Customer Reviews

Adobe Creative Suite CS3 Web Premium Upgrade [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I was eager to upgrade my Studio 8 to Web Premium CS3, but was slightly wary what with the information on installation issues around the web. To avoid compatibility problems, I removed the trials (I didn't have the beta) I had been evaluating, Acrobat Reader, Flash Player, and Studio 8. It seems I needn't have worried. The software installed flawlessly, from the CD, in about half an hour. I was surprised, I had expected it to take longer, what with the number of packages being installed. But it all works!

I've got a lot of work to do, learning the new features and taking advantage of the better interoperability between the apps. Photoshop to Flash is nice; I had tried this with older versions of both, and it didn't work so well then. I work on websites, so the round-tripping between Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, and Photoshop is very handy. And the apps are all quick to load and respond.

Dreamweaver isn't a huge update from v8, but it has more up-to-date CSS support and improved browser compatibility checking. It also has numerous page templates and CSS-based layouts you can use, which would be a good time saver when creating a new page or site. I practically live in Dreamweaver, so any productivity boosts are appreciated!

I haven't used too much of the other apps yet, but I will soon enough. But I like them all already! The upgrade is pricey, but you get a LOT out of it.

Maybe I got lucky, or it's my newer computer (7 months old, Core 2 Duo, 2Gb memory, 250Gb hard drive, WinXP Media 2005). But I've had no installation or usage problems at all. I can recommend this product for anyone that does serious web work.

Though I realize that the installer may leave something to be desired for some, I'm not sure I'd wait to upgrade to the Web Suite. Waiting gives you nothing really -- except the ability to read tips from other installers first. I doubt there will be a big Adobe update to the installer in the next couple months. But I have no inside information and no idea really. Just read what others have said and follow the accompanying instructions carefully.

That aside, let's talk about the real stuff -- the products themselves. They rock. I'm a web developer, not a Photoshop guru, but dang -- with this version of Photoshop, I'm kinda wishing I was! Unbelievable time-savers and really sexy features. Fireworks hasn't been left behind either and has awesome prototyping abilities now. The Fireworks optimization engine (the best in the biz) will now optimize your Photoshop PSD files when you copy them into Dreamweaver. In fact, the integration between products is one of the best workflow enhancers you'll find.

Dreamweaver has even better CSS features and support including new CSS structural layouts and a great Browser Compatibility Feature that notifies you of possible problems on your page -- AND links you to their solution. Having Contribute in the Suite is great for me since I have most of my smaller clients updating their own sites with it so they don't have to bother me with the small stuff.

I'm not a Flash or Illustrator user personally, but I've seen the new features within demo'd and they're very impressive as well. And Mac users may not return to iPhoto after they see the features in Bridge (and the speed as well).

To me, it's an upgrade (or new purchase) worth having -- just pay close attention to the install process. I just installed on a new MacBook Pro without a hitch. Fast and simple. But I wasn't dealing with old products so I can't speak to that. Good luck and happy creating!

I am happy to report that I had no difficulty upgrading to Web Premium (Win) and successfully completed the installation. I was concerned because of the issues reported by K. Nish "Wild Girl Yonder" and appearing on several newsgroups.

I did take K Nish's recommended precautions and unloaded Acrobat Reader and Flash Player. I also unload the trial (not a beta) versions of the CS3 products I had downloaded and installed earlier this week. I rebooted after the removals and ran a utility that checked the Registry and removed any orphans. The CS3 installation took about two hours but was uneventful.

I have a Dell Dimension 8400, 1 gig memory, 160 gig storage and XP SP2. I have MX 2004 on my machine and purchased the Web Premium Upgrade. The installation process did not "find" MX 2004 and I was challenged during activation to enter the qualifying, MX code. Fortunately, I could locate the original MX 2004 disk cover that had the codes. I gave this rating four stars because the installation process required that I search my collection of CDs to find the MX activation codes.

The updated CS3 applications(especially Photoshop)seem much improved over what I had been using (Photoshop 6).

Web Premium CS3 is an excellent value for the money.
The total of 7 quality software titles alone make this more than worth the $500.00 upgrade price. How many of you remember shelling out 150.00 per upgrade for each title? I'd say no one can complain about the value.

I love the integration and improvements, but one of my complaints is that this package feels like a trial balloon for what to include in CS4.

Program Integration:
Dreamweaver and Fireworks do not share the CS3 interface and shared tools for Fireworks, illustrator and Photoshop do not match. Slicing in Fireworks is far easier and efficient as opposed to Illustrator and Photoshop.

Illustrator:
My one huge complaint about illustrator is that the shape drawing tools are terrible for EASILY making simple shapes like a movie ticket. Fireworks takes 2 seconds. If anyone from Adobe reads this, answer me this: How hard would it have been to have added the beveled rectangle tool in Fireworks to Illustrator?

Dreamweaver:
I used to have a love/hate relationship with Dreamweaver. I loved all the WYSIWYG do it for you stuff, but hated when it mis-behaved. I have since learned what goes on under the hood(coding) so I barely use the EASY buttons and stick to code or split view. D.W. has made some great improvements, but not enough in some areas. Can anyone tell me what is up with the terrible code indenting?
Dreamweaver code is still horribly unreadable unless you go to great lengths to make it readable. There are free programs that do a better job of outputting clean and readable code.

Code collapsing is a joke, have Adobe developers even seen Visual Studio 2005? Also, Why can't you save/tag a section of code that has been collapsed so that when you expand it,then click a different area you don't lose the collapse option for the section? Again, Adobe developers, call me.

In short, Dreamweaver is a great tool for graphic designers and beginners who know a little or nothing. The more you get into the development side of web design you will see it's glaring deficiencies. Real web developers who are serious are using other tools because Dreamweaver is simply too inefficient for serious web developing.

I guess in some ways this review is kind of a waste because the majority of the audience reading this are going to be the very people this suite is aimed at, Graphic Designers.

Whether or not this is the case, I want to tell people this suite is filled with awesome tools, but they are only tools and will not make up for lack of talent, design ability, lack of programming skills.
Solid, quality websites are alot of work and it's all about the content.
Learn all you can about accessibility, standards, and usability.

I recently upgraded to CS3 Web Premium from Adobe CS2 Premium. My web-design workflow in CS2 typically utilised Illustrator CS2 -> Photoshop CS2 -> GoLive CS2. I still use those three programs more than the rest of the suite (I don't do much Flash content, and I'm more familiar with Illustrator than Fireworks, so I find myself using Illustrator CS3 for tasks that could also be done in Fireworks CS3).

Illustrator CS3 has an improved interface and vastly expanded colour capability. The LiveColor features generate colour sets from established color theory rules, allow complete colour shifting of entire documents, include colour sets from different periods in art history (Baroque, Impressionism, Modern, etc.)...I love it.

Photoshop CS3 Extended is a bit smarter, sleeker, and interfaces well with other CS3 applications.

Dreamweaver CS3 is a HUGE step up from GoLive CS2. The program is much more stable, flexible, and powerful than I found GoLive to be. The interface took a little adjustment, but now that I'm familiar with it, I like it much better than the GoLive interface.

If you've done any web design in CS2, I highly recommend this upgrade. Any time you spend learning the new software will quickly pay off through increased efficiency and decreased frustration!

This review deals with the initial release of the software.

I have been an Adobe product user for several years and I've gone through several "installations", but judging from what is on the Adobe Forums, this one is a nightmare! There are way too many installation errors to count, and very few people have had just one. Some people have actually had to reinstall their operating system, uninstall all the Flash Players and Readers just to get it to install.

A couple of things that aren't in the ReadMe-

You can't have Flash 8 or the Flash 8 or 9 player installed on your system before the install. Uninstall them with the Add/Remove Programs before attempting it. If you can't get them out, use the Windows Installer Clean up utility and make sure they are gone before you attempt install.

Try removing your Acrobat and Acrobat Reader separately BEFORE the install and you may even want to think of unchecking Acrobat 8 on the install. Once you've installed Acrobat 8 on your system, you can't re-install Acrobat 7. (This is in the ReadMe) And the uninstall of Acrobat 7 in the CS3 installation is touchy. Many people have lost both.

Some people have had success installing one component at a time.

ABSOLUTELY copy the DVD to your hard drive and do a completely clean install-which means msconfig, nothing but Microsoft Services and no Startup items.

Check the Adobe forums to see what has worked and what hasn't.

Good Luck! if you have to do it now! If not, I'd wait a couple of months on this one. I wish I had!

I'll come back and edit this review once I've got the software running.

I recently upgraded to CS3 Web Premium on a WinXP machine with Studio MX 2004 installed and separate Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2 installations. For me, the upgrade went very smoothly. This may have been due to my learning from the trials of those installing before me, because I took the advice of many in these reviews and elsewhere: before installing, I manually removed all versions of Adobe Reader and all Flash and Shockwave players and disabled pretty much everything running in the taskbar quicklaunch area, as well as disabling virus protection. I left my Photoshop, Illustrator and Studio MX installs alone, and even with those in place, I was asked to enter the product id number for Studio MX, which I still had. But with these fairly straightforward pre-installation steps, the install itself went well and only took an hour or two.

I've only begun using the new features, but have so far seen the following:

Photoshop CS3 - seems to open and run more quickly than my CS2 installation (on my 5 year old PC.) There is a new default desktop layout for tools and windows which took a little getting used to, but I like better now than previous versions...it makes it easier to get more usable graphic image working area. There is a new magic selection tool that provides a lot of control over selection edge (you drag the tool around and it dynamically builds the selection, then can apply changes to edge non-destructively until you get what you want...very cool!)

Flash CS3 - so far, have explored only the video capabilities...it seems much easier to build integrated Flash video players from 'template-like' components than previous versions. They've also included an external Flash video encoder to convert other formats to Flash video...to test, I converted a WMV file to high quality Flash video...the resulting video file size was large, but the quality was fantastic.

Dreamweaver CS3 - seems to handle CSS designs better than previous versions. This version also seems more stable than my MX 2004 version...that one crashed every once in awhile. Have had no stability issues with CS3. Dreamweaver CS3 also adds a new library of components for javascript and AJAX features like rollover pulldown menu support.

I haven't opened Fireworks, Contribute or Illustrator yet, and have seen only a small part of CS3 so far, but from what I've seen CS3 seems to improve stability, and add features that, while maybe not earth-shaking, are useful and well implemented. Recommended.

If you're into Web, don't even think about this package's smaller sibling. Go for the Premium, you won't regret it. If you're like me, and own Studio 8, this is a steal.......... you get the latest Photoshop, Flash, and all the rest for nothing.

We are getting ready to use this one our website, tradesmart.net. We love it and it comes with some pretty fair video instructions. The new version "4" is now out and we plan to update and finish the site.

Why would you not upgrade? The full MacroMedia suite plus the Adobe tools. Unlike other reviews, I had no problems installing the upgrade. It took me less than an hour to install the full suite.