CS4 Production Premium Student Edition Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is an incredibly powerful software package at a ridiculously cheap price. I submitted my student eligibility information at 8:00 pm and had my product code waiting for me in my email inbox the next morning. If you meet all of the eligibility requirements you shouldn't have any problems at all. Great product.

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Master the production challenges of today and tomorrow with Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium software, a tightly integrated pre- and post-production toolset for Windows and Intel based Mac OS systems. Use it for video and audio editing, still and motion graphics, visual effects, and interactive media, as well as DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and mobile authoring.

Plan, create, and deliver anywhere with the intelligent post-production solution
Complete pre-and post-production solution Create and deliver high-quality video and interactive productions with tightly integrated software tools for pre- and post-production on Windows and Intel based Mac OS systems.
Creative control Achieve exceptional creative control with all components. Produce engaging experiences by leveraging innovative new 3D workflows; enhanced editing, animation, and compositing features; a unified user interface that makes moving between components fluid; and robust output options.
Powerful integration for exceptional productivity Work with unparalleled efficiency, so you have more time to craft your vision. For example, expanded Adobe Dynamic Link enables you to link content between components so you can see updates immediately without rendering.
Project intelligence with XMP metadata Take advantage of the efficiency XMP metadata offers for project intelligence. For example, new Speech Search technology in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 and Soundbooth CS4 speeds up the editing process by using metadata to turn spoken words into searchable metadata, making it easy to find particular clips and make video assets searchable.
Wide variety of output options Deliver on film, on video, on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, online, and on mobile devices with smooth efficiency to reach more audiences.
Motion graphics and visual effects with Adobe After Effects CS4 Be more productive with a host of enhanced features in Adobe After Effects CS4. Searchable timelines and projects, expanded 3D compositing options, included Mocha for Adobe After Effects software, and numerous interface enhancements streamline almost everything you do.
Editing efficiency with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 Take advantage of scalable and flexible nonlinear video editing capabilities to tell your most compelling stories. New native support for tapeless workflows and more than 50 enhancements in this release help make the editing workflow more efficient.
Direct-to-disk recording with Adobe OnLocation CS4 Bypass the time-consuming capture process by shooting directly to disk, and monitor the quality of your footage using an impressive array of production tools. Featuring a completely redesigned interface, Adobe OnLocation CS4 now runs natively on both Windows and Intel based Mac OS systems.
Interactive experiences with Adobe Flash CS4 Professional Work with a new animation model that makes Adobe Flash CS4 Professional easier to learn for new users, adds efficiency for proficient users, and provides even greater control for creating immersive interactive experiences.
Industry-standard design with Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended Edit images and video with an expanded set of creative options. Work directly with 3D models, and take advantage of new video layer enhancements. Plus, the new Adjustment and Masks panels provide quick access to tools you need to adjust color, tone, and selections of your images.
Production planning with Adobe Illustrator CS4 Design project elements and storyboards for your productions. Create multiple art boards in a single file, and work with enhanced gradient tools.
Enhanced audio editing with Adobe Soundbooth CS4 Create and arrange audio clips in film, video, and interactive projects with greater flexibility. Easily edit audio in Flash CS4 Professional projects in Soundbooth CS4 using convenient, task-based tools along with new multitrack audio project support.
Collaboration with clients and colleagues Access the Adobe ConnectNow service to share project storyboards online with up to three people before you shoot. Use Adobe Encore CS4 to output SWF file versions of your dailies to post online. Expedite review cycles with the Adobe Clip Notes feature in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, which enables you to embed video into a PDF file and then import timecode-specific comments to the timeline. Access improved Resource Central to find new assets, and quickly find news and inspiration in Bridge Home.
What's included
Adobe After Effects CS4
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended
Adobe Flash CS4 Professional
Adobe Illustrator CS4
Adobe Soundbooth CS4
Adobe OnLocation CS4
Adobe Encore CS4

Adobe After Effects CS4--Create motion graphics and visual effects with the industry standard
Innovate visually Enjoy creative control over virtually every element in a highly responsive 2D and 3D compositing and animation environment. With After Effects CS4, you can create virtually whatever you envision.
Work with efficient tools Easily handle a wide range of post-production tasks--from keying and motion tracking to color correction, rotoscoping, and more--using flexible tools in a user interface optimized to help save you time.
Deliver to virtually any screen Easily create output for delivery to a wide range of media formats and platforms--from traditional film and video to the web and mobile devices--from a single project.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4--Capture, edit, and deliver video online, on air, on disc, or on device
Discover new post-production workflows Work with the formats you want, from DV and HD to 4K and beyond. Support for industry standards enables you to interchange more easily with other industry-standard tools. Powerful new metadata management features help you deliver video content to virtually any screen.
Work with efficient post-production tools Edit faster with a broad selection of professional editing tools and tighter-than-ever integration with other Adobe software. Maintain pristine quality across the production process with an efficient tapeless workflow, find specific areas of your content faster with the innovative Speech Search feature, and stay focused on your work with background batch encoding.
Achieve creative excellence Maximize your creative options with powerful enhancements that help you bring new dimensions to your work. Achieve your vision with professional color correction, quick and precise multicam editing, and much more--all from within a familiar, customizable interface. Tap into a wealth of tutorials, stock footage, visual effects, and more to elevate your production quality, and connect to the creative community to share ideas. From acquisition to delivery, Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 offers tools that help you deliver excellent results.
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Extended--Discover new dimensions in digital imaging
Easily access full editing power Take greater advantage of all that Adobe Photoshop Extended software offers with a more intuitive user interface and nondestructive editing freedom so you can achieve the highest quality results.
Work more efficiently Be more productive by taking advantage of smooth integration with other Adobe software and enhancements that leverage the power of today's faster graphics processors.
Edit 3D and motion-based content Enjoy breakthrough enhancements that now let you paint directly on 3D objects and unleash the editing power of Photoshop software on 3D content. Plus, edit motion graphics for video with enhanced control for speed and precision.
Perform advanced image analysis Extract quantitative information from images, count objects or image features, track and log your work, and volume-render DICOM files.
Flash CS4 Professional--Create and deliver rich interactive content
Design with ease and efficiency Quickly create and modify animations while retaining a great degree of control. Powerful new object-based animation, Bezier controls, and motion presets make working in Flash easier and more intuitive.
Explore new creative possibilities Express your creative vision in innovative ways with exciting new design tools. Animate 2D objects through 3D space with 3D translation and rotation. Use the Bones tool to easily create chain-like effects or distort shapes. Add the expressive power of patterns to your designs with the Deco tool.
Collaborate across workflows Collaborate smoothly across designer and developer workflows. Easily import content into Flash from Adobe InDesign and After Effects software using the XFL format. Enjoy common user interface elements and tools across the Adobe Creative Suite 4 family.
Deliver for a wide reach Deliver interactive experiences that reach audiences across platforms and devices. The latest technologies, such as XMP for mobile and delivery to the Adobe AIR runtime, are right at your fingertips.
Adobe Illustrator CS4--Explore new paths with the essential vector tool
Explore new features Powerful additions such as the Blob Brush tool and transparency in gradients inspire new creativity. The highly anticipated multiple artboards feature prompts new ways of working.
Discover hidden gems Existing features have been polished, and hidden functions have been uncovered to reveal usefulness and depth, enabling you to learn more quickly and take better advantage of the power of Illustrator.
Work efficiently Illustrator CS4 offers improved interaction with options and tools, plus you can do more directly on the artboard. Innovations with Smart Guides and Isolation Mode plus new panel behaviors enable a smoother, more efficient workflow.
Deliver almost anywhere Print delivery is more reliable with Separations Preview. And with new user interface similarity and shared formats among Adobe Creative Suite tools, work across applications is virtually seamless.
Adobe Soundbooth CS4--Create and edit audio with ease
Rapidly enhance and edit audio Take command of the audio in creative projects with task-based tools that help you create, clean up, and polish sound. Multitrack support and automatic volume matching give you more flexibility and control. Visually remove unwanted noises with the editing tools available in Spectral view.
Work with ready-to-use audio assets Personalize your soundtracks with the enhanced Soundbooth Score editing workflow. Download Soundbooth Scores from Resource Central, and use new multitrack support to customize, combine, or layer multiple scores. Add effects to adjust the mood, or stretch or shorten the file to alter duration.
Use intuitive, task-based tools Tackle everyday audio editing and cleanup with the power of nondestructive editing in the new Adobe Sound Document (ASND) format. Quickly and easily heal sound, match volume levels, create sound effects, and choose from a library of high-quality audio filters and streamlined mastering tools.
Enjoy tighter integration Eliminate the need for intermediate rendering and streamline the process of editing audio in Soundbooth while working in various Adobe Creative Suite components with features such as new nondestructive roundtrip editing and Adobe Dynamic Link.
Adobe OnLocation CS4 for shooting direct to disk and monitoring footageAdobe OnLocationCS4 is powerful cross-platform (Windows and Intel-based Macs), direct-to-disk recording and monitoring software that helps you shoot better and faster. The completely redesigned interface puts control of all functions on a single screen and features the familiar look and feel of other Adobe creative applications. Use the professional on-set monitoring tools to calibrate your camera, set levels, and monitor signals to obtain the best quality video and audio and avoid time-consuming and potentially costly problems.
Shooting and capturing video directly to disk lets you record a two-hour event as a single clip or shoot as many takes of a scene as you need to get it right--no changing tapes, no solid-state memory time limits, no missed action. It's a director's dream come true--but when you're editing, finding that one perfect take among dozens of outtakes can be difficult. To make it easier, Adobe OnLocation CS4 offers a Shot List that enables you to re-record multiple takes of the same scene retaining the metadata automatically from the original master shot. When you edit the footage in Adobe Premiere Pro, you can search for a favorite take simply by searching for metadata logged while you originally recorded the footage. Or, run the speech-to-text feature in Adobe Premiere Pro, which uses new metadata support to find words spoken by the talent.
Adobe Encore CS4 Use Encore to create DVDs and high-definition Blu-ray Discs, and with one click, easily save projects you designed to be delivered to disc as interactive content compatible with Adobe Flash Player for the web.
While on location, use Encore to output SWF file versions of your dailies to post online.
Choose Your Edition With the tightly integrated tools and services in Adobe Creative Suite 4 software, you can create visually rich content for virtually any media--print, web, interactive, video, audio, and mobile. Find the one that's right for you:

Adobe Creative Suite 4 also allows you to access features and services that are hosted online, such as Adobe Community Help, Adobe Kuler, Adobe ConnectNow (a service on Acrobat.com), Adobe InContext Editing, and Bridge Home.*
* This product may allow you to access certain features that are hosted online ("online services"), provided you have a high-speed Internet connection. The online services, and some features thereof, may not be available in all countries, languages and/or currencies and may be discontinued in whole or in part without notice. Use of the online services is governed by separate terms of use and by the Adobe privacy policy, and access to these services may require user registration. Some online services, including services initially offered at no charge, may be subject to additional fees. For additional details and to review the terms of use and privacy policy, please visit www.adobe.com.

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Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Standard Student & Teacher Edition Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I was very happy to see this special offer for teachers, which gave me Photoshop and Acrobat Professional for a good price. The registration and installation on my new 64-bit Windows 7 system went well. However, there is one major problem with this version of Acrobat Professional that I wasn't aware of (and this is a general Acrobat Professional problem, not a specific problem of this package for teachers): The integration with MS Office 2010 is limited to simple "printing" into a PDF file. In the older MS Office 2007, Acrobat installs its own menu in Word and other programs, which lets you optimize a lot of settings for the compression of images in the PDF file, the embedding of fonts, etc., and you can decide if you want to generate a fully functional PDF file with working links to web pages etc. or a simple version. In Office 2010 you get no such Adobe menu - all you can do is select "Adobe PDF" as output device in the Print menu. Also the Acrobat program itself (when running in its own window like the free Acrobat Reader) does not permit to import an MS Word file and convert it into PDF with more options. In other words, the PDF conversion functionality on a PC with MS Office 2010 is reduced to the basic things that some freeware tools can do as well. According to Adobe, this will probably not change before the next release of a completely new version of Acrobat, i.e. we will have to pay again. This is a poor concept. I understand that it may be difficult and time-consuming to adapt the Adobe software to a new version of MS Office, and I would accept limited functionalities for a while if there was another way of converting MS Office documents into PDF files, outside of MS Office, or if there were plans for a free update in the near future. But apparently there are no such plans, and the only workaround for making fully functional PDF files seems to be to transfer the Office files to an older PC and convert them there. If you can wait, better save your money for the next version of this software package before you waste it for this outdated, functionality-limited and support-limited version.

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Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Standard is tightly integrated professional software for delivering distinctive print design in marketing collateral, magazines, books, packaging, and more. Achieve exceptional quality even under the tightest deadlines with best-in-class drawing, image editing, page layout, and print production tools.




Create outstanding print design, even under the tightest deadlines
Comprehensive toolset for print design and production Express your most innovative creative visions in print, using tightly integrated software for moving fluidly and confidently from inspiration to output. Accelerate creative reviews with new Adobe CS Live online services that integrate with your Creative Suite software. CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time--visit www.adobe.com/go/cslive for details.

Breakthrough image editing Create compelling digital images with Adobe Photoshop CS5, the industry standard in digital imaging. Use versatile brush tools to paint with realistic strokes, precise selection tools to make exacting refinements, and a wide range of workflow and performance enhancements to accelerate everyday tasks.

Sophisticated vector graphics Craft compelling graphics with Adobe Illustrator CS5, the vector-drawing environment used by design professionals worldwide. Experiment freely and quickly to achieve the look you want for illustrations, creative effects, typography, and color.

Professional page layout Lay out stunning pages faster and more efficiently in Adobe InDesign CS5 with an intuitive design environment, precise typographic controls, built-in creative tools and effects, robust preflight capabilities, and a host of productivity features.

Adobe PDF creation, editing, and delivery Prepare files for high-end print production with confidence using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro. End-to-end PDF workflows share common technology to generate, preview, and print PDF files, enabling consistent high-quality output.

Adobe CS Live online services Bring creative reviews directly into your design workflow using new CS Live online services that integrate with your Creative Suite software. Initiate a quick online review from within Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign. Reviewers comment in their browser using simple annotation tools, and you view comments in the context of your work--making it much easier to match each comment to the right design element.

Comprehensive preflight and production Use robust preflight features to check files for high-end print publishing. Catch production glitches as you lay out pages, avoid color output surprises in graphics, and apply output presets to reliably meet exacting production standards and minimize costly errors.

Sophisticated typography Easily compose beautiful type for page layouts, images, and illustrations using robust styles in InDesign CS5 and Illustrator CS5, along with a host of advanced typographic controls for creativity and precision.

Built-in creative tools and effects Explore artistic possibilities with built-in Photoshop effects, nondestructive effects, and finer transparency controls in InDesign CS5. Create or modify images with brush tools and paint settings in Photoshop CS5. Sketch naturally and draw in accurate perspective in Illustrator CS5.

Faster performance in Photoshop Perform day-to-day imaging tasks faster, and process very large images at least 10 times faster. (Requires a 64-bit-capable computer with a 64-bit version of Mac OS, Microsoft Windows 7, or Windows Vista. Actual performance increase varies depending on the installed drivers, the features that you're using, and other factors.)

Adobe Photoshop CS5Create powerful images with the professional standard Adobe Photoshop CS5 delivers breakthrough capabilities to help you create images with impact. Refine your images with reengineered photography tools for removing noise, adding grain, and creating high dynamic range (HDR) images. Get precise results when making complex selections. Remove any image element and see the space fill in almost magically. Paint with naturally textured brushstrokes and realistic color blends. Also work fast with cross-platform 64-bit support and dozens of other time-savers.


Refine with powerful photography tools Create and refine images using state-of-the-art photography tools that deliver superior results with unprecedented ease and in fewer steps than ever before.

Maximize creative impact Explore new creative possibilities with breakthrough tools that enable you to select, adjust, paint, and recompose images with tremendous precision and freedom.

Boost productivity Accelerate your workflow with fast performance on 64-bit hardware systems, smoother interactions thanks to GPU acceleration, and dozens of time-savers throughout the application.

Adobe Illustrator CS5--Explore new paths with the essential vector tool Create distinctive designs for any project. Used by creative professionals worldwide, Adobe Illustrator CS5 software provides precision and power. Paint expressively with vectors, draw in perspective, and explore designing for interactivity. Move easily between Illustrator, other Adobe products, and Adobe CS Live online services. Get the job done efficiently but beautifully, moving quickly from multiple ideas to multiple outputs with complete control and delivering exactly what you had in mind.


Design with powerful creative tools Take advantage of exceptional precision and power to create distinctive vector artwork. Combine highly controllable drawing tools with expressive natural brushes and dramatic effects to make unique, striking designs.

Work smoothly and efficiently Speed up your workflow with innovations that encourage efficiency. Get the job done with purpose and agility using shortcuts and time-savers to take multiple ideas to multiple outputs.

Deliver virtually anywhere Incorporate vector artwork into essentially any project and deliver resolution-independent graphics across media. Enjoy tighter-than-ever integration with other Adobe products and go anywhere your creativity takes you.

Adobe InDesign CS5--Design professional layouts for print and digital publishing Adobe InDesign CS5 software provides precise control over typography and built-in creative tools for designing, preflighting, and publishing documents for print, online, or to mobile devices. Bring documents and presentations to life with interactivity, animation, sound, and video. Leading industry tools, and productivity enhancements make page layout simpler and faster. Access Adobe CS Live online services* from within InDesign to streamline critical review processes.


Streamline review processes Build powerful documents as a team. New integrated tools and the availability of efficient online services make review processes more efficient, whether your clients and colleagues are across the hall or around the world.

Do more in less time Create, edit, and publish documents faster. A wealth of new productivity features help make page layout simpler, easier, and speedier.

Create powerful, innovative digital documents Engage, inform, and attract readers with documents that include interactivity, animation, video, and sound. Develop stronger, more compelling communications with rich interactive documents.

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro--Protect documents and accelerate information exchange with PDF Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro software builds on the foundational feature set of Acrobat 9 Standard to provide business and creative professionals with additional capabilities, including enhanced security features, high-end print production support, and easy-to-manage electronic document reviews.
Deliver polished, professional documents Quickly integrate content, insert company logos, define navigation, and add polish to your PDF Portfolio using one of many customizable templates.

Create dynamic electronic forms Use included Adobe LiveCycle Designer software--a professional form design tool--to create, customize, and automate dynamic forms.

Collaborate and share with virtually anyone, anywhere Gain the input you need--in real time--through interactive, shared document reviews that help participants see and build on each other's comments.

Adobe Creative Suite 5 With powerful new creative tools, enhanced performance and workflows, and the ability to integrate with timesaving new Adobe CS Live online services, Adobe Creative Suite 5 software provides the edge you need to create rich content for virtually any media--print, web, interactive, video, audio, and mobile. Whether you need to produce printed pages efficiently or design and distribute engaging content online, on film, on air, and on device, you'll find the right combination of Adobe tools to increase your productivity and keep pace with your creative vision.

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ColorVision SpyderPRO & PrintFIX - Monitor calibrator Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I recently purchased ColorVision's PrintFIX product to improve the quality of prints that my Epson 2200 produces from Photoshop. The default profiles produce properly exposed prints, but the colors are slightly off from those on the monitor (which has been calibrated).
According to the PrintFIX ads, the device "enables you to produce top quality prints right away" and "build custom profiles in minutes." That has not been my experience. Multiple attempts to use PrintFIX produced prints that were much too underexposed with a green tint that looked nothing like the image on the monitor using the same profile with Photoshop proofing.
I called ColorVision's tech support and the first thing they told me was that PrintFIX is not suitable for professional or even advanced amateur color management. (I fully agree, but why then do they sell it bundled with their Spyder PRO professional monitor calibration tool?). By the way, the street price for PrintFIX is $299!
After I explained my problem, the tech asked me to email a copy of the calibration chart that I printed. After receipt he would call me back to explain how to use their DoctorPRO software that comes with PrintFIX to correct the profile. The tech did not call me back nor did he return my messages left on voicemail. It took four phone calls to make contact with him again.
The process for using DoctorPRO is a complete kludge and cannot produce consistent or reproducible color management of a printer. The first step is to use Photoshop image adjustments to make the image on the monitor look like the incorrect print. This is a highly subjective process and matching the print exactly on the monitor is impossible. The next step is to create a Photoshop action in which the image adjustments of Photoshop are used to correct the now incorrect monitor image to match the original. Then DoctorPRO is initiated and it applies the action to create an edited profile. In theory, the edited profile is then used on the monitor to soft proof results prior to printing. The print then is made using this profile. This is of course and iterative process, and it takes many attempts and wastes many prints to get a profile that is even close to acceptable.
Obviously, this same process can be used without using either the PrintFIX hardware or software by just modifying the default profiles in Photoshop with an action.
IMHO PrintFIX does not do the job and is not worth the money. ColorVision should be embarrassed to sell a product that falls so short of its claims and one that its tech support even admits is inadequate.


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PagePlus X3 Publisher Professional Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)We recently used PagePlus X3 to make a newsletter about our upcoming event. We didn't want to spend alot so decided to try out PagePlus. It was incredibly easy to use and we spent very little time learning the software. The Cut Out Studio helped to optimize the stock images we purchased by eliminating the background. When we were done we converted to PDF and sent right off to the printer. We received several compliments on the newsletter as well as some stickers with the company logo we designed in the Logo Studio. Great product and worth a try!


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PagePlus X3 is Serif's award-winning, affordable, Vista certified, desktop publishing powerhouse. With impressive design tools, professionally-produced templates, flexible layout capabilities, intuitive ease-of-use, PDF-editing and high-end output options, PagePlus X3 is the ideal solution for creating eye-catching, quality designs for desktop and pro-printing or the Web! PagePlus X3 brings the power of a professional design studio to any home, business, school, or club, with an unrivalled range of design and layout features alongside friendly tutorials and on-screen guidance and a customizable interface. It's never been easier to produce attractive business stationery, brochures, greeting cards, newsletters, posters, flyers, calendars, labels and even full length books!

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Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)What can I say? Adobe has done it again. CS5 adds to the stellar graphic sofware that Adobe has been bringing us for many years. I have used it at work for a long time, and have used alternatives at home. Many of the latest features, like content aware fill, separated Adobe from the cheap clones. I was unable to continue to use copycat software. I had to knuckle down and pay for the real thing. And BOY AM I HAPPY I DID. It feals great to have the real thing to use whenever I need to create new art, or edit a photo. Don't let the expense stop you. You really do get what you pay for. And this is the best.

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Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium software is the comprehensive solution for producing standards-based websites, immersive digital experiences, and rich Internet applications. Use Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 to develop with content management systems, including WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal, and powerful CSS tools. With the complete Adobe Flash family of tools, including Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash Professional CS5, and Flash Builder 4 Standard, you can design and develop content for delivery virtually anywhere.

Redefine the extraordinary in web design and development
Comprehensive toolset for the Adobe Flash Platform Create expressive interactive content with Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash Professional CS5, and Flash Builder 4 Standard that you can deliver consistently across personal computers, mobile devices, and screens in a multitude of sizes and resolutions.
Creative Suite integration Enhance productivity and workflow when using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash Catalyst, Flash Professional, and Flash Builder. Leverage the FXG graphics file format and integration with Mini Bridge for digital asset management.
Content delivery virtually anywhere Deliver consistently across screens of any size and use Adobe Device Central for enhanced device testing. Distribute, track, and monetize applications on social networks, mobile devices, and desktops via Flash Platform Services.
Cross-platform support Design with your chosen system--Mac OS, Microsoft Windows 7, Windows XP, or Windows Vista--and then deliver across platforms with more reliable, consistent, and high-performance results.
Support for evolving web trends Develop standards-based web content more efficiently and integrate with content management system frameworks, including WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal. Generate high-impact designs with advanced image technology and support for 3D.
Best practices Make best practices in web design and development your practice with standards-based tools from Adobe, whether you're building CSS-based layouts or data-rich pages with the accessible HTML Data Set feature.
Powerful coding tools Take advantage of a powerful Eclipse based IDE that includes editors for MXML, ActionScript, and CSS, as well as syntax coloring, statement completion, code collapse, interactive step-through debugging, and automatic generation of common code.
Adobe CS Live online services integration Expand your capabilities with new CS Live online services that integrate with Web Premium software, including BrowserLab, CS Review, and Acrobat.com. Perform accurate browser-compatibility testing and get feedback with design project reviews through integration with online services. CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time--visit www.adobe.com/go/cslive for details.
Advanced application development Design and create your Adobe AIR interactive prototype in Adobe Fireworks for deployment in Adobe Dreamweaver, Flash Professional, or Adobe Flex software. Enhance your AIR application with HTML and JavaScript in Dreamweaver--and then preview or deploy it immediately.
Cross-discipline workflow Transform static Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks artwork into dynamic components without writing code, and build wireframes and prototypes and turn them into standards-compliant HTML and CSS. Preserve design fidelity throughout the entire process. Use Flash Builder as an ActionScript editor for Flash Professional and to develop projects created with Flash Catalyst.
Adobe Dreamweaver CS5--Design, develop, and maintain standards-based websites and applications Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 software empowers designers and developers to build standards-based websites with confidence. Work visually or directly in code, develop with your existing content management system like WordPress, Joomla!, or Drupal, and design productively with CSS inspection tools. Simplify advanced website development with integrated support for Subversion software and custom PHP code hinting. Get fast and accurate browser-compatibility testing and test dynamic content thanks to integration with Adobe BrowserLab, a new Adobe CS Live online service.

Develop with content management systems Build dynamic standards-based websites and applications quickly and easily. Leverage powerful content management systems with integrated authoring and testing support for your existing frameworks like WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal.
Design websites more productively Inspect, track, and preview web designs with powerful CSS diagnostics and functions. Improve your layouts and designs, and reduce the need for manual tweaking in the CSS code.
Extend Dreamweaver through integration with CS Live online services Some of the new CS Live online services integrate with Dreamweaver, such as fast and accurate browser-compatibility testing with Adobe BrowserLab. CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time--visit www.adobe.com/go/cslive for details.
Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5--Create expressive interfaces and interactive content without writing code Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 software is an approachable new interaction design tool. Use it to transform Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks artwork into expressive interfaces and fully interactive content without writing code, and publish as SWF or Adobe AIR files. Collaborate with developers who can open your project files with Adobe Flash Builder software to extend functionality, and leverage the reach and consistency of the Adobe Flash Platform.

Leverage the power of the Adobe Flash Platform to create interactive projects Rapidly create expressive interfaces and interactive content to your exacting design standards. Deliver your creative vision with the reach and consistency of the Adobe Flash Platform.
Approach interaction design without writing code Transform static designs from Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, or Fireworks software into fully interactive projects without requiring development or coding skills. Define behaviors and control sophisticated interactions with simple yet powerful menu-based commands.
Speed the design and development process Use familiar design applications to easily create and edit artwork. Developers can open Flash Catalyst projects directly in Adobe Flash Builder software, preserving design fidelity and interactions defined by the designer.
Adobe Flash Professional CS5--Create and deliver rich interactive content Adobe Flash Professional CS5 software is the industry-leading environment for interactive authoring and delivery of immersive experiences that are presented consistently across personal computers, mobile devices, and screens of virtually any size and resolution. Design expressive content with professional typography and pixel-precise drawing tools, write code precisely and efficiently with code completion and customizable code snippets, and deliver superior-quality video to audiences practically everywhere.

Design with expression Communicate your creative vision without sacrifice and set the bar for interactive design with typographic precision, layout fidelity, and expressive motion-editing capabilities.
Write code quickly and easily Quickly and efficiently write code with powerful authoring tools and integration with Adobe Flash Builder software. Easily add interactivity directly in the ActionScript language by injecting extensible code snippets.
Deliver in fewer steps and in more places Save time and reduce the number of required steps when moving content from design, to development, and ultimately to delivery. Distribute consistently across personal computers, mobile devices, and screens of virtually any size and resolution.
Adobe Flash Builder 4--Develop cross-platform rich Internet applications Adobe Flash Builder 4 (formerly Adobe Flex Builder) software is a professional-grade development tool designed to help developers rapidly build cross-platform rich Internet applications (RIAs) and content using the open source Flex framework.
Improve productivity Accelerate development and testing of expressive web applications using powerful developer tooling.
Integrate with existing infrastructure Integrate with servers and services in existing infrastructure, including those based on Java, PHP, Adobe ColdFusion software, REST, and SOAP.
Deliver more expressive applications Create intuitive, engaging applications that deliver more compelling experiences.
Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended--Create powerful images with the professional standard Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended software helps you create the ultimate images for print, the web, and video. Enjoy all the state-of-the-art editing, compositing, and painting capabilities in industry-standard Photoshop CS5, and experience fast performance thanks to cross-platform 64-bit support. Also create 3D extrusions for logos, artwork, and motion graphics; edit 3D objects with advanced tools; and create and enhance motion-based content.

Innovate in 3D Go beyond traditional image editing by bringing 3D elements to your 2D artwork directly within your favorite digital imaging application, which now offers an easy on-ramp to 3D image creation.
Maximize creative impact Explore new creative possibilities with breakthrough tools that enable you to select, adjust, paint, and recompose images with tremendous precision and freedom.
Boost productivity Accelerate your workflow with fast performance on 64-bit hardware systems, smoother interactions thanks to GPU acceleration, and dozens of time-savers throughout the application.
Adobe Illustrator CS5--Explore new paths with the essential vector tool Create distinctive designs for any project. Used by creative professionals worldwide, Adobe Illustrator CS5 software provides precision and power. Paint expressively with vectors, draw in perspective, and explore designing for interactivity. Move easily between Illustrator, other Adobe products, and Adobe CS Live online services. Get the job done efficiently but beautifully, moving quickly from multiple ideas to multiple outputs with complete control and delivering exactly what you had in mind.

Design with powerful creative tools Take advantage of exceptional precision and power to create distinctive vector artwork. Combine highly controllable drawing tools with expressive natural brushes and dramatic effects to make unique, striking designs.
Work smoothly and efficiently Speed up your workflow with innovations that encourage efficiency. Get the job done with purpose and agility using shortcuts and time-savers to take multiple ideas to multiple outputs.
Deliver virtually anywhere Incorporate vector artwork into essentially any project and deliver resolution-independent graphics across media. Enjoy tighter-than-ever integration with other Adobe products and go anywhere your creativity takes you.
Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro--Protect documents and accelerate information exchange with PDF Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro software builds on the foundational feature set of Acrobat 9 Standard to provide business and creative professionals with additional capabilities, including enhanced security features, high-end print production support, and easy-to-manage electronic document reviews.
Deliver polished, professional documents Quickly integrate content, insert company logos, define navigation, and add polish to your PDF Portfolio using one of many customizable templates.
Create dynamic electronic forms Use included Adobe LiveCycle Designer software--a professional form design tool--to create, customize, and automate dynamic forms.
Collaborate and share with virtually anyone, anywhere Gain the input you need--in real time--through interactive, shared document reviews that help participants see and build on each other's comments.
Adobe Fireworks CS5--Rapidly prototype and design for the web Create expressive screen graphics for virtually any device rapidly with Adobe Fireworks CS5 software. Design websites, user interfaces, or rich media applications using both vector and bitmap tools. Import assets from Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator software and export to HTML and CSS, Adobe Flash Catalyst software, or the Adobe AIR runtime. Optimize final imagery with the industry's leading screen graphics software.

Combine the power of vector and bitmap tools Design with vector and bitmap tools together to achieve optimal imagery quickly. Enjoy pixel precision that maps to your resolution requirements, using graphics tools designed for screen-based output.
Produce better screen graphics, faster Create rich, interactive screen graphics with fewer steps. Create and name slices efficiently, and then deliver superior-quality graphics optimized for the web and a wide range of devices.
Design once for multiple deliverables Quickly optimize designs for websites, rich media applications, and mobile devices. Edit assets from other graphics programs for wider deployment with Fireworks. Integrate client review into the design process.
Adobe Contribute CS5--Simplify website management Adobe Contribute CS5 software enables users to quickly create and edit web pages collaboratively in an easy-to-use WYSIWYG HTML editor, without writing code. New features include in-browser editing of text, hotspot images, and CSS for content authors, as well as drag-and-drop input of FLV, SWF, and PDF files. Managers can encourage creative web development while easily controlling workflow, review, and version processes to produce static or dynamic websites with one-click publishing.
Update sites efficiently Make website updates easy. Familiar WYSIWYG tools help content authors create and edit web media--no HTML required. Maintain control of site integrity and expedite review and approval cycles.
Increase contributor productivity Let content authors collaborate fully using simple in-browser creation and editing of text, images, rich media, and advanced interactive layout elements--without writing code. Contribute maintains design integrity for you.
Accelerate publishing cycles Quickly add pages and migrate existing content without repeating design tasks. Keep previous versions ready for redeployment. Manage reviews and approvals efficiently, and then publish with a single click.
Adobe Creative Suite 5 With powerful new creative tools, enhanced performance and workflows, and the ability to integrate with timesaving new Adobe CS Live online services, Adobe Creative Suite 5 software provides the edge you need to create rich content for virtually any media--print, web, interactive, video, audio, and mobile. Whether you need to produce printed pages efficiently or design and distribute engaging content online, on film, on air, and on device, you'll find the right combination of Adobe tools to increase your productivity and keep pace with your creative vision.

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Adobe Pagemaker 7.0.2 (Upgrade Version) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)To add a little to the previous review, it is an upgrade as it says. Typically any software upgrade expects to find a previous installed version, and this is no exception. My previous install is Pagemaker 6.5. The Pagemaker 7.0.2 upgrade found it, but it also asked me to enter its serial number, so write it down before you start or you'll have to exit install and then start again...damhikt. And of course it wants the new serial number which is on the CD box. Past that and all goes well. It does not overwrite or replace the previous version, so in my case I have a functioning 6.5 and 7.0.2 should I want that.
This new (and what I guess will be the last) release of Pagemaker doesn't differ a lot from 6.5. The biggest difference for me is it's compatibility with Photoshop PSD files. Pagemaker 6.5 issues a popup declaring that it doesn't know how to place this filetype, so getting a Photoshop image into this version requires working with a different bitmap filetype (jpg, etc.). But a PSD image places into Pagemaker 7 with no problem, even one that has been "Photoshopped" to include layers, etc.
There are some other bells and whistles, but for me the Photoshop compatibility is the heavy hitter.
Recommended.

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Logo Design Studio Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)When a product mysteriously has 6 reviews all from April 5 and 6, all written in the same style, with the same exclamation points everywhere, the usual marketing superlatives like "fantastic", "amazing", etc., the entire rating system becomes corrupted for legitimate users and legitimate reviews. Marketing people will need to learn to let actual USERS review products.

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From one logo you can create unlimited new looks simply by adjusting the colors, fonts, shapes and effects. Import your own graphics or pictures to further personalize your look. Add artistic style to your text with circular, wavy, projective and outline text. Use the included TrueType fonts to sharpen your look. Make a visual impact with shadows, frames, blurs and embossing. Get the Summitsoft Logo Design Studio 4.0!

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Adobe Audition CS5.5 Upgrade Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This review will not be a complete review of the product, just pointing out a few things I don't like as a user of Audition 2.0/3.0 (and Cooledit).
1) CS5.5 removed 'Generate signal' functions, so you can't generate white noise, tones like in Audition 3.0 and before. This is a very useful feature for engineering work.
2) Space bar play and pause as before, but would not rewind to the previous starting position. This is inconvenient when you want to loop a selection.
Will update when I use it more.


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View your entire multitrack soundtrack at once with the resizable Multitrack View in Adobe Audition CS5.5. View larger.

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Serif PagePlus X4 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have been using Microsoft Publisher for years having upgraded several times. But, Publisher is entirely limited by comparison to PagePlus and the price is right also by comparison. Much more flexible with far more opportunities for creativity. I was so impressed with this product I also purchased WebPlus which is one of the easiest editors to use and one of the most versatile.

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When you create publications, you inevitably do more than just layout and print the page. You write text, design graphics, enhance images, import content, and more, then share your work in print, as PDFs, or as emails. PagePlus X4 makes all this easy, it's a publishing package designed to be as flexible as you are.

All-in-One Desktop Publishing Studio
Unrivaled PDF EditingOpen PDFs and fully edit their contents with PagePlus X4 just like they are regular publications--so you can source and customise designs from almost anywhere. You can also combine PDFs, or pages from different PDFs, even when they've been made by different applications on different computing platforms.
Save time and money editing PDFs in PagePlus X4
Merge PDF files, add and remove pages, change their order
Fully edit text, move delete and reformat page objects
Repurpose deign elements from PDFs into your own designs
Make changes to PDFs you receive before forwarding them
Optimise images and protect content with PDF security

Enhance Images with Built-in Editing PowerInclude photos in your publications and make sure they're at their very best with the all new PhotoLab. Offering over 70 adjustments, corrections, filters and effects, with some incredible instant artistic styles, your images can really stand out from the page. And with a dedicated Image Cutout Studio you can remove photo backgrounds quickly, with no expertise required.
Professionally adjust and correct your photos
Apply adjustments with single clicks
Quickly remove blemishes and scratches
Easily select a specific area to apply changes to
Edit and undo changes at any time, your photo is unharmed

Create Impressive Logos and ArtworkFrom simple attention-grabbing shapes to logos and marketing-quality graphic design, PagePlus X4's powerful drawing tools make it easy to create stunning graphics. And in the Logo Studio, these tools are grouped together in a view that focuses on your drawing or logo without the distraction of seeing the rest of your page design.
Logo Studio offers 400+ ready-made graphics
Gallery has hundreds of other flashes and symbols
Add attractive style presets including glass and metal
Draw and combine shapes with full curve and node editing
Use impressive drop shadows, glows, and bevels
Even create your own effects and surface textures

Fantastic Word ProcessingImpressive text handling is at the very heart of PagePlus, so while you could write in a word processor of your choosing and import text, you can just use PagePlus to write! Enjoy all the usual formatting controls, plus fast-flowing text wraps, hierarchical paragraph and character styles, long document features, and of course the freedom to place text and other objects exactly where you want. Files you can import include Word 2007 & OpenOffice Writer!
Create Virtually Any DocumentCreate a massive range of document types, from regular sheets to folded menus and booklets, from tiny mailmerge labels, to massive posters and banners, from newsletters to newspapers.
Use Tables and CalendarsCreate your own attractive calendars--for yourself, your business, or as gifts for friends and family. Add tables to show data neatly, use formulae, even import data from spreadsheets or databases.
Fantastic Results--Fast
Create Beautiful Documents from TemplatesPagePlus X4 raises the bar once again, expanding the range of ready-made design templates so you can produce stunning documents in no time at all. Now featuring Theme Layouts--sets including business cards, flyers, newsletters and more--allowing you to add your own pictures and words resulting in a professional and polished design in minutes.
Over 2500 templates and ready-made design elements
Design Sets and Themed Layouts are instant stationery
Zoom in on the Template Wizard to see designs clearly
Choose which pages or design variants to start off with
Simply double-click images to replace them with your own
Import Word or other text documents, or write in PagePlus

Learn New Skills with Tutorial Videos and GuidesWe're not the only ones who think PagePlus X4 is easy to use, but If you're new to desktop publishing, new to PagePlus, or just new to this version, you can create fantastic and professional results the easy way using the Learning Zone. Accessible from the redesigned, streamlined Startup Wizard, the Learning Zone gives direct access to online video tutorials and more so you can painlessly improve your publishing skills.
All the Controls You Need Within a ClickThere are so many ways PagePlus X4 makes the design process smooth, you'll hardly realise you're working. Changing font, fill, line style and more is easy using an on-screen Studio that combines content, controls, and guidance. The rest of the interface is smart too--whatever you select on your page, you'll get instant access to the right tools and controls to suit. You can select, edit, resize, move, rotate, set defaults and more without even changing tools.
Customisable Workspace and ShortcutsWhether you like instant access to all formatting controls, or a totally clean design interface with customised keyboard shortcuts to make your workflow quick and smooth, PagePlus works like you do.
Dynamic Layout AssistantsAligning text, artwork and images is easier than ever in PagePlus X4. On top of layout guides, grids, margins and alignment tools, new dynamic guides make being neat a natural and automated process.
Flexible and Versatile Publishing
Press-Ready PDFs and Colour Management Get the best possible results with professional full-colour printing, safe in the knowledge that your ouput will be compatible with any print shop, whether they use PCs or Macs. PagePlus X4 produces PDFs to the industry-recognised PDF/X-1a standard, files containing all your design elements, fonts, and colour information for accurate reproduction.
Save as PDF with industry-standard PDF/X-1a settings
Include press marks, crop marks and bleed area
Add passworded PDF open/edit/copy/print security
Choose PDF display options, include hyperlinks and bookmarks
Manage colour palettes, models, and ICC colour profiles
Design using RGB, CMYK, HSL, Pantone and spot colors

Print Any Size on Any Printer--Even Double Sided Get great results every time--PagePlus can scale designs to fit any size paper, and a Duplex Wizard prepares single-sided printers for double-sided output, saving paper and giving polished results.
Print Special Documents Without Headaches Everyone can print impressive folded, tiled, repeated, multi-chapter and other special documents, effortlessly. PagePlus will intelligently resequence, renumber, and turn 'n tumble pages when needed.
Design PDF Forms and Multimedia PDF Slideshows Take your print designs and give them an entirely new dimension, without leaving PagePlus. You can design corporate or other forms in PagePlus, save as PDF, and have customers or others fill in the form electronically. Serif automatically emails you their responses, free of charge. Alternatively add page transitions to your designs, include audio and video, interactive buttons and more, and save as a multimedia PDF slideshow ideal for business presentations.
Publish Websites and Send Designs as HTML Emails You multitask at work, home, school, and everywhere else, and so does PagePlus. Once you've created business documents or other publications, you can easily incorporate your designs into websites created directly in PagePlus X4's web publishing mode. Extra functionality opens up to give you web-specific tools and controls, so you can create and publish engaging, attractive and efficient web sites that complement your other designs.
Great Compatibility
Import, Edit and Share as PDF Get designs from anywhere, and share with anyone thanks to PagePlus X4's impressive PDF editing power, unrivalled in a desktop publishing program. Being able to open and edit PDFs means you can rework designs made with any other program, from a PC or Mac, then you can publish as PDF for sharing with anyone--whether they have PagePlus or not.
Open and edit PDF files like normal PagePlus publications
Publish as PDF for highly-compatible sharing
Make efficient PDFs for speedy email transmission
Host PDFs online or share with others for remote printing

Word Processor Document Support While PagePlus is more powerful and flexible than the average word processor, you can still import word processed documents with pictures straight into PagePlus designs for speedy layouts. You can import Microsoft Word documents (including Word 2007), Rich Text Format, Text files, and OpenOffice.org Writer files. Plus if you also have Microsoft Word installed, PagePlus can use it as a converter in the background to support even more text file formats.
High End Graphics Compatibility When collaborating with professional designers, you may need to use some graphics like EPS and PSD that usually require very expensive software to open. PagePlus handles these like a charm.
Complex Publishing Made Easy with Data Merge You can create some sophisticated documents very quickly with PagePlus X4 by merging databases and pictures into your designs, bringing data into tables, and using spreadheet functions.
Get Artwork from Anywhere Add popular image formats to your designs; PagePlus supports 28 different file types.
Import Audio and Video Enrich slideshows and websites with embedded media including MP3 and AVI.
Share with Other PagePlus Users Package files with all fonts and graphics, and even share X4 files with X3 users.

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Adobe Photoshop CS5 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is a lovely piece of software. It's got some great new features, there's no new interface to learn, and it can switch between 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Granted, this is a major pain when you have the audacity to want to add some lighting effects and have to close the program down, adjust the settings to 32-bit, then restart it and do what you want to do, before closing it, resetting it to 64-bit, and getting back to what you were doing.
So why, aside from those irritations, am I giving a program with 4-5 star features a paltry 2 stars? (4-5 star functionality, I should note, for my PERSONAL needs. There are scads of problems with CS5 borking printer and scanner drivers, and producing inconsistent prints that are simply unacceptable for those who do lots of printing work. I don't. Your needs and mileage may vary.)
Because even though it is a Mac program, it doesn't really play nice with Macs. At least, it doesn't play nice with NEW Macs. So, with that in mind...
A WORD OF WARNING -- do NOT upgrade yet if you have a computer that uses an i-Series processor! There are known incompatibilities between this processor series and CS5, which the latest patch/update has done NOTHING to fix (though it did smarten up the ridiculously laggy Liquify tool a little). I have a 2.66GHz MacBook Pro with an i7 processor and 4GB of RAM, with Photoshop being given a separate 1TB scratch disk. There is no reason why this system should not be able to handle a program like Photoshop CS5, especially when it's the only program running save for iTunes and Safari. AND YET...
Every. time. I use CS5, it ends up lagging not only Photoshop, but EVERY other program on my computer, necessitating mass Force Quits and a complete restart (sometimes cold, because the system refuses to respond to anything else). "It might be something else!" I hear you cry. Well, this ONLY happens when Photoshop CS5 is running. It does not happen at any other point; the system handles beautifully, so long as CS5 is not involved.
Unfortunately, Adobe is not exactly fast about getting this compatibility issue fixed. I would recommend that users with i-Series processors hold off on this upgrade until the company actually does something about it; CS3 was really the last build that worked on an i-Series processor without a host of issues. It has, however, been reported to work fine on the Core 2 Duo machines of builds past, so it may be worth a try there.
But if you have an i-Series, I strongly recommend you obtain a trial version of the software first, to see if the (absurdly) high price tag is still acceptable given the low performance.

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Adobe Photoshop CS5 delivers breakthrough capabilities to help you create images with impact. Refine your images with reengineered photography tools for removing noise, adding grain, and creating high dynamic range (HDR) images. Get precise results when making complex selections. Remove any image element and see the space fill in almost magically. Paint with naturally textured brushstrokes and realistic color blends. Also work fast with cross-platform 64-bit support and dozens of other time-savers.

Create powerful images with the professional standard
Easy access to core editing power Get just the tools you need--exactly when you need them--as you perform common editing activities. Adjustments and Masks panels guide you in making precise adjustments and masks.
Extraordinary creative tools Achieve realistic painting effects with the ability to mix colors on canvas and create natural brushstrokes. Merge multiple exposures into stunning high dynamic range (HDR) images. Move, remove, warp, or stretch any image element.
State-of-the-art photography Easily merge multiple exposures to extend the dynamic range with more power, precision, and fidelity than ever before. Convert to black-and-white in new ways. And use Dodge, Burn, and Sponge tools that intelligently preserve color and tone details.
Industry-leading raw image processing Enjoy superior results when you convert raw images with the Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which offers support for over 275 camera models plus nondestructive editing so you can experiment without harming your original photo.
Automated compositing tools Easily create a single image from a series of shots that have different focal points, smoothly blending color and shading and extending your depth of field. And take advantage of accurate, automatic layer alignment.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom integration Enjoy tight integration with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software (sold separately), easily moving files from Lightroom to Photoshop CS5 to create HDR images, panoramas, and multilayered Photoshop documents. Roundtrip your files back to Lightroom.
Efficient media management Manage your media visually with Adobe Bridge CS5 software. Enjoy more flexible batch renaming plus the ability to access files in the context of your work using the customizable Adobe Mini Bridge panel.
Powerful printing options Get outstanding prints in less time with automation, scripting, and a print dialog box that's easier to navigate.
Broad file format support Import and export hundreds of image file formats, including PSD, AI, PDF, NEF, CRW, TIFF, BMP, Cineon, JPEG, JPEG2000, FXG, OpenEXR, PNG, and Targa, and video formats including 3G, FLC, MOV, AVI, DV Stream, Image Sequence, MPEG-4, and FLV.
Extensibility Personalize Photoshop and extend its capabilities with custom panels that developers create to accomplish specific tasks, the Adobe Photoshop Marketplace for third-party plug-ins and resources, and Adobe Community Help for tips and tricks.
Top new features of Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended
Intelligent selection technology Photoshop CS5 takes the time and frustration out of making precise image selections and masks, providing you a faster way to extract subjects from their backgrounds and create realistic composites. New intelligent selection technology offers better edge detection and faster, more accurate masking results of complex subjects, like hair. Automatic color decontamination helps you eliminate background color around the edges of a selection, resulting in more seamless compositions when placing extracted subjects on new backgrounds.
Experienced Photoshop users know that the best selections are created by constantly adapting the selection technique for differences in the subject's edges--one method for hair and another for the edge of a building. With Photoshop CS5, you can produce highly accurate masks and selections faster and more simply than before with a set of new adaptive selection-edge modification controls. Smart Radius automatically matches the best selection approach with the subject's changing edge characteristics, and the extra view modes assist you in previewing the quality of your selections. The Refine Radius and Erase Refinements tools customize your masks and selections as you make them. These tools, in combination with the color decontamination settings, help eliminate any residual background color from around the edges of your selections.
Content‐Aware Fill One of the most exciting new features in Photoshop CS5 is the remarkable ability to remove an image element and magically replace it with details that match the lighting, tone, and noise of the surrounding area so that it looks like the content never existed. Now, you can make substantial changes to photo composition quickly and easily, as even large complex subjects can be seamlessly erased.
You can use Content-Aware Fill with the Spot Healing Brush or as an option of the Fill feature to replace content in an active selection. Selecting the Content-Aware setting with the Spot Healing brush changes the way the tool fills in the areas you paint. This retouching approach is designed to account more fully for the structure and detail of the image elements that surround the painted area, providing a near-invisible result when removing unwanted objects. Alternatively, you can select the object to be removed, and then replace the area with synthesized details from the area surrounding the selection, simply by using the Content-Aware option in the Fill dialog box.
HDR Pro for creativity and precision with the next generation of high dynamic range imaging With just a few clicks, you can go beyond the capture capabilities of your camera by combining multiple exposures into a single high dynamic range (HDR) photo that preserves the full tonal range of a scene with high contrast. Photoshop CS5 introduces HDR Pro for more control over the HDR merging process and greater adjustment power over the mapping of tones and the styling of HDR output, resulting in images that range from photorealistic to highly surreal.
HDR Pro offers extended controls, an enhanced dialog box, and improved image processing. New algorithms enable more accurate alignment of source files and automatically deghost any problem areas that occur when trying to merge source photos where subjects have moved during capture. You can even select a source file to be used as the sole reference for any ghosted areas or allow the feature to do this automatically for you.
New tone-mapping tools and adjustment controls give you the power to implement your own HDR vision, producing photos that range in style from fully textured images of high-contrast scenes to wildly hyper-realistic creations. Save your favorite styles as presets and apply them to multiple groups of source files to provide a common look and feel to your HDR photos. And for times when you don't have multiple source files, create the look of an HDR-processed image from a single photo with the new HDR Toning feature that allows you to mimic the tone-mapping results traditionally achieved in high dynamic range photos.
Together with the existing Photomerge feature (which allows for image stitching), the exposure-merging capabilities of HDR Pro can add up to high-bit-depth, 360-degree panoramas ideal for composite photography, video, and beyond.
The Auto Stack Panorama/HDR files option in Adobe Bridge CS5 and the new panelized Mini Bridge groups source files together into stacks for quicker creation of HDR images in Photoshop CS5. You can even start the creation of an HDR file by choosing Tools > Merge To HDR from the Mini Bridge panel inside Photoshop.
State-of-the-art raw-image processing The Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in, which ships with Photoshop CS5, now supports more than 275 camera models as it continues to provide you with the industry-leading conversion of raw files. In addition, the utility provides advanced, nondestructive image editing and enhancement for raw files, as well as for other standard formats, including JPEG and TIFF. Now you can remove noise, achieve better quality sharpening, and creatively apply new styles of vignettes and film-like grain.
You can now shoot at higher ISO settings with confidence, because the updated controls in the Adobe Camera Raw 6 plug-in remove the noise common in such high-ISO images (as well as in photos captured with long exposures and pictures from consumer cameras) while still preserving excellent color and detail.
New controls for adding grain and additional post-crop vignetting settings join many creative options already available in this utility, such as the Adjustment Brush and the Graduated Filter. For the first time, you can add grain-like texture to photos as part of your nondestructive editing workflow. Adjust amount, size, and roughness of grain to easily give composites a more natural, seamless appearance by matching levels of grain across all source images--or simply use the feature to make a digital photo look more organic or film-like.
Updated post-crop vignetting options offer more creative control over the corner darkening and lightening process, and your favorite vignette effects can be saved as presets for quick application across multiple files.
Upgraded sharpening options produce clearer photos with fewer artifacts while providing better control over key details, especially when working with high-resolution pictures produced by multi-megapixel cameras.
Extraordinary painting effects With a new Mixer Brush, a Bristle Tips feature, and a new mechanism for blending colors, Photoshop CS5 redefines the way you paint. You can take advantage of more natural and realistic painting effects, making it easy to take your imagery and designs in new artistic directions.
The Mixer Brush lets you define multiple colors on a single tip, and then mix and blend them with the underlying hues on your canvas, achieving creative results that rival traditional painting media. When starting with a photo original, you can use a dry, empty brush to blend the existing colors while at the same time adding a painterly effect to the image. Mixer Brush settings provide extensive control over the wetness of the canvas colors, the load rate that determines amount of paint loaded on the brush, the mixing rate between brush and canvas colors, and whether the brush is refilled, cleaned, or both after each painting stroke.
In conjunction with these new mixing features, Photoshop CS5 incorporates unprecedented control over stroke characteristics of its painting tools with Bristle Tips. Bristle Qualities define key bristle properties such as shape, length, stiffness, thickness, angle, and spacing, which affect how the color is laid on the image as you paint.
The Bristle Brush Preview feature provides a visual representation of these changes, and you can save your tip configurations for future use, allowing you to build a customized collection of Bristle Tips to experiment with when using Photoshop brush tools.
Puppet Warp Puppet Warp gives you more freedom when pushing and pulling elements within an image. The feature lets you recompose an image to make it more appealing, or to fit a specific layout, by allowing the precise repositioning of any element within a Photoshop document, or selection, by simply clicking and dragging. After you reposition an object, Photoshop adjusts the rest of the image to account for the shifted pixels.
After choosing Edit > Puppet Warp, click on your image to drop pins establishing anchor points where you want image parts not to move, and handles that you can use for warping. Then drag any of the pins to reposition the picture elements. Use Puppet Warp to swing a raised arm to a person's side, warp and stretch text to create new effects, or reposition intrusive objects in a photo to create a more pleasing composition.
Automated lens correction The Lens Correction features in Photoshop CS5 create better quality captures by removing or correcting the three most common lens-based errors: geometric distortion, chromatic aberration, and vignetting. This means you can use a wider range of lenses with the confidence of producing images of the highest quality. With the aid of the Adobe Lens Profile Creator (available separately as a free download from labs.adobe.com) you can produce custom profiles characterizing the optical aberrations of your camera lenses. When installed and selected in the Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5, the profile automatically removes or corrects the three types of distortion.
The Lens Correction filter in Photoshop CS5 is redesigned to include manual adjustment controls under the Custom tab, and settings for locating and applying custom Lens Correction Profiles (LCP files) under a new Auto Correction tab. Installed profiles that match your camera and lens combination are used to apply precise distortion corrections to your photos. Suitable profiles can be located easily based on the EXIF data automatically recorded with the image, and if a suitable profile is not present in the Lens Correction filter, then with a single click within the dialog box, you can search online for the correct profile to meet your needs.
Individual error types can be selected in the filter's settings, as can options for handling any transparent areas that surround the corrected image.
User-inspired productivity enhancements Photoshop CS5 helps boost productivity and creativity throughout the editing workflow with dozens of enhancements inspired by Photoshop users. Some of these include:
A neutral-density preset for the Gradient tool
The ability to save 16-bit Photoshop documents in 8-bit JPEG format in a single step
An option for reversing the clone source using the flip buttons in the Clone Source panel
A Don't Show This Message Again option when saving files with maximum compatibility
Default value for Shadows/Highlights changed from 50% to 35%
The ability to move a selection while the active layer is hidden
An on/off option for trackpad gesture support on Mac and in Microsoft® Windows® 7
A new layer command for deleting all empty layers via scripts
A Straighten button on the Ruler tool options bar
A Close All Open Images Without Saving option
A Save As option for always defaulting to the folder to which you last saved an image
The ability to drag and drop a file onto an open Photoshop document to create a new layer
Multiple improvements in Lens Correction filter options, including:
Grid Display is off by default
Show Grid, Grid Size, and Grid Color settings are now sticky
Default grid size is increased from 16 to 64 pixels
Decimal point adjustments are allowed as values for the Chromatic Aberration sliders
A third Chromatic Aberration slider enables the correction of green/magenta fringing
The Background Color Edge setting is replaced with the Black Color entry
A White Color option is available in the Edge menu
Reset options are changed so that only the calibration settings are reset, not the Grid options

A new Cache Tile Size control in the Performance section of the Preferences dialog box
Zoom in and out with the new scrubby zoom tool
Presets for setting Cache Tile Size and Cache Levels simultaneously
The ability to use keystrokes to set values in the Adjustments panel text fields
Performance increases of up to 50% when importing OBJ files
Sample colors faster using the new on screen color ring built into the eyedropper tool
Customizable default values for Layer styles
New creative resources, including actions, tools, presets, brushes, swatches, shapes, gradients, styles, and tool presets
Window and Door shapes added to list of meshes that can be created from a layer
An option for changing the opacity of multiple selected layers
The ability to create a mask from the transparent areas of a layer
Pick colors faster using the new on-screen color HUD
Print settings saved with the image file, allowing one-button printing with user-selected values
Selecting a printer automatically lists the profiles installed for that printer at the top of the profile list
Printer-specific profiles are selected automatically when choosing a printer
Customized print settings can be recorded as part of a Photoshop Action
An overlay grid can be displayed when using the Crop tool
Layer groups can be nested more than five levels deep
New Paste Outside and Paste Inside commands, along with the previously existing Paste In Place option, are included in a new Edit > Paste Special menu

Streamlined creative reviews through integration with Adobe CS ReviewCollaborate with colleagues and seek client comment quickly and easily with Adobe CS Review, a new CS Live online service* designed to simplify and accelerate the design review process.
With CS Review, you can avoid the hassles of large email attachments, logon problems with FTP servers, and time-consuming next-day air deliveries usually associated with client reviews by instead initiating a secure, shared review. Comments are displayed in near-real time and in context, providing convenient feedback on your images and designs. You can access the CS Review service from within Photoshop CS5.
Faster performance with cross-platform native 64-bit support Tight deadlines and large file sizes make performance a high priority for many Photoshop users. Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended deliver cross-platform 64-bit support, allowing you to perform day-to-day imaging tasks up to 10 times faster. Video and photo professionals, especially, benefit from the extra performance, as gains are even greater if you regularly work with very large files, where processing can be up to ten times faster when you take advantage of higher addressable RAM amounts--limited only by what your hardware accommodates.
To help you tweak the performance of your setup, Photoshop CS5 lets you adjust history, tile, and cache controls in combination.
Greater access to key resources via flexible custom panels Photoshop CS5 offers easy ways to integrate and extend your workspace with customized panels. With the aid of the Configurator 2.0 panel utility (available separately as a download from labs.adobe.com) you can produce your own panels, bringing together your most used tools and menu selections and incorporating your favorite web feeds or video tutorials.
Stay connected to the greater Photoshop community and all facets of your digital life directly from within Photoshop CS5 by using panels you create or those produced and distributed by other users. You can access anything that lives on the web--favorite blogs, video content, even your email--with these integrated panels. You can even expand content beyond a panel's standard viewing area when you need a magnified view.
Easier interface management with Live Workspaces and Workspace Switcher Creating dedicated, task-specific workspaces that mimic your individual workflow increases productivity and efficiency by hiding the features you don't use and exposing the ones you do. New Live Workspaces auto-save any changes you make to a task-specific workspace, so that if you switch to a different workspace and then back again during an editing session, your panels remain exactly where you left them. The number of entries displayed in the collapsible Workspace Switcher can be altered, and the position of each workspace can be rearranged. This provides quicker navigation between frequently used setups.
Superior black-and-white conversion Photoshop CS5 continues to support the tradition of producing finely crafted monochrome photos with the inclusion of new ways to explore an endless variety of black-and-white looks. You can use the integrated Lab Black & White Technique action, located in the Default Actions group of the Actions panel, for an easy and interactive way to convert color images. Create gorgeous HDR black-and-whites with greater ease and speed by taking advantage of the new and updated features in HDR Pro. Take your monochrome creations in new directions with conversion presets in the Black & White panel.

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Adobe Illustrator CS5 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Nothing in the fifth bloated incarnation of Adobe's Creative Suite interested me at all except the perspective drawing tools in Illustrator. That's unfortunate, because they're a pretty massive letdown and seem as though they were rushed out the door long before they were anywhere near finished.
For starters, there's the "Active Plane Widget." It's a little loupe-like thing with a cube inside it that floats around your window and lets you associate objects with planes on the perspective grid. Unfortunately, it cannot be moved, and is instead anchored to one of the four corners of your window. If you're a normal person, odds are good these corners are obscured by palettes more often than not, and that makes getting to the widget frequently impossible.
But that's actually OK, because that elusive little widget turns out to be almost completely useless. While it does let you associate objects and planes, it cannot undo these associations at all. Want to move the object to a different plane? Logic would dictate that you'd simply repeat what you did the first time by selecting the object and then clicking on the new plane, but as it happens, this simply de-selects the object. Instead, you have to use some poorly documented keystrokes while dragging with the perspective selection tool--handy as a shortcut, but completely unintuitive and an absolute usability disaster for a brand new feature no one is familiar with.
The next thing you might try is releasing the object from the perspective grid to get it back to its unaltered state before re-assigning it. Unfortunately, you'll be out of luck there as well, because the "release" command is essentially synonymous with "Expand Appearance" and as far as I've been able to gather, there is no way to get your original object back. I really hope I'm wrong, and that perspective transforms aren't actually destructive, but I haven't been able to find any evidence to support this hope so far.
And what happens when you throw some type on a perspective grid? It draws with some funky looking jaggy pseudo-stroke that never goes away. It smooths out in "Save for Web" if you check the "Optimize for Art" checkbox (no idea what this means), but otherwise, I haven't found a good way to get rid of it. Tried "Pixel Preview" and upping the Raster Effects resolution, and nada.
By now you've probably spent a little while drawing stuff and odds are good you might want to go back and tweak your perspective grid a little bit. Do the existing objects follow suit? Nope. They just sit there. Good luck getting anything re-aligned now.
Are the Live Color dialogs any easier to get through? Nope. Multiple artboards easier to setup? Nope. 3D extrusions less buggy? Nope. Anything else worth $500? I guess there's an "Application Bar" which does absolutely nothing but chew up screen real estate--whoopty doo.
Add to all of this the fact that the Help files have gone from excellent to almost completely useless over the past 3 releases, plus the fact that you are forced to install their ridiculous AIR runtime for every single product in the suite, and I'm more convinced than ever that Adobe no longer has any interest in doing anything other than shoving Flash down our throats in as many ways as their disillusioned evangelists can imagine. I'll be sticking with CS2 for one more round.

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Create distinctive designs for any project. Used by creative professionals worldwide, Adobe Illustrator CS5 software provides precision and power. Paint expressively with vectors, draw in perspective, and explore designing for interactivity. Move easily between Illustrator, other Adobe products, and Adobe CS Live online services. Get the job done efficiently but beautifully, moving quickly from multiple ideas to multiple outputs with complete control and delivering exactly what you had in mind.

Explore new paths with the essential vector tool
Sophisticated vector drawing controls Create distinctive designs with precise shape-building tools, fluid and painterly brushes, and advanced path controls. Such powerful drawing capabilities provide practically infinite possibilities for creating unique and striking artwork.
Advanced typography Enjoy easy type creation and professional control with more than 80 OpenType fonts, paragraph and character styles, paragraph composition, underlining and strikethroughs, transparent effects, and more.
Gradients and transparency Interact with gradients directly on your object, defining the dimension of elliptical gradients, editing colors, and adjusting opacity. Control the transparency of individual colors in a gradient, including those applied to a gradient mesh.
Perspective Drawing Use perspective grids to draw shapes and scenes in accurate 1-, 2-, or 3-point linear perspective. Create the look of realistic depth and distance with snap-to guides to quickly put objects, live text, and symbols into perspective.
Beautiful Strokes Adjust stroke width interactively using new width handles. Precisely position arrowheads and symmetrically align dashes. Control stretch at any point when scaling art brushes on a path, and see how patterns behave beautifully at corners.
Multiple artboards Work on up to 100 artboards of varying sizes in one file, organized and viewed the way you want--overlapping or on a grid. Quickly add, delete, reorder, and name. Save, export, and print artboards independently or together.
In-panel appearance editing Edit object characteristics directly in the Appearance panel, eliminating the need to open fill, stroke, or effects panels. Work with shared attributes and toggle individual attribute display for faster rendering.
Drawing enhancements Work faster with everyday tools. Draw behind, disregarding stacking order. Draw or place an image inside, instantly creating a clipping mask. Join paths with one keystroke, see ruler origins at the upper left, and scale symbols with 9-slice control.
Crisp graphics for web and mobile devices Create vector objects precisely on the file's pixel grid for delivering pixel-aligned artwork. Generate clean, sharp raster graphics by turning on Align To Pixel Grid and using text anti-aliasing options for individual text frames.
Integration with Adobe CS Review Create and share--from within Illustrator--online reviews for clients and colleagues down the hall or around the world. Publish your review to the web and see comments in Illustrator so you can track feedback on specific design elements.
Integration with Adobe design applications Share files smoothly with other Adobe professional design applications and easily create artwork for multiple outputs. Work across products and across media with roundtrip editing and user interface similarities among Adobe Creative Suite tools.
Adobe PDF file creation tools Create protected, graphic-rich PDF files with Illustrator layers retained, multiple artboards for multiple pages, and color space and transparency handling. Include printer's marks and bleeds to share files confidently with service providers and with ultimate prepress control.
Industry-standard graphic file format support Work with almost any type of graphic file--including PDF, EPS, FXG, Photoshop (PSD), TIFF, GIF, JPEG, SWF, SVG, DWG, DXF, and more.
Top new features of Adobe Illustrator CS5
Perspective drawing Use perspective grids to draw shapes and scenes in accurate 1-, 2-, and 3-point linear perspectives. The new Perspective Grid tool allows you to turn on a grid that supports drawing directly on planes of true perspective. The new Perspective Selection tool allows objects to be moved, scaled, duplicated, and transformed dynamically in perspective. Easily move and duplicate objects from one plane to another.
You can also create objects in flat space and then apply them to a perspective plane, where they will correctly transform in shape. This works particularly well with symbols, in that you can place easily reapeatable instances onto the perspective grid and see the symbols "in back" recede to give you the look of realistic depth and distance. You can use the perspective grid to resize objects; you can even work with live text in perspective.
No longer do you need to construct your own perspective environment--no more creating your own horizon lines and vanishing points. You can even use the perspective grid to draw vector objects on top of a reference photograph or video still placed on your artboard. Consider adding a series of street lamps to a cityscape for a sequential lighting animation, for example. Or add fence posts to a reference landscape image to complete your billboard for a western wilderness camp.
Beautiful strokes In Illustrator CS5, a number of new features have been introduced that make designing with strokes even more powerful and flexible. The core drawing tools within Illustrator merit attention every software release, and with Illustrator CS5 there are five significant updates that new and long-time users will appreciate. You can finely control stroke width, dashes, arrowheads, and how brushes stretch along a path. And improvements in corner handling mean that stroke shapes behave predictably in tight angles or around sharp points.
Variable-width strokes--Draw strokes with variable widths that you can quickly and smoothly adjust at any point, symmetrically or along either side. You can create custom width profiles that you can save and subsequently apply to any stroke.
Dashed line control--Control alignment of dashes on a stroke. Now enjoy symmetrical dashes around corners and at the ends of open paths, with lengths adjusted automatically to fit. Toggle between adjusted and preserved dashes and gaps.
Precise arrowheads--Work in a completely new way with arrowheads. Pick an arrowhead shape and control placement and scaling from within the Stroke panel. You can even choose whether to lock the tip or base of the arrowhead to the path endpoint.
Stretch control for brushes--Define how art and pattern brushes scale along a path. Choose areas of the brush graphic you wish to stretch and those you wish to keep in proportion. For example, you may need to elongate the middle of a banner graphic while keeping the detailed, curly ends of the banner from stretching.
Brushes with corner control--Apply art and pattern brushes to a path and get clean results, even at tight bends or corners. Where strokes of different widths join, or they form obtuse or acute angles, choose options to properly fill points where joins occur.

Bristle Brush Paint with vectors that resemble real-world brush strokes. The new Bristle Brush provides breakthrough control of painting. You can set bristle characteristics such as size, length, thickness, and stiffness. Set brush shape and bristle density. And set paint opacity, which uses transparency variations to simulate lifelike blending. When you have chosen the perfect characteristics for your Bristle Brush, you can save it for later use.
With the Bristle Brush you can achieve the expressiveness of natural media like watercolors and oils--but with the scalability and editability of vectors. Get the most out of the Bristle Brush using a tablet with a Wacom 6D Art Pen, which responds automatically to pressure, bearing, and tilt, plus provides 360-degree barrel rotation and anaccurate brush preview.
Crisp graphics for web and mobile devices Create vector objects precisely on the file's pixel grid for delivering pixel-aligned artwork. When you're designing artwork for Flash Catalyst, Adobe Flash Professional software, and Adobe Dreamweaver® software, it's critical that raster images look sharp, especially standard web graphics at 72ppi resolution. Pixel alignment is also useful for video resolution rasterization control. And in Illustrator CS5, new web graphics tools include type enhancements. Choose one of four text anti-aliasing options for each of your Illustrator text frames.
Pixel grid alignment Generate clean, sharp raster graphics by turning on Align To Pixel Grid. Objects are automatically nudged to the closest pixel edge when you create them or apply transformations.Now, a one-pixel stroke won't straddle two pixels and get blurred or lost with anti-aliasing. Zoom in to see the grid and watch your objects align as you work. The alignment control is located in the Transform panel.
Text anti-aliasing Create readable text for the web, mobile devices, handsets, gaming devices, or any destination where you need to generate raster images from your Illustrator artwork. Four anti-aliasing options now appear in the Illustrator CS5 Character panel. Choose among Sharp, Crisp, Strong, and Smooth, which match the text anti-aliasing rules in Adobe Photoshop® software. You can apply a different rule to each text frame in your artwork, and your specifications are saved with the file.
Multiple artboards enhancements The multiple artboards feature introduced in Illustrator CS4 is now markedly better. Work on up to 100 artboards of varying sizes all in one document, organized and viewed the way you want. New and greatly expanded artboard options in Illustrator CS5 include a full Artboards panel, in which you can name and reorder artboards. Quickly add, delete, and duplicate them using panel controls or keyboard shortcuts.
Artboards are also easier to arrange, aligned to a grid if you wish, with rows and columns you define. New ruler behavior includes automatic top-left origin, and the options for saving your artwork now include saving one, all, or a range of individual artboards as individual AI files. The advantage of multiple artboards is that you can work on a variety of related projects in a single file and share settings and content across designs. For different outputs, you can choose among a variety of preset ratios and guides, such as for print or web design. You can create artboards to mock up aspect ratios such as an HDTV screen, a movie theater screen, or the screen of a mobile device, exploring ways to adapt your composition for each of them.
You can also create an artboard inside an artboard to serve as a crop area so it's easy to export just a piece of a composition. Save, export, and print artboards independently or together--as a series of files or as a single, multipage PDF file.
Shape Builder tool Intuitively combine, edit, and fill shapes on your artboard. Drag the cursor across overlapping shapes and paths to create new objects and add color without accessing multiple tools and panels. Quickly unite, exclude, trim, and more.
If you have ever worked with the Pathfinder panel, you will appreciate the Shape Builder tool. It enables merging objects, breaking overlapping shapes into distinct objects, subtracting areas, and more. For example, you can draw a stroke across a the middle of a circle and quickly create two half-circles--no need to open a panel or choose another tool.
Coloring fills and strokes is easier now, too. The Shape Builder tool includes interactive color selection for quickly filling closed or partially closed areas of your artwork. Options include automatic gap detection and choosing whether or not to automatically fill new shapes.
Drawing enhancements Work faster with everyday tools. Improvements to familiar drawing tools make using Illustrator CS5 efficient and productive. Instant masking using Draw Inside mode and joining paths with a keystroke are just two of the enhancements that speed up your routine tasks.
Draw behind and inside--Draw behind other objects without choosing layers or worrying about stacking order. Draw or place an image inside a shape, including live text. The draw inside feature automatically creates a clipping mask from the selected object. Find Draw Behind and Draw Inside modes at the bottom of the toolbar. Select an object, choose a mode; then, when you draw, place an image, or create a shape, your new element is behind the selected object. With Draw Inside, the selected object will also become a mask.
Symbols--New 9-slice scaling in Illustrator and registration point control make symbols more powerful than ever. Scaling an object with 9-slice control enables proportion maintenance in exactly the places you want it, now available in Illustrator and not just for export. Repeat extremely complex symbols and maintain ultimate control while you scale and transform them in Illustrator.
Artboard ruler origin and coordinates--No longer think twice about your coordinates. Artboard ruler origins and coordinate systems are now oriented from the upper left. If you have scripts that use a previous coordinate system, they will still work correctly. You can also choose to work with a global ruler that provides coordinates across all your artboards, or you can work with local, artboard-specific rulers.
Path join--Join open paths in a single keystroke with objects selected. You no longer need to select endpoints, and you can join more than one path at a time. Simply select two or more open paths and press Command+J (Mac) or Ctrl+J (Windows) to see your paths join into one open path.
Select behind--Use a keyboard shortcut to easily select an individual object located behind other objects. Press Command (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) when you select the object that's in the back.

Roundtrip editing with Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5 Use Illustrator CS5 for interaction design, now enabled by new Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5, available in Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Web Premium, Production Premium, and Master Collection. Develop your ideas and design your interface in Illustrator, creating screen layouts and individual elements such as logos and button graphics. Then open your artwork in Flash Catalyst and add actions and interactive components there--without writing code.
After you've added interactivity to your designs, you can still make edits and design changes directly within Illustrator. From Flash Catalyst, simply choose Modify > Edit In Adobe Illustrator CS5 and the artwork opens, ready to edit, in Illustrator. For example, you can edit the look of interactive button states in Illustrator while seeing that the structure you added in Flash Catalyst is maintained.
Resolution-independent effects See raster effects such as drop shadows, blurs, and textures maintain a consistent appearance across media. Have you ever found that your artwork mysteriously loses its smooth, high-quality look when you publish? You can now create work for different types of output and know that popular raster effects maintain an ideal appearance no matter how your resolution settings change--from print to web to video. You can even go up to a higher resolution. Work quickly and efficiently with low-resolution artwork and then scale up when you're ready to go to a finished output such as high-quality print.
Integration with Adobe CS Review Illustrator CS5 integrates with Adobe CS Review, one of several new CS Live online services. With Adobe CS Review, you can create and share online reviews for clients and colleagues down the hall or around the world. From within Illustrator CS5, publish a review of your work to the web. Multiple reviewers can then access your review from a browser without any additional software and make comments right in their browser window with easy-to-use annotation tools.

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