Adobe CS3 Review, is it Worth the Money?

As everyone in the digital design community knows, Adobe released the Creative Suite 3 upgrade in April. After personally spending considerate time with the upgraded software, my review is in. However, I must warn you I am not a Photoshop guru that knows all the filter modifications to create an exact replica of a shiny metal flower floating on a wavy bed of water. So if you are looking for a review of the new features for adding images to 3D CAD drawings, you're reading the wrong article. But, if you would like a straight-forward review of the Design Premium collection from your average Adobe skill set point-of-view-read on.

I'll start with the price, which seems to be everyone's initial complaint. I paid $599 to upgrade to the Design Premium (full version) package from my previous CS1 (student version) package. The Design Premium package includes Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash Professional, and Acrobat Professional. So with upgrade pricing you're paying about $100 a program. Contrary to popular opinion I think this is a great deal for professional-level software that you can basically start and run your own business with. Sure you also need a little skill and talent to be successful, not to mention a pricey computer, but that's not Adobe's fault-at least not yet.

The software was easy to install and get up and running on an Intel based Mac, and I have to admit there must be something to the claim that CS3 was designed for Intel machines. I immediately noticed how quickly Photoshop loaded; shaving about fifteen seconds load time from my previous version. So far so good, I was once again happy to be a returning Adobe customer-for the time being.

As I said earlier, I am not an Adobe guru that is aware of all previous features available in Adobe and Macromedia products; however, there are two new features I like and are worth covering: