Customer Reviews

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium Upgrade [Mac] [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

CS4 has some great improvements from earlier versions of these apps. My biggest disappointment was that when the product was delivered I discovered that there are TWO versions of the upgrade: one that upgrades from CS3 and one that upgrades from CS2 or earlier or from the old Macromedia Studio products. I have CS2 and it refused to offer me a way to upgrade, giving me only the choice of filling in a CS3 serial number. After a huge amount of time on the phone with Adobe Customer Service, I finally got them to take back the version I ordered from Amazon.com and replace it with the correct updater for my situation.

The apps are terrific and all run natively on Apple's Intel processor machines. There will be a bit of a learning curve, figuring out where some of the familiar controls are (Adobe seems to delight in hiding some features that were in plain sight before). Over all, it's a great upgrade.

GoLive has been replaced by Dreamweaver, and I deeply regret its loss. Dreamweaver may be an excellent program, but I've been using GoLive for over 14 years. Now I'm forced to learn Dreamweaver, and I don't like the interface nearly as well. It still feels like a clunky Macromedia product. Hopefully Adobe will integrate its interface and make it more Adobe-like in CS5.

Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat are exceptional products. They are the basis for my graphic design workflow, and allow me to turn out world-class designs for print and web for my clients around the world. I've yet to learn how to use Flash and Fireworks, but I'll be getting a subscription to Lynda.com to learn them in due course.

One additional caveat: Epson doesn't make drivers for hardly any of their scanners that work with Photoshop CS4 yet. My Perfection 2450 scanner is now idle because Epson doesn't make a plug-in that even works with Photoshop CS3!! I'll be needing to find standalone scanning software--or try to find a new scanner that works within Photoshop CS4. Epson should really be more forthcoming with its driver updates, especially as so many people (tons of professional photographers) use Photoshop for retouching and compositing. What were they thinking?!!

I have been designing with Adobe Products since they first created Illustrator back in the '90s. Generally, I've found the "Suite" upgrades to be worth while - especially considering the savings from buying the products separately.

I must say that this is the first time I wish I could have waited. Product reviews on the typical sites out there were all glowing, but my own experience has proven otherwise.

Not that this upgrade was particularly bad, it just didn't warrant the whole number upgrade. Most of what you're going to experience are interface changes. Some are for the better: the collapsible pallets really help in the ongoing battle for screen space for the work areas - Flash has some excellent new features that we can't really use until the new player (10) has more "reach". So for now, it's just a matter of learning the new techniques. I wish they would concentrate on making the programing of ActionScript more intuitive for designers - more component or "task" based instead of just heads down learning to program. The script assist feature is still baffling and the help system returns way too many results to be useful. I might suggest that instead of definitions and lists of functions, operators, syntax, etc. they might concentrate on specific tasks and how you DO things. I mean we don't program Postscript anymore, do we?
The new tabbed page style (throughout the suite) is inconsistent and the Mac version is "un-Mac" like - closing the window closes the program in Flash, but not in any other program?
Illustrator is just plain buggy. It's crashing on my machine. Perhaps the latest update will clean things up. Still not being able to "click through" illustrations (like the "command + click in InDesign, maybe?) is just plain silly and a time waster. Defunct Freehand still has a better implementation of multiple pages than Illustrator, even after many upgrades to Illustrator.
After some incredibly frustrating time with the program (careful if you have your layer pallets open and it's redrawing a gazzillion little icons of every tiny bit of your illustration and using all your CPU to do it) I finally pulled the file into old Freehand just to get the darn thing done. Interestingly, the same finished illustration in Freehand is 52k. In Illustrator? 1.1 MB. Wow. No wonder this thing is such a dog on my machine. They should say "it'll run on a G5, but don't have display set high, or your pallets all open or let your illustration get complicated. . . "
Photoshop no longer supports the multi-processor G5s plugin - it should be interesting to do some time trials on the new vs. Old. (Obviously Illustrator suffers from this issue as well.) I'm still looking for my $600 value in these programs.
I purchased this product mainly for the new features in Acrobat. The new Reader has the Flash Player built in and with the new Acrobat Pro you can embed banners and working flash content into your PDF files. Videos can now be viewed as part of a PDF without the need for an internet connection (great idea for "in-field" training with a laptop and no connection to the net). I've found these features to be clunky and spottily implemented, but manageable. And like in the new Flash features, all your users better have the new Reader and a fast, maintained machine to run it or all bets are off.

All said and done, I would recommend hanging onto your dollars and waiting for the next version upgrade, or your next COMPUTER upgrade, unless you need the particular new features they have created or are just dying for an integrated interface throughout your Adobe apps. If you're buying for the first time (but then you wouldn't be reading this review ;-) you might as well dive in. Hopefully it could only go up in usability from here. But if you can wait, I'd say wait.

PAY CLOSE ATTN!!!!!! Adobe has two version of this exact upgrade - one for current CS3 users and the rest of us upgrading from CS2 or other lower suites . . . . I upgraded from CS2 with this package - but had to go thru many processes with Adobe Cust. Svc to do it...... read everything and but the upgrade package designated SPECIFICALLY for the suite you are running right now!!!! It CAN be done - but much simpler if you buy the CORRECT version to start with!!!!!!

For a scant $593 (after Adobe's $200 instant rebate), I was able to upgrade CS3 versions of Photoshop and Illustrator (which would have run me $400 just for those) AND get Dreamweaver, Flash, InDesign, etc. It feels like Christmas.

This is the tightest UI integration than I've seen since Adobe purchased Macromedia.

Overall, I got a lot of useful apps for a decent price,and while I may not use them all, the ones I have mentioned, I certainly will.

The only fly in this ointment is the bloatware feel and the non-Mac-like install process. On two DVDs, the full install takes a HUGE amount of space (1.2GB for Adobe Acrobat alone!).

It's best to pick and choose which apps you will actually use rather than accept the defaults.

BTW, Adobe Bridge has become a new must-use app when Photoshopping! Keep it in your install selection.

Very disappointing. The interface is so messed up. For instance, I'm working in Flash CS4, and there are no less than THREE types of scroll bars in ONE window. It's just insane. They seem to have added a bunch of features, as usual, but not bothered to fix many of the bugs from the past. They also seem to be rewriting these dinosaurs slowly in Air rather than the native GUI of the OS, which means they work all strange, more Windows-like than Mac, and the interface is terribly broken.

For a piece of software I spend my whole day doing design work in, it's agony. Shame on you, Adobe!

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium Upgrade is a wonderful product, but installation was extremely difficult for me. I was upgrading from CS2, which was on the list on Adobe's website as acceptable for upgrades. However, because I was installing on a PowerPC G5 Mac using OS Tiger and Safari 4, I kept getting an Installer Alert message. I called the toll-free number to Adobe Support, and they said that the disc was not compatible with Safari 4, and I would have to use Safari 3.2.1. Only the problem is, it is impossible to uninstall Safari without reinstalling my OS! After trying in vain to get rid of Safari, I ended up having to erase my entire hard drive and reinstall Tiger. Then I had to go through the onerous task of reinstalling all my applications and upgrading to Safari 3.2.1. Finally, I started to install CS4, but now it wouldn't accept my previous version os CS2, only giving me options to upgrade from CS3! So back on the phone to Adobe, and after much deliberation, they gave me a challenge code and response, which allowed the discs to install. So, after days of painstaking work, I am finally the proud owner of Adobe CS4! Why doesn't Adobe warn you that it is not compatible with Tiger Safari 4?

I have used Adobe design products and suites for over 10 years. For the past 2 years I have been trying to install CS3 on the 2nd computer which is allowed in the license. Conflicts with Leopard were the early problem, now I still can't install. Customer support is outsourced overseas to people who know far far less than I about fixes. I had already tried all the ones they suggested. A supervisor finally agreed that the disk had a defect and asked customer support (also overseas) to send me a new one, but customer support said they have no more DVD's and sent me to an ftp download link that doesn't work. Both customer service and technical support has become very very poor and very, very slow for this once proud company. My advice, unless there is a new feature you absolutely must have, don't upgrade. If you must have one element, buy only that component, not the suite. Adobe's products have become, sadly, very buggy and there is no support.

The product is great but the shipping sucks. The product went from Arizona, to Federal Way Washington (I'm in Tacoma Washington), to California and back to Washington state. The packaging was damaged when it arrived, one DVD was slightly scratched, but it still loaded ok. I'll choose UPS or FedEx and pay a little more from now on.

Adobe did it again with the improvements for CS4. Being a graphic designer, I'm always looking for ways to make my job easier or more effiecient. I also have to have software cross platforms so that I can keep my customers corporate identity across the board from logos to marketing printing, to the website. I highly recommend this upgrade.

CS4 is a solid platform for any designer. I am particularly pleased that Adobe included In Design with the web tools, acknowledging that many small graphics firms do both web and print design. The upgrades and improvements are appropriate, and you will be able to use the tools without much upgrade training.