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Provides: Artistic creative development of digital, paper, and web based media.
Developer: Adobe
Requirements: Varies by product/package (see Adobe's website for individual details)
Price: Design Suite Premium - $1,799 (upgrades from $599), Web Suite Premium - $1,599 (upgrades from $499)

Adobe recently announced the release of many updated products. After purchasing Macromedia and absorbing most of their product line, Adobe chose to take the hard approach—update everything all at once to a full new product line. In fact, from the previous two lines (Creative Suite and Creative Suite Pro), there are now six full suite lines. The complete product line, contained products, and the differences therein can be seen on the Adobe website.

Over a period of time, Kirk Hiner and Gary Coyne will be presenting reviews of the various Design and Web Suite programs. Due to our desire to not gloss over any product, we are taking the time to provide full previews based on the beta copies we've been provided. When we obtain the full retain versions, the reviews will be updated accordingly and ratings will be assigned.

If we may being little, much has been made of the new icons. Gary, for one, likes them. He admits that while he did like the beauty of the CS and the science behind the CS2 icons, there always was the issue of, "Let's see, the yellow one was Illustrator?" Now, you look for the product by name. It's easier and the products, as elements, do have their own beauty as well. You may not like them at first, but their functionality will sway you in time. What is rather curious is how much the Acrobat line is on their own compared with the rest of the Adobe Products. Perhaps for CS4 we will find more continuity. We'll see.

Kirk feels the icons are an upgrade from the Adobe icons of CS2, but they seem like placeholders compared to the Macromedia Suite icons. There's precious little design to them, like the developers just typed a couple letters in a colored block with the thought of eventually going back to finish them, then ran out of time. They are, however, easy to identify and find in the Dock, which Kirk guesses is the idea. Hopefully, they'll be changed for the final release.

The two different lines Kirk and Gary will cover are almost identical with the only exception that the Design Suite will have InDesign, and the Web Suite will have FireWorks. In addition to these applications, the Premium Suites will also have Version Cue (for managing projects with many people involved), Adobe Stock Photos (for accessing photos to purchase over the internet) and Adobe Acrobat Connect (for conducting meetings on line). The latter two items have extra fees for use.

Design Suite Premium	Web Suite Premium
Adobe Camera RAW	Adobe Camera RAW

So, over the next couple of months, please come back to this page to find reviews of these products. One extra product that will get a separate review is Adobe Camera RAW. Unfortunately, as a separate plug-in for Photoshop and Bridge, there's no formal icon for ACR.

Reviews/Previews currently available:

• Adobe InDesign CS3
• Adobe Illustrator CS3
• Adobe Flash CS3
• Adobe Fireworks CS3
• Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
• Adobe Photoshop CS3
• ACR: Photoshop Camera RAW 4
• Adobe Bridge 2
• Acrobat 8

Please be patient as we work to bring you in-depth reviews of the new CS3 Suites from Adobe.

___________ Gary Coyne has been a scientific glassblower for over 30 years. He's been using Macs since 1985 (his first was a fat Mac) and has been writing reviews of Mac software and hardware since 1995.