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Adobe completes its latest acquisitions on a technical level by integrating it all

It was only a few months ago that Adobe began shipping the latest versions of its popular Creative Suite video, sound, and graphics editing tools package. Creative Suite 3 is the 3rd generation compilation of tools designed by Adobe Systems, Inc. or tools acquired by it and integrated into its already powerful set of software.

Now Adobe has begun shipping the final set of Creative Suite 3 packages to bring the CS3 launch to a close with the Production Premium CS3 and Master Suite CS3 packages which include an extensive list of software.

The Adobe Master Collection long list of tools includes:
  • InDesign CS3
  • Photoshop CS3 Extended
  • Illustrator CS3
  • Flash CS3 Professional
  • Dreamweaver CS3
  • Fireworks CS3
  • Contribute CS3
  • After Effects CS3 Professional
  • Adobe Premiere Pro CS3
  • Soundbooth CS3
  • Encore CS3
  • Acrobat 8 Professional
The Master Collection allows designers to utilize all of Adobe's tools for web, print, and multimedia content production as well as mobile content design for the new wave of mobile devices which feature support for rich media.

The Adobe Production Premium CS3 package includes a slightly slimmer list of tools compiled for the video/film enthusiast:
  • After Effects CS3 Professional
  • Encore CS3
  • Flash CS3 Professional
  • Illustrator CS3
  • Photoshop CS3 Extended
  • Premiere Pro CS3
  • Soundbooth CS3
  • OnLocation CS3 (Windows only)
  • Ultra CS3 (Windows only)
The first wave of packages released by Adobe included Design Premium and Design Standard, which were aimed at the designer in the print, web, interactive content and mobile design industry, as well as Web Premium, and Web Standard, which are compiled with the web designer in mind.

All 6 packages are available right now to download off Adobe's website or at various retailers with suggested retail prices listed below:
  • Master Collection - $2499 (full), $1399 (upgrade)
  • Production Premium - $1699 (full), $799 (upgrade)
  • Web Premium - $1599 (full), $499 (upgrade)
  • Web Standard - $999 (full), $399 (upgrade)
  • Design Premium - $1799 (full), $599 (upgrade)
  • Design Standard - $1199 (full), $399 (upgrade)
All packages are fairly priced considering all that is packed in each version. For those that only need specific tools such as Photoshop and Illustrator, each title can be purchased separately at a slightly higher price.

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*Offhand comment*
By HotdogIT on 7/3/2007 1:38:54 PM , Rating: 5
*Offhand comment about isohunt*

*Offhand comment about expense of Adobe Products*

*Heated piracy debate*

*Mention of "communism" and "capitalism*

*End of Internet debate*




RE: *Offhand comment*
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 7/3/2007 1:40:40 PM , Rating: 1
Yes, Adobe does command a hefty premium on most of it's products, but this is nothing new.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By HotdogIT on 7/3/2007 1:41:58 PM , Rating: 3
Yeah, I know. And where I work, the production people actually purchase them all. It honestly made me do a double take; I was so used to people just, ya know... GETTING Photoshop, to see a company pay for it was surprising.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By nerdtalker on 7/3/2007 1:53:09 PM , Rating: 1
Plenty of people **gasp** actually purchase Creative Suite. Educators, professionals, and those doing graphic design usually have to purchase the software, at least so they're not accused otherwise.

Because the piracy is so prevalent, those kinds of institutions usually get extra scrutiny. Plus, you've gotta support the developers that make the stuff.

Heck, the Master Suite is so gigantic, I doubt anybody truly ever would master all the apps. I only use design premium (InDesign, Photoshop, Bridge, Acrobat, GoLive, Illustrator) on a regular basis, so why pay for the other stuff? That's why it's tiered in the first place.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 7/3/2007 1:54:00 PM , Rating: 2
Well, we buy it here at my company, the prices for a professional corporation are negligible. The price for a home user that does this in his spare time, or for small business is a bit on the high side. You also need to remember that not everyone at the company needs Photoshop either. We pay for X amount of licenses from Adobe and do it that way, unlike say Office, which we pay more for simply because everyone has to have it.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By colonelclaw on 7/4/2007 8:08:12 AM , Rating: 2
same here. we just bought the production premium suite for a new editing workstation we are putting together. we will be using all the programs provided all day every day, so for me it's staggeringly good value. hell, the AJA video board in the machine costs a whole lot more, and that only does one thing

everyone i know runs cs2 and now cs3 pirated versions on their home computers, but if they used them for work they would buy it like us. i don't really see the problem. adobe gets millions of people using their software, and when anyone decides to actually buy stuff, they aren't going to go for Paint Shop Pro, are they?


RE: *Offhand comment*
By anonymo on 7/3/2007 1:54:21 PM , Rating: 4
Considering these are all professional production tools, is anyone actually surprised by the price? If you use Adobe's products to run your business then dropping $500 for Photoshop is probably peanuts (otherwise you should probably find a new business) and if you're using it for personal stuff, then...well you most likely have it already and don't actually care about the asking price.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By TomCorelis (blog) on 7/3/2007 2:22:07 PM , Rating: 5
I'd agree that the price of this software for individual users is ridiculous. Even the academic prices are high. I think the only real reason the software remains expensive is because that's what professionals expect from professional software; we can't have Joe Yokel mucking around in Photoshop with his kid's pictures, now can we?

Just like designer brands keep their prices high to prevent brand dilution, professional tools keeps their prices high to prevent profession dilution. It's a job security thing.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By GaryJohnson on 7/3/2007 3:07:25 PM , Rating: 2
I found the academic CS3 master collection online for as low as $936 (in stock). That price is negligible compared to the tuition costs and training material for courses to teach you to use all that software.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By TomCorelis (blog) on 7/3/2007 3:16:04 PM , Rating: 2
My local community college offers courses in Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, and After Effects for (I think) $20 per unit. And that's provided that one even needs those training courses... one could easily teach themselves Photoshop with a couple of $50 textbooks off of Amazon. Everything technical I've ever learned in a digital arts was something I could have taught myself.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By GaryJohnson on 7/3/2007 5:25:01 PM , Rating: 2
Then why did you take the digital arts classes?

I'm not saying your wrong; the common perception expressed by people I've known in college, including myself, is that we could have learned everything in the courses on our own for much less than we paid for the courses. But yet we all took the courses and will probably take more.

I've come to the realization that I appreciate the structure and direction of coursework, which is something I've found hard to achieve on my own. (I learned that about myself during an instructional design course.)

As far as $20 photoshop classes, I've found the adage: you get what you pay for applies to college courses. But who am I to say? I haven't taken those courses at that college. They may be excellent.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By TomCorelis (blog) on 7/3/2007 5:43:12 PM , Rating: 2
$20 per unit... most of them are three and four units a piece. So $80 + textbook + software... still a pretty heavy investment.

You are right, why did I take those classes? It was an economic decision, really. I used the structured courses to fill in the gaps in my own knowledge, or, at a time where my creativity and drive were being murdered by full-time employment and full-time studies, to force myself to learn something that I did not have the time or energy to do on my own.

But if I had ample free time, I would much rather teach myself than take up structured coursework... but that's what works for me. My most recent ex needs the structure, she praises it. She can't understand why I abhor it in most circumstances.

Also, the other one major thing that the beginner-level courses are good for is establishing a good framework for focuses self-learning. The good ones give you a well-rounded overview of the topic so that you can better direct your own studies... my own Photoshop skills would be vastly different in the same amount of time had I decided to self-study from start to where I am now.

True, you do get what you pay for. The the currency you pay with is more than just money: it's time, energy, spirit, happiness, and more.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By gigahertz20 on 7/3/2007 6:26:05 PM , Rating: 2
Haha yes those *offhand* comments made me laugh. There is nothing quite like getting a $2,499 software suite off bittorent for...nothing. After you download it of course you want to learn how to use it all, that's when you just go online and download all the books that accompany the software as well as all the videos. I wanted to get A+ Certification and almost went to amazon.com to buy the books, but checked out a few bittorent sites first. Downloaded several A+ certification books all in .pdf format, I actually may buy the books though, it's hard to read that much information sitting in front of your computer for extended hours every day.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By Parhel on 7/3/2007 11:23:42 PM , Rating: 2
And most people who download it will do so simply because it costs $2499. I'll never understand that mentality. Who cares? Certainly not Adobe. It's not as if you would have gone out and purchased a $2499 software package if it wasn't available through P2P. Only people who are going to use the software to make money will pay the price, which is what they intended with their pricing to begin with.

Downloading A+ certification books, on the other hand, is a lot more like actual stealing. You're using someone's intellectual property for exactly what it is intended for, but not paying the price. That's immoral any way you cut it.

And, if you need to read a book to pass the A+ exam, you're on the wrong site. "This is a mouse." "Windows is an operating system." My grandmother could pass the A+ exam.


RE: *Offhand comment*
By QueBert on 7/4/2007 10:44:26 PM , Rating: 2
haha your Grandma must be good on PC's. I'm not saying A+ is hard to get, but you make it sound like it's the most basic sh!t in the world. My A+ hardware test had a bunch of questions about IRQ & some BIOS settings. Not stuff an average "Grandma" would know.


small price to pay
By headbox on 7/3/2007 7:11:21 PM , Rating: 2
This software isn't meant for you poor whiny kids who want to make youtube videos. That's what free stuff like iMovie and Windows Movie Maker are for. The last broadcast show I worked on had a budget of $4.5 million, so equipping 8 workstations for $20k is barely a dent. So complain all you want about the price- this software is too much for you anyways.




RE: small price to pay
By SeanFowler on 7/3/2007 9:23:37 PM , Rating: 2
I just had a look to see the price of Photoshop alone and it's $650. I'd like to have access to all that functionality but for the small amount I'd actually use it I can't justify that cost.

I guess this is where the subscription-model of software purchase could be useful, although in general I prefer to actually buy stuff once and use it without additional fees.

Of course there's a benefit to Adobe if home users pirate the software. Very few of those users would actually buy it anyway because of the price, but the more people there are that know how to use it the more popular the software will become in the business arena.

PaintShop Pro seemed to do pretty well with a similar model, except home users weren't breaching copyright because it was shareware. In effect a lot of home users are making Adobe products into five-finger shareware.

It makes me wonder if Adobe's investment in copy-protection isn't actually counter-productive. It's already clear that DRM on music files is counter-productive, albeit for different reasons.


By Mikey on 7/3/2007 9:53:08 PM , Rating: 2
I've got both a Mac and PC, but my Mac is a notebook. Any ideas on if/when CS3 will be released for OS X? I primarily use photoshop, illustrator, and premiere pro.




By kpb on 7/3/2007 11:32:33 PM , Rating: 2
it's already available on mac. The only things that are windows only are the 2 specific products mentioned. Premiere is Intel mac only so you might need to upgrade your laptop if it's still a g4. I don't think Adobe has any plans to release a PPC version of it ever.


Open Source
By BCanR2D2 on 7/4/2007 5:36:55 PM , Rating: 2
There are free alternatives to all of the products in the Master Collection, just like we have OpenOffice for MS Office replacement.

Currently it consists of finding Paint .NET as one of the better freeware Photoshop replacements (or GIMP), but they are out there.

Support them, because there are plenty of open source products out there that are fantastic, we use them at work




RE: Open Source
By QueBert on 7/4/2007 10:40:21 PM , Rating: 2
there is nothing free that's even close to After Effects or Encore. You can find programs that do essentially the same things as either, but they won't even come close to touching either. I have yet to find anything, even commercially that touches Encore. If you know of a decent replacement that's free let me know! also same with After Effects :)


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