Ash Blue Web Design

Adobe CS 5 for Web Design

Extremely under impressed with CS 4, I wasn’t keen on upgrading from version CS 3. Adobe announced their online conference to demo CS 5 a few months ago with flashy advertising to back up their words. Intrigued by how much money Adobe was dropping on their product, I felt it was worth checking things out. Watching the online conference last week invoked an array of emotions from happiness to tears. After viewing their new products I did some more research on how their efforts will be affecting web design and here is what I came up with.

Dreamweaver CS 5

Let me start off by saying that I’m not a fan of Dreamweaver and I think that hand coding projects is the best way to go. That aside, Dreamweaver CS 5 is quite impressive. You’ll be able to integrate it with CMS systems such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. More detailed CSS inspection will be added to Dreamweaver’s capabilities. It seems that everybody wants something like Firebug built into their system these days (and so they should). With the new CMS integration system I’ll be interested to see how often Dreamweaver breaks whenever one of the CMS frameworks are updated. Count on more web designers using and getting frustrated with Dreamweaver more than ever (due to the new CMS integration).

Adobe Browser Lab

The new Adobe Browser Lab application is amazing! I used the beta a while back and I must say it eliminates the need for designers to own a Mac and PC. This is due to the fact that it allows you to render a browser on either system. This is no joke and if you aren’t using the web version (which is free), I highly recommend signing up today so you can use it right now. At the very least, I’m sold after seeing Dreamweaver’s CS5 integration with Adobe Browser Lab.

Flash CS 5

It looks like Adobe is really trying to cash in on Flash for this release. Although many people are arguing that Flash will be annihilated by HTML 5, its obvious that there is still time to cash in on its users. They’ve divided the original program now into several different parts, each with a different focus.

Flash Catalyst CS 5

The most interesting of these programs was Flash Catalyst, which allows you to animate a Photoshop or other layered file without having any Flash knowledge. I’ve used Catalyst before and I must say its very impressive. You can animate graphics and/or layered files in a few clicks, with a variety of options to suit your needs. Expect flash to become more common than it already is and more affordable because graphic designers will minimally need coders to animate a design. On the other hand it integrates with flex, making it very, very powerful in the hands of a developer. Although this is great, I still think jQuery animation is a much better option. Check out the video below to see it in action.

Mobile support

With new technologies starting to take over the mobile market, Adobe can’t ignore the cell phone market anymore. The iPhone alone this year generated 2.4 billion dollars in applications sales alone! This market will only continue to grow, with Flash Platform Services and Flash Professional distributing applications to mobile phones is going to be easier than ever. There was supposed to be a cool new program that instantly created iPhone applications, but it was canned due to Apple changing their coding policies. Still expect to see more flash applications for phones, that might be a good thing… but I don’t think so.

Photoshop CS 5

Photoshop is one of Adobe’s top sellers. Interestingly, there really isn’t much in it that will impact web design, although there is a lot of new beneficial tools for photographers. On Adobe’s website there is a section labeled “Web Projects,” but there really isn’t anything impressive in there. For the web it features an amplified workflow, easier media organization, and performance, but I don’t see exactly see how those features impact design. The only truly beneficial feature I saw was the ability to leave comments on designs. Especially since most designers slice their files into a live website for draft presentations these days. For this review of Adobe’s CS 5, I must say that the new version of Photoshop will make such a minimal impact on web design that nobody will care. On another note, the fill feature is worth showing off in the video below.

Omniture

Of all the products unveiled for Adobe’s CS 5 suite I was most intrigued by Omniture. This is Adobe’s award winning analytic software that they acquired from a company of the same name (aka bought them out). The software promises to help marketers determine whether social media or rich internet applications (video/Flash) actually positively impact your business. Some of its best features are blog stat tracking to determine the best post times, ability to alter and prioritize specific search results, and VIP profiling to find and target your most important users. I must say I almost peed my pants when I couldn’t find a price for this fancy software. Even with all this information I must say that Adobe CS5′s Omniture remains much a mystery to me. Count on the ante being upped for what people expect out of an analytics tool. Google has already taken this note and announced they’ll be redesigning Google Analytic’s UI! See the video below for a companies viewpoint on Omniture.

With several interesting products being unveiled at this year’s CS 5 conference I have to decide whether I’ll fork over the cash for it. To be honest I can’t see why a good web developer or designer really needs to purchase these new products. Yes I know they have a lot of bells and whistles, yes I know they’ll make your life easier, but I don’t know if I can really justify spending over $1000 on a suite when I already have one. If you are a developer without a suite, spend the money on it if you don’t have anything right now, otherwise keep what you have as long as you have CS3 or above. From a design/graphic stand point though, I can see some clear advantages to photo editing, so I will purchase Photoshop CS 5.