VERDICT The new interface and PDF and AIR export see Fireworks CS4 fully integrated into the Creative Suite.

VERDICT Simple HTML editing becomes a distant memory as Dreamweaver CS4 concentrates on advanced CSS and JavaScript handling for today’s complex compound web pages.

VERDICT A period of transition as Adobe gets to grips with its Macromedia inheritance and the changing nature of the web.

Adobe’s background is in print design and its web efforts such as GoLive and ImageReady were less than impressive. It seemed something of a miracle then when Macromedia agreed to be taken over, allowing Adobe to add the market-leading web apps to its market-leading print portfolio.

RECOMMENDED

VERDICT InDesign CS4 boosts productivity, adds advanced long document functionality and enables screen-based publishing via Flash.

InDesign is the central application in Adobe’s publishing vision taking text and images and combining them as multiple page publications ready for output on paper. And now on screen.

RECOMMENDED

VERDICT New gradient handling, vector painting, rich formatting and – at last – support for multiple pages/artboards.

VERDICT More power for 3D users, but little for anyone else.

Photoshop Extended was the surprise introduction and, in many ways, star of the CS3 premium suites with its eye-popping introduction of 3D and video layers and a worthy new role in scientific image analysis. It’s a hard act to follow so how has Adobe extended Photoshop Extended?

Adobe Photoshop / Extended CS4 review

RECOMMENDED

VERDICT An excellent release that reworks Photoshop’s core colour correction capabilities making them even more productive and powerful.

Adobe Photoshop is universally recognized as the most powerful photo-editor available, but Adobe isn’t resting on its laurels. With Photoshop CS4, Adobe is determined to make the best even better.

RECOMMENDED

VERDICT Adobe builds on its print strengths to take its rich design mission online.

It’s easy to forget these days, but Adobe began life developing software and fonts for imagesetting machines. Things have moved on considerably, but Adobe’s core focus and strength remains in publishing.

VERDICT With its incorporation of Flash-based media handling and new integration with Acrobat.com, the Acrobat platform fully embraces the internet age – at last.
Adobe Acrobat made its public debut back in 1991 and the PDF (Portable Document Format) it introduced was intended to become the universal format for design-rich, cross-platform electronic communication. The launch of the World Wide Web in the same year forced Adobe to radically revise its plans, but the Acrobat platform survived and eventually prospered by making itself indispensable to a whole host of workflows: documentation distribution, forms handling, secure exchange, searchable archiving, document review, commercial print and so on.

VERDICT Flex steps up a gear with improved CS3 integration and data connection and new desktop capabilities.
Flash began life as a way for web designers to add simple vector animations to their web pages. In the twelve years since it has grafted on impressive content handling, interactivity and programmability and become the one must-have browser plug-in. In the process, and almost unnoticed, Flash has turned itself into an online computing platform with Flash content viewable by almost all internet users. Now Adobe is determined to fully capitalize on this platform by unleashing Flash’s ability to create full-blown, self-contained Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) – and to take the same power to the desktop (see AIR boxout).