Customer Reviews

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium Upgrade [OLD VERSION]

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

 

 

(Adobe has responded to my comments. Please read the UPDATE section below)

I upgraded from CS1, but I suspect you'll get the same experience I had with CS2. In a nutshell, upgrading from anything but CS3 will REQUIRE you to phone Adobe customer support. The first person will try to help, but doesn't have access to older serial numbers, so is simply a waste of your time. The second person will have access, can research and will be able to resolve the issue. You will have to be at the install screen where it asks what version you are upgrading from, and you will have to be connected to the internet. For me, it was an exhausting experience. And you will hate the distorted loud music they play over, and over, and over....

Frankly, I feel like they took my money and punished me. I won't suggest you find a pirated copy, but I feel like Adobe is trying hard to push me that way. I'll consider hard before I think about upgrading my other products. It is shameful that a paying customer is treated like a thief, while thieves don't have these kind of problem. This is a bit backwards.

Once installed, I can see a huge performance increase in opening Nikon RAW files. So that one feature is nearly worth the upgrade price. I'm mainly a PhotoShop user, and web developer. So far, it looks like a worthy upgrade. I just wanted to give everyone a warning about upgrading from CS1/CS2 and Macromedia products. There is pain involved.

UPDATE: I wrote Adobe and got a response by an engineering manager and a VP. In a nutshell, they found the Design Premium upgrade had a problem finding out the previous serial number of an installed CS1. They are working to resolve that. But they apoligized about the need to talk to multiple support people, and said they will get the front line people trained properly ASAP. Frankly, I'm really impressed with their rapid response. Thankfully, they also said they would try to get the annoying music resolved. Until then, I suggest you use a speakerphone, not a headset like I did.

Oh, and the product continues to impress me. I autostitched multiple photos together into a single panorama and it was fast, easy and make an outstanding image. In fact, much better than the dedicated pano software I was using. I would rate the software 5 stars so far, with only the install experience dropping the product down.

Been trying to get it loaded for 35 days. Adobe customer service is very slow and makes lots of promises they do not keep.
After being a loyal Adobe customer for since the early days of Photoshop, I am now looking at alternatives.

Lots of great updates in this release.

Bridge has gone from a product I never even opened in CS3 to a program I use even more than the Finder is CS4 (when searching Adobe files.) I have two major gripes still. Bridge's smart collections are painfully slow where smart folders in the finder are very fast. Also Bridge is unable to detect Photoshop files that are located in the iPhoto library. Bridge can find other formats from with in iPhoto library just not Photoshop. Unfortunately that is the format I primarily use.

Flash currently crashes for me whenever I make a symbol so I haven't been able to use it much at all. That being said that are making great steps to simplifying the interface. Action Script is still unnecessarily complicated.

Illustrator has multiple artboards like FreeHand did except it works a lot better. You can now also bring in most FreeHand files fully intact since both software contains pages now. The blob brush is great. As a long time FreeHand fan I like on they seem to be making Illustrator functions easier like FreeHand but with more powerful features.

I see two problems with Illustrator. One is that they put the rotating canvas feature in PhotoShop but left it out of where it was really needed which is in Illustrator. The other is that I find it much harder to do a simple eye dropper sample in Illustrator than FreeHand especially when applying a color's stroke to another objects fill or a fill to another objects stroke.

Fireworks is an ok upgrade but didn't build on pages feature from CS3 like was badly needed. Fireworks needs to work more like InDesign for the web but it's layout features are stuck in the 80s. No multiple master pages, no basing one one page on top of another. No linking images so that you can have quick access to altering the image like how you can option like images in InDesign. Their is a lot more that I am not thinking of at the moment.

Dreamweaver is really a developer tool it's not that geared towards designing like they say it is.

Acrobat seem like it would be useful way to interact with clients but do all my clients have to go out and buy a really expensive piece of software in order to do that? I don't see any of my clients doing that therefore I don't see how it could be of much use to me.

I like how photoshops editing features are on the side of the screen rather than cover up the image like in CS3, that's a nice touch.

Camera Raw is almost identical to CS3. I hope they keep releasing new features for it like they did through CS3's life time.

InDesign is great. The new preflighting really helps. Now they need to bring Indesign's features over to Fireworks so that I can use the same powerful features inside of a web layout program.

One of the best features of all is having support for the PowerMac G5 which is still a very very fast computer today. I see absolutely nothing I need to a new Intel computer and there is no way I would have upgraded if they dropped support for PowerPC. I am not going to upgrade my machine a year a half from now so here's hoping they still support it then in CS5. If they don't I will just stay with CS4 and outright skip the upgrade since CS4 works really well for me.

Overall a great update.

[...]

This is only an upgrade from CS3. I have CS2 and when I opened my Amazon package, it says it is only for an upgrade from CS3. I called Adobe and they confirmed that it would not work. Now, I have to return the box and wait for the refund in order to get the correct upgrade- Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium Upsell from Creative Suite 1 or 2.

Purchased as an upgrade from CS1, but would not load without contacting Adobe to unlock the software. This required several levels of customer support and several hours on the phone. Upgrading from CS3 should be easy. Am enjoying the product.

Adobe has added some very clever new features to their latest Creative Suite upgrade. For those still using CS2, now is the time to spend your money. In addition, this is the first version specifically designed to be compatible with Vista, a problem that still plagued CS3 upgrades. If you are still "on the fence," test drive the product through Adobe.com's 30-day trial. Just a few days of playing with a trial version will convince you to come back & order this product. Adobe Production Premium 4.0 CS4, Video & Audio Software Suite for Windows, Upgrade from Creative Suite 3 - with Lightroom 2 Software

Unless there is some very specific new feature you are looking for (can't think of one myself) do not waste your money. I regret this purchase and wish I had my money back.

The upgrade didn't exactly go smoothly, but was still pretty easy. I was upgrading from CS2, and when you select your previous version software during installation, it only lists CS3 products. The Adobe website says to install it in trial mode, and then contact support. I did that, and it was a relatively short and painless process to get it working from there.

If you are not working as part of a team, you'll want to avoid installing Adobe VersionCue/Bridge as you are not likely to use it. Even with a team, VersionCue only needs to be installed on the server.

I haven't really used it long enough to comment on much of the functionality. I spend most of my time in Fireworks. There are a few nice new features (smart guides, ability to move panels to separate window), but so far I haven't come across anything that really leaps out. I'll post back once I've spent more time learning new features.

If you're upgrading from anything other than a qualified CS3 version product, beware, and expect some lengthy time with Adobe support. Even though all the documentation I could find indicates my CS2 software qualified me for the upgrade, the labeling on the box indicates you have to have CS3. Before installing, I called Adobe to confirm that I had the right product. After a half hour, I was told indeed my CS2 products were qualified. Then after installing, when prompted for the serial number for the prior product version, I was only given a drop down of CS3 products. I then had to call again, and after a lengthy hold, the agent acted like this was the first he'd ever heard of a product upgrade. Finally, he gave me the unlock code I needed. The end result was another 1.5 hours of time spent on the phone--just to do a product upgrade. To me, inexecusable for the kind of money I'd spent. Adobe's packaging, Web self service, and support all get a failing grade.

Finally, since I've had it running, I've encountered bugs with Distiller, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver.

It's true that this version only upgrades from CS3 and not from CS2 - and it was not obvious from the Amazon page about that. However, you can get a fix from Adobe, even though it's a pain...