Adobe CS3 Media Event Webcast Posted

Adobe Creative Suite 3 was launched with a large media event in New York City last Tuesday, March 27; the webcast is now available in its entirety online. Catch it here as well as some commentary from someone who watched the event.

John Loiacono, Adobe Senior VP-Creative Solutions, and Bob Donlon tear into After Effects CS3.

Click here to view the Adobe CS3 media event webcast on the Adobe website. You can also catch some pre-made videos with companies and Adobe product managers touting CS3’s capabilities.

I watched most of the webcast live, and it was an exciting event. John Loiacono, Adobe’s Senior VP of Creative Solutions, commented that this is Adobe’s largest product release ever, and the company’s been around for a quarter-century now so that’s impressive in itself. Six packaged suites and thirteen standalone applications will (I think) change the way designers and other creative professionals do business after 2007. For example, I’m a graphic designer and web designer but I’ve never been into video very much (even though I’ve wanted to, and bought After Effects to start dabbling with it). Now that there’s the Master Collection, which has all the software I need for video as well as graphic and web design, there’s a possibility I may jump into the field. It’s a difficult choice though, because the price tags Adobe has put on these suites are substantial (a designer starting out new will have to spend $2,500 to get the Master Collection). I hope to do some research on the old CS2 prices and see just how different the prices are for these applications and suites from a year ago.

Some general things I picked up from the event:

Even Adobe isn’t infallible. The media event had a major glitch when the large overhead screen crapped out during the Dreamweaver presentation. The presenter gamely went at it awhile before Loiacono had to stop the show and take a five-minute break (which stretched out to fifteen minutes) while the source of the problem was found. They had an AV cable fail on them, which wouldn’t have been expected—things happen. If anything, the glitch made Adobe seem more down to earth and showed that even gargantuan corporations deal with the same problems as anyone else. I think the computer industry has learned from Steve Jobs and Apple that, if a media event isn’t scripted down to the half-second and audiences “ooh” and “ahh” on cue, then it’s a failure. Adobe’s media event, in comparison, felt more like a gathering of like-minded professionals who just happen to love the same creative work and products.

Is CS3 worth the purchase? It’s up in the air. I won’t know until I start playing with the CS3 products myself, but I can say that a lot of tricks I saw at the media event have already been demonstrated for me in various briefings and such. I don’t know if I’ve seen a new killer feature that alone would make me go out and buy the product (I admit, though, that most new features and products don’t get that kind of reaction out of me). There’s definitely great new stuff here, and I am sure that I will be upgrading to CS3 for most if not all of my software equipment. I’m just not sure if it will make huge changes in the way I work.