Sunday, March 1, 2009

Adobe’s CS4 Master Collection is the Full Monty

PRODUCT REVIEW

By David Gewirtz

Having all your dreams come true in the middle of a Thursday afternoon is a strange experience. It happened when I reached into my reviews in-box and pulled out Adobe's Creative Suite 4 Master Collection.

OK, maybe I should clarify that "all your dreams" thing. After all, I'm already married to my dream woman -- and we're probably not going to completely transform the financial world anytime soon. And as much as I might wish it, the global surface temperature probably won't drop 2.0 degrees this year. Nor, sadly enough, will we likely get to see a parka-clad Sarah Palin in an Alaskan spinoff episode of Surreal Life opposite Erik Estrada, Flavor Flav, Vern Troyer, and Mikey Teutul.


"If graphics is how you make your living, CS4 Master Collection is not just an essential tool, it's the essential tool."

From a professional perspective, though, where I use a whole lot of graphic software, getting the CS4 Master Collection is about as close to winning the lottery as it's likely to come.

Let's first discuss all that comes in this amazing package:

  • InDesign CS4: page layout
  • Photoshop CS4 Extended: digital image editing
  • Illustrator CS4: vector graphics editing
  • Acrobat 9 Pro: create PDFs
  • Flash CS4 Professional: create Flash animations
  • Dreamweaver CS4: create Web sites
  • Fireworks CS4: optimize Web graphics
  • Contribute CS4: upload Web content (without being a programmer)
  • After Effects CS4: special effects for video
  • Adobe Premiere Pro CS4: edit digital video
  • Soundbooth CS4: edit digital audio
  • Adobe OnLocation CS4: shoot video direct to disk
  • Encore CS4: produce video for DVD and Blu-ray
  • Adobe Bridge CS4: browse and manage your creative assets
  • Adobe Device Central CS4: preview and test mobile device content
  • Dynamic Link: eliminate intermediate rendering of video assets
  • Version Cue CS4: centrally manage shared projects

Can I have a "holy cow"? Like I said, this is an amazing package. The key reason you'd buy the Master Collection is to get everything you'll ever need, for one price. At list price, Master Collection is $2,499. Meanwhile Photoshop Extended alone is $999.

If you use even a few of the other Adobe products, you'll start to save a bundle -- probably about 60% off the amount you'd pay if you bought all the elements separately. In fact, the bottom line for this package is that for the price of a moderately powered computer (or a relatively anemic Macintosh), you can get yourself all the creative tools you'll ever need in one package.

What about Photoshop?

We don't have anywhere near the space in this article to review each product in CS4, but if you're reading Connected Photographer, you have a passing familiarity with each. Because most of you are most interested in Photoshop, I'll take a moment to list some improvements to CS4 over CS3.

Photoshop CS4 has improved a lot of features, including auto-blending of images, better depth of field tools, beter layer alignment tools, better color correction, and better RAW image processing.

Where Photoshop CS4 shines, however, is in some of it's completely new features. The very coolest is what they call Content-Aware Scaling. You can stretch and resize an image and somehow, Photoshop know just how to scale the image to keep track of all the image elements. It's almost hard to describe, but once you use it, you'll see it seems like there are little munchkins that live inside Photoshop actually looking at your image and painting in just what it needs to have. You'll have to see it to believe it.

Not quite as sexy, but certainly helpful are the new Masks panel and Adjustments panel. The Masks panel helps you create masks straight from a simple and easily available panel. The adjustments panel allows you to do non-destructive editing and tweak your image to your heart's content.

There is one thing that I, personally, don't like about the new CS4: the interface. The user interface has changed considerably from CS3 and there are elements that just bug me. For example, when you open up a file, it'll open in a tabbed sub-window with the other files that are already open. I like having each file open in its own window, and while it's just a matter of dragging the graphic away from the window, I haven't yet found how to make that automatic.

But that's just my impression. I've talked to other image professionals and they tell me they love the interface changes.

Our recommendation

We found the full, retail CS4 Master Collection online for as low as $2,199. Upgrades from previous collections were $899. The simple bottom line is this: if you make your living doing graphics, video, or Web design and if you can possibly afford it, the CS4 Master Collection is a must buy. If graphics is how you make your living, CS4 Master Collection is not just an essential tool, it's the essential tool.

We give Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection a collective 5 out of 5.

RATING: 5 STARS