I got my copy of CS3 Design Premium yesterday at about this time; here are my first impressions about it.

I am always a little bit surprised how nervous/excited/anxious/ecstatic I get when I get new equipment for my work: it’s like another visit from Santa Claus! CS3 was just released and I got my copy of Design Premium, and I haven’t felt this excited since I got my MacBook Pro last fall. CS3 is a very big deal for [1] Adobe: it’s the largest product rollout they’ve ever done, it’s the first time the [2] Macromedia applications have been truly integrated with the Creative Suite, Adobe’s video applications are back with the Mac for the first time in a few years, and there’s a whole new look to the packaging and the icons (which [3] took a beating when they were first announced). By the way, alternative icons that match the CS3 packaging can now be found [4] here.

I’ve been working with CS3 for a day now and thought I would share my first impressions. I’m still holding judgment on CS3 of course until after I’ve worked with them thoroughly and reviewed them in depth, but my observations can perhaps give you a taste of what your experience might be.

This is a BIG Creative Suite! It took 90 minutes to install all of Design Premium (that’s [5] Photoshop Extended, [6] Illustrator, [7] InDesign, [8] Bridge, [9] Dreamweaver, [10] Flash, Flash Video Encoder, [11] Stock Photos and [12] Device Central). That’s the longest installation I’ve ever done, and it shows just how much stuff is in CS3. I also got [13] Fireworks CS3 and [14] Contribute CS3, but those two took only 15 minutes combined to install.

I’ve had zero problems transitioning from CS2 to CS3. Most of what I’ve done over the past 24 hours has involved Photoshop Extended, InDesign, Dreamweaver and Flash, and the transition between CS2 and CS3 for all these has been zilch. InDesign in particular has been totally seamless: I’m working with InDesign CS2 files easily and everything works just as it did before, but better. I used the Photoshop CS3 beta before I installed Photoshop CS3 Extended, so I already had an advantage in using that application. The one thing that did happen to me was when saving a Flash 8 file in Flash CS3: the file was resaved as a Flash CS3 file, which is not backwards-compatible with Flash 8 or earlier. This was a surprise, but it also tells me [15] Flash CS3 has progressed to a new technological level.

Macromedia apps still feel like Macromedia apps. Of all the CS3 applications migrated from Macromedia (this includes Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks and Contribute), only Flash has incorporated the new palette interface that all Adobe CS3 apps share. I think this is a bad thing. The [16] Adobe-Macromedia merger took place back in 2005—over a year ago!—and I think everyone was excited to see CS3 unify all these applications in look and feel. I don’t think that happened except for Flash. Fireworks CS3 especially feels like a different product than the rest of the pack, and Dreamweaver CS3 is not far removed from Dreamweaver 8, the last Macromedia iteration of that web-design application. Some may actually like that these applications still feel old and familiar, but I don’t—consistency and unity are important to me, as they should be in any suite of products. I wish the Macromedia products felt like Adobe products, but they don’t.

The public beta system works. When [17] Photoshop CS3 and [18] Lightroom were released as a public beta, it was surprising because Adobe had never really floated such important applications out to the public in advance. Now we have Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 and Photoshop CS3 shipping, and it’s clear they are solid products. Lightroom in particular benefitted from beta user input—it’s a 1.0 product but it feels like a 2.0 product, and it’s at least as advanced as [19] Aperture. [20] Adobe Labs and the beta system worked wonderfully, both as a method to test out software and to generate publicity and buzz—and now that [21] After Effects CS3 Pro and [22] Premiere CS3 are public betas, I see good things happening for these two applications and the Production Premium CS3 suite they will be a part of.

Those are my first impressions on CS3—keep reading for more postings!