Customer Reviews

Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium [OLD VERSION]

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

 

 

I am giving this only 3 stars because when I loaded this software; the program help files do not work when you press F1; apparently the installer has a bug. I am not able to access the offline help files or the online help files so I downloaded the pdf files separately; or you can navigate to the help files directory and click on the main html help file. I suppose this isn't the end of the world, however, at the price that Adobe is charging for their products, I would have thought that they would have had some sort of quality control to test for bugs prior to its release. I am very disappointed at this. Their forums revealed indeed that others had the same issue and offered some workarounds that did not work. After spending an entire Saturday troubleshooting this I decided that it was just not worth it. Corel Draw is a fraction of the cost and I must say I haven't ever had an issue like this from their products.

I am extremely impressed with the performance of Photoshop and Illustrator CS4; The Bridge feature has proved to be extremely useful as well. I don't know a lot about Dreamweaver or Flash yet; I purchased this particular package to learn web design. So far, I haven't had any other issues.

I've come up to speed on DW CS4 quickly, having converted from FrontPage. DW is powerful but buggy. Simple tasks sometimes work and sometimes they don't. If you set DW to modify your code, it makes a mess as often as it does a good job. When simple functions (like adding a hyperlink to text) work sporadically (and often mis-tag the text), you know DW is buggy. I like the power, but I'm getting very tired of the bugs after paying a "Premium" price. Rather than suggest that I upgrade to the new DW CS5, Adobe needs to patch version 4.

While this particular package of the Creative Suite 4 programs leaves one key item behind from the Design Premium package (InDesign CS4) and includes programs no one in their right mind would ever try to use (Fireworks CS4 immediately comes to mind), this is a fine and affordable way to purchase not only Photoshop Extended, but Illustrator, Dreamweaver and Flash Professional (I have no plans to use Soundbooth as yet).

No issues with test installations on Windows XP, XP 64-bit, or Windows 7 64-bit. However, hearing from others elsewhere - and reading between the lines on reviews here - I wouldn't try this if you're using Windows Vista (either 32 or 64-bit versions). Why? I have no idea.

Of course, you could hold off on this sort of purchase until Creative Suite 5 comes out in about a week, which from the views I've seen is well worth the short wait.

I should also add that - considering Flash is probably about 2 to 3 years away from being irrelevant - I would also recommend the Design Standard package which contains everything a web/graphic designer really needs.

I had some trouble installing this (although that may have been more of a Microsoft Vista issue than Adobe's fault), so I'm not inclined to give 5 stars. So far the product has been working very well and I'm pleased with what I'm seeing so far.

I received my order today for the Adobe Creative Suite 4. When I opened the package of software I found that the disks were unattached within the box. I have not tried to load the disks yet so I do not know if they are damaged. This software cost over $1600 and should have arrived in perfect condition. There was no outside damage to the box.