late May, but has kept secret its plans for some of the suite's more prominent components, namely Photoshop and Flash.
That's about to change. The company this week began notifying its customers that it intends to host a webcast covering its next-generation software bundle at 1:00 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday, September 23rd.
"Are you ready for something brilliant?," the company wrote on the digital registration form for the presentation. "Be one of the first to see Adobe Creative Suite 4.0 in a special web broadcast."
Word of the event comes amid an increasing number of reports from Adobe's partners who say the company is aiming for a near 18-month refresh cycle of its bread and butter software suite, with a release as early as October. This comes despite earlier claims of an October release that were hotly contested by company representatives.
Creative Suite 3.0, which delivered universal binaries of all major component applications for the Mac, was announced in March of 2007. Adobe offered several different editions or bundles of the suite when it began shipping between the months of April and June that year.
People familiar with the ongoing development of Creative Suite 4.0 say a good chunk of Adobe's resources for the project were devoted to bringing two applications acquired from Macromedia — Dreamweaver and Fireworks — up to spec with its existing flagship offerings. However, the company is expected to tout a handful of significant enhancements to both Photoshop and Flash.
For example, the company is expected to announce that Photoshop CS4 (codenamed Stonehenge) will be capable of pulling in 3D objects as wireframes. Although UV mapping won't be supported, the feature will reportedly allow sales teams to perform quick color changes and color corrections.
The new version of Photoshop will also feature a Flash services panel, natural canvas rotation, content aware image resizing and deliver 64-bit support for Windows users.
Separately, Adobe is planning a slew of enhancements in Flash CS4 (codenamed Diesel) that have resonated well with early testers, leading some to bill upgrade as "the best thing" to happen to Flash in quite some time. Among these will be a completely new "and proper" timeline dubbed Motion Editor, as well as a new object-based motion tween model.
Other enhancements bound for Flash CS4 reportedly include an "Inverse kinematics" tool for building complex animations and 3D rotation support.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
William Gallagher
Andrew O'Hara
Malcolm Owen
35 Comments
The flash things you mentioned sound really promising! But what Flash need the MOST is a stable and solid interface. ( It's very buggy.)
I know Flash is the deal, but what about Director? It's a great and simple tool that has been used a lot for making dev tools, map editors, pixel animation exporters and stuff amongst network. Would love to see a priper update. It's not even universal binary yet!
They're turning Flash into a full-fledged interactive 3D viewer... wow.
Agreed about Flash's UI--needs SERIOUS help--but the same is somewhat true for CS3 as a whole, Photoshop included. These apps (well, not Flash!) used to be 99.9% stable and smooth, but these days they run maybe 95%. And I despise Adobe's docking thing, especially the sluggish fade-in and fade-out you get sometimes.
Polish up these apps to the FEEL quick and stable and I'll be happier than any new features could provide!
Once upon a time when people said Apple should make a Photoshop competitor I thought--great, but I won't buy it. I'm happy with Photoshop.
I can't say that anymore. I WOULD consider a competitor now, and I hope a real contender emerges. Meanwhile, I'll keep my CS4 money. Chances are I'll get CS5 (with 64-bit support?) but if something else comes along that would be great.
Also agreed on Director. I still use it in Rosetta--it's great for certain things. Luckily, it does seem to be surviving. Between RealBasic, Flash (2D) and Unity (3D) I may not need Director, but I certainly wouldn't mind working with a new director if one of my clients asks for it.
Agreed about Flash's UI--needs SERIOUS help--but the same is somewhat true for CS3 as a whole, Photoshop included. These apps (well, not Flash!) used to be 99.9% stable and smooth, but these days they run maybe 95%. And I despise Adobe's docking thing, especially the sluggish fade-in and fade-out you get sometimes.
Polish up these apps to the FEEL quick and stable and I'll be happier than any new features could provide!
Once upon a time when people said Apple should make a Photoshop competitor I thought--great, but I won't buy it. I'm happy with Photoshop.
I can't say that anymore. I WOULD consider a competitor now, and I hope a real contender emerges. Meanwhile, I'll keep my CS4 money. Chances are I'll get CS5 (with 64-bit support?) but if something else comes along that would be great.
Agreed. I hate the instability of Photoshop and InDesign in CS3. I did a completely clean install too (zero-out the drive and re-installed Leopard), and it still runs like a dog on a MacPro. I could care less about CS4 unless it promised some serious stability enhancements. I say forget about 64-bit support - give us muti-core support! And for the love of god - stop trying to make Photoshop a one-all program, make it the best at what it used to be - photo manipulation.
That is the ugliest press invite I have ever seen. What the hell, are there no designers actually working within Adobe? Those date boxes... yikes.
Still, this Fall still feels too soon. The Production and Master CS3 bundles only came out like 14 months ago.