Illustrator

The Illustrator application allows the user to efficiently create vector graphics, and then seamlessly use the result with other applications included in CS3. The developer can prepare content for Web, mobile, and print media. The interface of the CS3 version has been modified to provide more efficient utilization of the workspace. For example, the Tools palette has been streamlined from two columns to one that docks inconspicuously along the borders of the screen. Simultaneously, more options have been added (such as New Document Profiles, where designs for Illustrator video documents may be created and forwarded for display).

Some of the powerful new tools available include LiveColor (which allows the developer to dive into the intricacies of color harmonies and have fine alignment control), and an improved Erase Tool (which allows you complete control over the shape and smoothness of the erasure). This will surely be a boon to the many of us who do not have the hands of an old-fashioned watchmaker. The venerable Crop Tool now also has presets that can be used for video or still images, making the setting of those marks more intuitive.

Flash Professional

The next upgrade from Flash MX, Flash CS3 includes significant improvements over the older Macromedia product. One of the most notable features is the seamless integration with other CS3 applications. Adobe established a uniformity of menus, icons, and palettes that are identical in all applications. Importing vector graphics from Illustrator is now much easier. The user can copy and paste directly from one application to another without the loss of many of the associated properties of the graphic (an issue in previous versions).

The former pre-integration method had needless duplication through the use of similar functions that were configured just a bit differently or had a feature that the almost identical button in the other program didn’t have, which was time-consuming and cost-inefficient if you were paying someone to have this fun. Integration saves both time and money. Even many of the drawing components and palettes (or panels, as they are presently called) have a uniformity of formatting, docking, tabbing, and resizing features.

ActionScript, one of the programming languages Flash supports for advanced interactivity, has also been improved by allowing programmers to copy and preserve the properties of motion in Flash video clips, and then apply the selected properties to other images. Additional improvements allow greater ease in exporting video clips to QuickTime. Similarly, QuickTime media formats can now be more easily converted to Flash using Flash Video Encoder. Flash also has editing features that allow cropping and resizing to be done on the fly.

Properties and attributes

A property or attribute is a characteristic of an object. If we were discussing English grammar, a property would be the equivalent of an adjective, and the object would be equivalent to the noun. For example, say we had as the object of an illustration a drawing of Donald Duck. We color the duck’s bill yellow. Therefore, the color property associated with the image of the bill would have the value of yellow. In English, this would be the equivalent of saying, ‘‘The duck’s bill is the color yellow.’’ Let’s say that before the integration of the related applications, the object could be transferred (but not easily) and that the value of yellow could not easily be transferred, even though the property color could be. This might result in a rather colorless Donald Duck representation, though the bill could still be made triumphantly yellow again in the new resident program. Other notable features of Flash Professional include the following:

- The Channel Mixer, which controls the conversion of color images to black and white

- The Curves dialog box, which allows for adjusting image tonality using a slider

- Camera Raw 4 (regarded by many in the photo industry as the best of its type on the market), in which filters are now less destructive, and it is easier to maintain the integrity of the original in photo touchups, tonal changes, and scaling In summary, integration with Illustrator and Photoshop is the key feature of Flash.

The standardization of panels and shortcuts, as well as tools such as Pen and Copy, improve productivity because a designer no longer has to learn/unlearn the placement and identity of the same tools differently represented in each application. Other improvements are those in easing the coding process for animations and those in the format conversion processes. Lastly, Flash is a cross-platform application.

Photoshop Extended

Photoshop Extended is for professional developers. It has all the features of the standard version and more. For example, the Vanishing Point feature for two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) perspectives (which debuted in CS2) now works for 3D imports from other applications (such as KMZ, COLLADA, and Acrobat 3D). There are also significantly improved viewing and manipulation capabilities of the model using the Camera Tool and the Object Tool. The Camera Tool moves in relation to the static object being viewed to provide the user with various angles of perspective. It is as if the user were able to do a walk-through of a home, or a subdivision layout, or walk around (and through) the Statue of Liberty. The Object Tool is used to move the object and view it from any angle, as well as from top to bottom, while the observer remains static. These features are contained in specific 3D modeling programs, but having them now available in Photoshop Extended greatly enhances the capability of importing from another application.

Photoshop Extended requires at least a gigabyte of RAM to run, and runs much faster at twice that. It is an excellent tool to use for terrain mapping, and also has applicability in medical fields. Photoshop can import and export Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) files. These images from magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs), computed axial tomography scans (CT scans), and ultrasounds can be resized, cloned, scaled, rotated, sliced into sections, and sequenced in a grid format for ease of review by specialists. Another time-saving feature is the ability to rapidly edit movie frames using Duplicate Frame, or clone single or multiple frames (or even edit one frame at a time) using the Animation palette. A frame, as you may know, is one in a sequence of pictures.

Fireworks

Fireworks is an application that is designed to allow fast prototyping of Web designs by offering a large library of templates (called presets) to select from and the tools to quickly design special effects, process them, and then populate them site wide. The changes can be prototyped throughout the site, and any changes can be instantly applied using the Global command. An important and distinctive feature of Fireworks is that it can work with both vector and bitmap graphics. The prototypes may also contain active links and coding that are done in one application and then transferred to another without losing functionality. There are several tools used to ensure image optimization, even while exporting in a wide variety of formats. Multiple pages can be created in a single document using the new Pages panel, and each page can contain its own tables, frames, layers, and slices. The application has hierarchical layer structure and is well integrated with both Dreamweaver and Flash.

Acrobat

Most computer users have, at one time or another, used the Acrobat Reader part of the Adobe Acrobat family of products. New versions keep getting better and easier to use. Using Acrobat, a user can create a PDF file of documents from basically any application with a print function. One shortcoming, however, is that it’s not interactive. For example, you can’t first print into a PDF and then send it as an email attachment. But, you can export data to a spreadsheet.

Contribute

According to Adobe, Contribute allows users with even a minor level of experience to update blogs and Web sites, and have them appear professional. They can maintain site integrity and consistency of appearance. For any sites created with Dreamweaver, Contribute preserves the code quality and formats for the entirety of the update process. Through Contribute, content can be published directly to the Web from the site or directly from other applications such as Word, Excel, or Outlook. Site consistency can be maintained whether single or multiple contributors are making updates to the Web site. The site administrator has a high degree of control for allowing access to the site, or particular parts, and establishing or changing the level of permissions for that access. Additionally, the administrator can publish to multiple Web sites and blogs from a single application.

Other features in Contribute allow the insertion of Flash video simply by dragging and dropping the files into the site or blog. There are WYSIWYG blog templates and Web templates. Pages may be edited from both IE 7 and Firefox 2, and all standard protocols for file transfer are supported.