Adobe Creative Suite Standard CS2 [Old Version]

by Adobe

Product Features

• Unified design environment
• Simplified file versioning
• Greater control over images in Adobe Photoshop CS2
• New power for vectors in Adobe Illustrator CS2
• Rich, versatile layouts with Adobe InDesign CS2

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00080DPTA
• Item model number: 28030210
• Date first available at Amazon.com: July 7, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,080 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com

More than just an upgrade to the world's leading imaging, design, and print production software, Adobe's Creative Suite 2 will change the way you harness your creativity. Creative Suite 2 is a fully integrated design and workflow environment that is engineered to help creative professionals work faster, smarter and with better results. Robust new tools in Photoshop CS2, tighter integration between Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2, new object styles in InDesign CS2, and the revolutionary streamlining and collaboration offered by Adobe Bridge make Creative Suite 2 Adobe's biggest release yet. Other top features include the ability to establish color settings across all the components of Adobe Creative Suite, access to robust help services, and easier control of, and access to, historical and alternate file versions.

Adobe Photoshop CS2
New tools in Photoshop CS2 give you more creative options, better file handling and batch processing of digital camera RAW-format files, plus complete integration with Adobe Bridge (see below) for a seamless workflow. Designed to fit the way you work, Photoshop CS2 is only limited by your imagination. Top new features include:

The new Vanishing Point tool lets you edit and enhance images to match the source image's perspective.

• Vanishing Point: Achieve amazing results in a fraction of the time with the groundbreaking Vanishing Point, which lets you clone, brush, and paste elements that automatically match the perspective of any image area.
• Multiple layer control: Select and move, group, transform, and warp objects more intuitively by clicking and dragging directly on the canvas. Easily align objects with Smart Guides.
• Smart Objects: Perform nondestructive scaling, rotating, and warping of raster and vector graphics with Smart Objects. Even preserve the editability of high-resolution vector data from Adobe Illustrator software.
• Multi-image digital camera raw file processing: Accelerate your raw file workflow with simultaneous processing of multiple images while you continue working. Import images into your choice of formats, including Digital Negative (DNG); enjoy automatic adjustments to exposure, shadows, and brightness and contrast; and much more.
• Image Warp: Easily create packaging mock-ups or other dimensional effects by wrapping an image around any shape or stretching, curling, and bending an image using Image Warp.

Adobe Illustrator CS2
Return to your love of vector drawing and illustration with Illustrator CS2. The big news here is a new bitmap conversion tool that lets you convert images to scalable, editable artwork in seconds. This version is designed to make it easy to find the tools you need quickly, while allowing you to customize your workspace to suit your way of getting things done. With Illustrator CS2 it's also easier than ever to take your graphics to the printed page, Web sites, video, mobile devices--virtually anywhere you want to go. Top new features include:

Quickly convert your bitmap images, such as scanned sketches, to scalable, vector-based paths.

• Live Trace: Quickly and accurately convert photos, scans, or other bitmap images to editable and scalable vector paths with the Live Trace feature.
• Live Paint: Apply color to any region or edge and use overlapping paths to create new shapes with the Live Paint tool, which intuitively colors artwork and automatically detects and corrects gaps.
• Control palette: Discover new features and find existing features faster in the context-sensitive Control Palette. Accessing selection-based tools from a single location eliminates the need for multiple palettes.
• Custom workspaces: Work more efficiently and optimize your screen area using custom workspaces that display only the palettes you need for a specific task. Save, share, or access any workspace at any time or use workspace templates.
• Photoshop layer comp support: Control the visibility of layer comps in linked, embedded, or opened Photoshop files from within Illustrator.

Adobe InDesign CS2
With new object styles and vastly-improved layer controls, InDesign CS2 offers print publishing professionals powerful new tools. Improved text and graphics handling and greater integration with other Adobe software is built in, too, allowing you to output your files with complete confidence and deliver projects faster. Top new features include:

Experiment with different designs by selectively displaying layers and layer comps in Photoshop files, as well as layers in Adobe PDF files.

• Object styles: Apply and globally update object-level formatting more efficiently using object styles. Save a wide range of graphic, text, and frame-level attributes as object styles to create more consistent designs and speed up production tasks.
• Adobe Photoshop and Adobe PDF layer support: Selectively display layers and layer comps in Photoshop files, and layers in Adobe PDF files, to experiment with different design options or use multiple variations of a file in your layout--all while linking to a single file.
• InDesign snippets: Easily export InDesign objects as snippets, which can be shared with colleagues or reused in other documents. When you place or drag a snippet into a layout, InDesign recreates the original objects, their formatting, and their relative positioning on the page.
• Adobe InCopy CS2 assignments: Assign only the elements of a document that an editor using Adobe InCopy CS2 software needs to work on while you're designing the rest--whether that's specific frames on a page, frames on one or more spreads, or all the frames in a document.
• Save backwards to InDesign CS: Export your InDesign CS2 document to the InDesign Interchange (INX) format and open it in InDesign CS for sharing with people still working in the previous version.

Version Cue CS2
Tired of confusing filename conventions and versioning nightmares? Bring an end to all of that with Version Cue CS2, the file-version manager that's built into the Creative Suite. Find files quickly using extensive search capabilities, create alternates to show as comps, and manage versions within Adobe Bridge. With Version Cue, the right file is always right at hand. Top new features include:

Version Cue CS2 makes it easy to find, link and share your design elements.

• Productivity made simple: Find files fast, track versions across applications, link files together, and share them in creative collaboration without fear of overwriting someone else's work.
• Shared project information: Actively track the status of project files and enable this information to be easily shared across workgroups.
• Simplified sharing for small workgroups: Easily share files with others within the Version Cue Workspace and keep your files safe without fear of them being overwritten. View the status of each file to know who is working on what file.
• Automatic file naming: Say good-bye to awkward filenames such as "brochure_final_final3.indd." Instead, you can name a file to suit your preferences and let Version Cue handle the version tracking without the need for a naming convention.
• File version notification: Receive helpful reminders while updating versions or placing photos and illustrations in layouts.

Adobe Bridge
At the heart of Adobe Creative Suite 2 lies Adobe Bridge, the new navigational control center built to join together all of the Creative Suite components. (Adobe Bridge is also available separately in Adobe Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, and GoLive CS2 software.) Based on the File Browser introduced in Photoshop 7.0, Adobe Bridge goes a step further by providing centralized access to your suite project files, applications, and color spaces, and other settings. With file organization and sharing, plus Adobe Stock Photos, at your fingertips all the time, Adobe Bridge is where you keep your ideas moving. Top features include:

Adobe Bridge CS2 intelligently links all of the elements of the Creative Suite together, so you can work more efficiently.

• Organized assets: Quickly organize, browse, locate, and preview the assets you need every day--Photoshop images, Illustrator graphics, InDesign layouts, Adobe PDF files, GoLive Web pages, and a variety of standard graphics files--with visual previews and scalable thumbnails as you work.
• Project and file sharing: Work collaboratively and access multiple versions as well as alternate renditions of your files through Version Cue CS2 in Adobe Bridge. Actively track the status of project files and enable this information to be easily shared across workgroups.
• Accessibility anywhere: Jump to Adobe Bridge from within Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, InDesign CS2, or GoLive CS2, work in it as a standalone application, or have it float onscreen as a palette.
• Powerful file searching: Search for files on a hard drive or across a network using extensive metadata information, including attributes such as all files that use a certain PANTONE color or set of fonts.
• Convenient access to stock photos: Browse and search royalty-free images from multiple stock photo agencies using Adobe Stock Photos in one convenient, familiar location. Purchase images from several agencies in a single shopping cart, and manage your imagery without ever leaving Adobe Creative Suite 2.

Adobe Stock Photos
Need royalty-free stock photos now? Adobe Stock Photos delivers hundreds of thousands of them, right from Adobe Bridge. Adobe has teamed up with top stock photo providers to deliver a comprehensive, centralized place to get all the images you need. Top features include:

Search over 230,000 images from multiple stock libraries at once from Adobe Bridge.

• Fast image searching: Search over 230,000 images from multiple stock libraries at once from Adobe Bridge. Adobe Stock Photos tracks your search path automatically, so returning to recent searches is easy.
• Hassle-free image creation: Double-click comp images to open watermark-free versions directly in Photoshop. Or drag and drop images from your favorite folders into InDesign or Illustrator.
• Simple image management: Don't worry about tracking image ID numbers. The Adobe Stock Photos service automatically retains the data associated with each comp image--even after editing.
• Instant purchases: Purchase directly from within the document containing your comp images. Buy all your images at once--even if they originate from multiple providers.

Product Description

Adobe Creative Suite 2 software is a unified design environment that combines full new versions of Adobe’s Photoshop, Illustrator, and nDesign with with Version Cue CS2, Adobe Bridge, and Adobe Stock Photos, to deliver the next level of integration in creative software.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Features, Less Speed/Stability, September 4, 2005

By 

Kevin Hatch (USA, Earth) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adobe Creative Suite Standard CS2 [Old Version] (CD-ROM)

I've used both Photoshop and Illustrator for many years now, and I've been continually impressed by the new features in each version that have made my design work easier. CS2 does deliver with a number of enhancements in both tools and interface for both products. The good you can read in the press-release info above, and yes the new features are great.

The unfortunate downside to CS2 is performance. If you do not have very good hardware, expect a performance decrease with CS2. For example my Quadro video card only has 64MB of memory, but Photoshop CS2 really needs 128MB or more to run smoothly. Without it, Photoshop will sometimes pause for a moment as it has to catch-up with your commands. Also expect 1GB of system memory as a real need, 2GB preferred. You can even run with up to 3GB in XP SP2 when the /3GB switch is set in the boot.ini, and PS will use it.

Photoshop used to run pretty well with one HD, but it was preferred to have two physical drives to separate the windows paging file and Photoshop scratch disk, where data files could share some space with scratch disk on the second hard drive. Now for better performance, you need three separate hard drives: one for windows and applications, one for documents/data and the paging file, and one just for the Photoshop scratch disk. If you only have two drives, you're still better off with everything on the first drive, and just the scratch disk on the second.

Illustrator CS2 is also nice, when it runs at all. Apparently there's a bit of a resource problem with it in that it will startup, load all the fonts and plugins, and then popup a can't continue message. When you get that and click OK, Illustrator closes back down. There are a number of community-documented workarounds, such as working with very few fonts, having more memory, never running any other applications at the same time, booting Windows fresh before each use, and even deleting specific configuration files so that Illustrator created them again on load. These fixes work for some people, but for others nothing has helped and they literally can't run the product. For me I usually just boot fresh and open nothing else.

I have not personally used the rest of the products much yet, but overall they are good. The new browser is a great improvement. InDesign is light-years better than PageMaker (but then anything would be). Acrobat seems a bit faster, etc.

So if you have serious graphics workstation or simply work in a high-end design house you need not worry (and are probably not likely to be reading this review anyhow). For the rest of the Adobe-using community, don't get CS2 without reading up a little on it. The user forums at [...] are a good start. It's overall a good product, but there are bugs and hardware is a real issue. I still give it 4 stars, because CS2 is overall a really, really amazing package. If it weren't for the problems, it would be 5 stars from me easily.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quark to InDesign - Easy as 1-2-3, September 16, 2005

By 

Jan M. Wilson (Evanston, Illinois) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adobe Creative Suite Standard CS2 [Old Version] (CD-ROM)

I've been a QuarkXpress user since 1990 and I thought i would never find an equal. Well I have....it's called InDesign. With a Visual Quick Start book in my lap, I learned InDesign in a weekend and over the next 2 months, I designed a 54 page magazine using the program. And one of the best things about InDesign is how easy it is to produce PDF files, which is a real pain using Quark.

Another plus is Adobe, a first-rate company. They let you try out any of their programs for a month. I did this with InDesign to see if my G4 running 10.28 could run the program and it did, with no problems. The new quark requires Tiger OS.

I'm glad I made the switch, I'm never going back!

8 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dismal has become the state of the art, August 12, 2005

By 

Jeremy D. Wilkins "jeremy3099" (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Adobe Creative Suite Standard CS2 [Old Version] (CD-ROM)

I've been designing and retouching Photoshop heavily since version 4.0, Illustrator since 7.0. I demand a lot from both these products and have generally been more than satisfied with their performance.

In that time I've never encountered buggier, slower, less stable iteration of either application (barring perhaps Illustrator 9 which was a veritable carpet bombing of lousy quality control).

Bugs abound on Windows XP. I often lose functionality of tools in Illustrator (e.g. the H and B sliders in the HSB color palette becoming unmovable, while the rest of the program chugs along at a snail's pace for some inexplicable reason). There are abundant redraw and display glitches that I'm hesitant to chalk up to ATI's drivers.

Photoshop's interface is becoming less consistent and usable. The program is often uncertain how to handle the scroll-wheel and performs numerous actions at once, or in rapid-fire succession. Furthermore, making a selection in a drop-down menu (such as blending mode, or a tool option) leaves focus on that element, so efforts to use hotkeys are in vain until you remember to hit the escape key. Does Adobe really expect us to be this indecisive? Or did they just neglect to smooth rough edges to meet an unreasonable release cycle?

I won't even go into details with ImageReady. Suffice it to say that this program's extended functionality (what little there is) should have been part of Photoshop from its 5.5 debut. And it has all the hallmarks of a "complementary" product. It's a second-class, half-baked app, and I pray that its code won't taint Fireworks after the acquisition of Macromedia.

Overall, Adobe has dropped the ball once again. To resounding critical acclaim. Take it from someone whose day job is designing with these applications: Adobe apologists have gotten out of control and reviewers need to spend more than ten minutes with a new product before hoisting their opinions on an unsuspecting web.

But what valid alternatives do we have? Someone, please, educate me.