So in this review I’m not just going tell you about the new features and do a cut and paste job from Adobe’s website, I’m going to walk you through why these features are useful and how they help with general task that would be more frustrating otherwise, I’m also going to cover some of the old features and a few ways you can do things you may have overlooked in the past when using InDesign.

Simple Selection (Finally Made Simple).

I can’t begin to explain to those of you who have never had to put together a layout with multiple image with InDesign how frustrating it used to be when you wanted to resize your images once you’ve put them into frames, and to be sure you selected the image itself an not the frame. This used to be nowhere near intuitive as it needed to be. Thankfully that is no longer the case! Now they give you circle icon that makes a clear distinction between when you are editing the object rather than the frame it resides in, and they also give you distinctively different color guides.

Multiple Pages and the Page Tool
(What God Always Intended!)

One of things that used to annoy me was that if I was working on a campaign that I would have to have multiple files to deal with different layouts and sizes that all essentially were going to use the same elements and colors and type faces. What really got me was that it made it difficult to really appreciate the impact of all the pieces and how they work and look together. I’d find myself having print things out or wait of my sample proofs before I could do this, which was such a waste of time. Now if I want to produce a poster, flyer, business card, letterhead, and envelope I can have all the different page sizes I need in one document and send them out to a client as a single PDF presentation. All thanks to the nifty little page tool. Now I not only can have multiple pages in my documents but can control the individual sizes, margins etc.  It makes it so much easier to verify that all the colors are consistent, that everything has the right fonts, settings, and it just saves time having to only manage one file and one set of assets. This is what a page layout program was always meant to be. Most of us who use InDesign are working with high priority print projects, anything from story boards, movie posters, marketing collateral, or outdoor media, consistency is a big deal,  time is always in short supply, and organization is a must. This one seemingly simple feature makes all the difference.

It also means we can make creative task that used to require a trick and little bit a faith, much more intuitively. Ever dream of designing a pullout poster for a magazine, but gave up because of the shear frustration involved in figuring that sort of thing out? Now its incredibly simple. Every wanted to do an inside flap or spine for a mock-up book cover or magazine cover? Again, now its so much simpler than it was to get it to be the right dimensions. You finally can design the way you always meant.

Closing the Gap

The Gap tool is something that is going to be underestimated by people left and right. If you’ve ever wanted to do something like adjust a grid of images or work with a complicated image grid in a newspaper layout, this tool is your savior. You can now do this quickly and intuitively and see the live results.

Spanning and Splitting Columns (Not Splitting Hairs!)

In earlier older versions of InDesign, if you wanted a heading to span multiple columns you had agonize over the need to create a separate text frame for the heading. This of course would cause trouble with consistent leading with your headings throughout the document. Now you can span a heading across multiple columns to create a straddle head. You can also split a paragraph into multiple columns—especially useful for a list within an article. Any of you who have to do magazine or newspaper layouts can now breath a little easier and can get really creative and flexible while being precise. I find this new feature to be really refreshing because it specifically caters to people working withing the newspaper and magazine medium, and shows that Adobe has really begun to think about HOW people actually use the software, the same goes for the Page Tool feature.

Layers Panel
(Onions Aren’t the Only Thing That Come in Layers!)

Adobe finally allowed this member of the trinity (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) to come to the party! The layers panel finally works in a similar fashion to the way it does in Photoshop and Illustrator. Not a HUGE deal mind you, but I like having the ability to approach design the same way with the same options and not feeling like I lost too much when working between different programs. I think that really is part of the reason why some designers get stuck on working in one program vs. another, that feeling of dealing with something unfamiliar or being stripped of too many of the tools or options they’ve come to rely on. I know that sometime I can’t stand the subtle changes in how I have to behave or approach things just because this one program has too many time saving features to ignore, while forcing me into a new interface and taking away things that I’ve become attached to. CS5 as a whole just feels more together, more cohesive that previous Creative Suite releases.

Conclusions

Now many of you may be wondering why I haven’t commented on the great interactive features and animation portion of InDesign CS5. Honestly I haven’t had the chance to use them for anything practical yet, which will be the case with most people using InDesign, I’m sure they will come up with reasons to use it or work it into a project. One of the more practical ways I could see it being used is in a Story Board or a mock up for a Live One Sheet or Digital Billboard. I honestly think a client would be blown away and shocked by an animated Story Board and you could even set the voice overs to have actual audio. but this may be someone over the top or “gimmicky”. If there is a feature I haven’t used that I would really like to I would have to say that it is the E-book capabilities that InDesign offers in CS5. Overall I think that the new version of InDesign is a game changer in the fact that it will make much of the work that layout and production artist do for pre-press a world easier and simpler and really allow them to push the envelope on top of saving time.

Now personally I am an Adobe enthusiast and have defended many of their decisions as a company in the past, but I don’t think I can stand by this. The recession is a temporary problem, as a company I believe they would rally more support and increase profits by lowering the pricing of bundle products like Creative Suite 4 to meet with the economic needs of consumers and companies alike. Furthermore by refusing to layoff employees they would be eligible for the assistance the government is offering to companies that retain or expand their workforces to deal with the unemployment crisis.

This is what gets me, the fact that we live in an age where people have stopped making providing a quality product and service and making it available to most of their consumers, their first priority, it seems that everything is profit margins, and shareholders. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some naive idealist who fails to grasp the importance of the bottom line. However when I started working a kid at the mall in retail I learned that I could outsell the older more experienced employees 3 times over by not thinking about what I want and need and focusing on giving others what they need and want. As a result I got referrals and repeat business and huge commissions. If you put people first, they will come to you before going anywhere else, you can only build loyalty by showing people you value them; when did building brand loyalty NOT help profits? When did building employee loyalty NOT increase productivity?

When companies like Adobe stop looking at people and only start looking at the numbers, things start going downhill, and honestly I’ve always felt Adobe was well above this. They’ve been one of the most innovative companies of our age, and a pillar in the educational community and introducing media arts into school systems.

Furthermore these  job cuts will be made worldwide. Adobe also reduced the workforce at Omniture, which it has just acquired.  This is meant to bring Adobe’s costs in line with its 2010 budget. Personally I feel it shows something resembling a lack of faith, I find that disturbing coming from Adobe.

They have amazing products that are industry stables. They can expand this market by developing lower cost consumer products that reach a broader and younger audience, much like they’ve done with Premier and Photoshop Elements. Combining this with an effort to really introduce younger users to their products they are creating a client base in the future for their professional grade products, and increasing the value of the creative industry in the process. By also lowering the prices for upgrades to their products I honestly believe they will reduce loss to bootlegging and yet again establish more brand loyalty.

Personally I find it really surprising that this new round of  layoffs has been announced considering Adobe announced a previous round of layoffs just last December, when it said it would cut 600 jobs worldwide to reduce costs. Stating that the recession had been causing slow sales of its Creative Suite 4 software.

In reality I believe that the slow sales of its Creatives Suite 4 software were primarily caused by pragmatic business decisions on the part of consumers. Lets face the facts. If you were not getting Production Studio Premium or Master Collection, there was little incentive to upgrade to CS4 over CS3, the best improvements were to Flash, Encore, Premier, AfterEffects, and Soundbooth, as well as Photoshop Extended. Ultimately most businesses and individuals already utilizing mostly Design Suite Premium CS3 or any of its individual products would gain very little regarding their day to day work from investing in and upgrade at this time. Those using Production Studio Premium or Flash would however benefit dramatically from the new features.

There is a change that the current economic situation at Adobe Systems may delay the release of Creative Suite 5 next year, a version of the product that I believe from what we have been seeing will actually be more than worth it to upgrade to or buy outright. We can only hope that as the economy continues to improve little by little, that Adobe will try to see its way through and not fall the way of companies past and take a long term hit to deal with a short term loss.

I for one believe that Adobe Systems can pull this one out if they don’t let themselves be seduced by the Dark Side. Lets all hope for the best. I’d love to hear what all of you think of this situation and your thoughts on what should happen.

On September 23, 2008 Adobe® unvieled its latest suite of products including the much anticipated Adobe® Photoshop® CS4. Photoshop® CS4 and CS4 Extended, will be indespensible to Graphic Designers, Production Artist, and Photographers everywhere, from what we can see of its new features.

These new features include things like: Auto Blending of Images, Content Aware Scaling, as well as Revolutionary 3D Painting and Compositing

So many of you may be wondering if the announcement took place on the 23rd when can we all look foward to CS4? Adobe announced that they will be releasing Creative Suite CS4 on October 15 of this year, which means that we are officially 4 Days from CS4 now!

Earlier I mentioned some of the new features of Photoshop CS4, now I will explain some of what this will mean for users.

Content Aware Scaling
Content aware scaling will  automatically recompose an image while its being resized, and will preserve vital areas as the image adapts to its new dimensions, meaning that Graphic Designers will be able to final for the most part “Design Once“. If you’ve ever had to make a banner ad package, and alter some of your elements to conform to various dimensions while preserving most of the look and feel, you can appreciate how much time this new feature will save you.

Auto Blending of Images
This is a dream come true for Photographers and designers a like. Finally an easy way of naturally combining images without having to worry so much about how to smoothly blend the color and shading of various images, and in this case it even allows us to alter the focal point easily, and alter depth of field.

Like many of you I will be downloading the trial of most of the Creative Suite Products before putting in my order, to figure out which Creative Suite Bundle is best for my projects (and my wallet!) I will be posting my reviews on the individual features and merits after the October 15th release.