Ok, so maybe you are like me and you see these new enhancements to Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc. and you wonder why, as a video editor/graphics person, you should upgrade to Creative Suite 4. There are not nearly as many ‘sexy’ updates on the video side as we may have seen before. I know exactly what you are saying:
“With Cs3, After Effects had some really neat updates to After Effects like the Puppet Tool and the Brainstorm function. This version just seems to have some dumb filter called Cartoon.”
Ok, yes. Cartoon is dare I say it…pretty useless. Someone else has mentioned it out there but it is basically there to do the Richard Linklater effect which is apparently now in vogue now with those Charles Schwab commercials (which seems to be a really silly use of the effect, in my opinion).
Before I get to After Effects, let me start with Premiere. As a Final Cut Editor, reading down the list of improvements, I certainly notice a lot of, let’s say, similar functions which have been added to the product. But they really were worth adding on. The functionality has been greatly improved.
The neatest part of Premiere however is definitely the Speech/Transcription function which labels clips with searchable metadata. Now before you get out your credit card – this is not an effective automatic transcription. But it is pretty good. And you can edit the text easily. Plus you can just edit based upon these words which are tagged to the time code…. I hope I am not the only one that thinks that this is incredible. It is not yet perfect – but it is sure pretty cool.
Now back to After Effects – two really neat things (neither having to do with Cartoon). Ok not the most interesting thing, but very useful: Improved composition navigation. Mini-flowcharts and keyboard shortcuts makes it SO much easier to jump into your precomps. I have always hated how difficult it is to go four comps deep…and I really like to precomp.
Second thing, Unified Camera tool. Ok this should have been a no-brainer several versions ago, but Adobe put this into place where you do not need to switch between three different camera tools, just to change between x, y , and z movement. I was amazed at how much easier Motion’s camera was when it came out, but this is now once again comparable. All you need is a three button mouse and it work much like some popular 3-D programs work.
So final verdict…you’ll be fine with CS3 if you don’t want to outlay the cash. If you are CS2 or earlier, it is definitely worth it for you to update. These updates are not nearly as essential as something like Flash CS4 is or as I felt AE 6.5 and 7 were – but still cool enough to venture a look.
Oh – and all of the products now have trials available for download….FINALLY.
Greetings from Las Vegas! Today was the first open schedule day including three session slots and the ever-popular keynote address by Scott Kelby, NAPP President and Johnny L., Adobe Systems VP. 
This week I am attending Photoshop World in Las Vegas. Stay tuned to 100% Fresh for updates, information, and photos on the latest developments from the conference as I plan to blog daily from the Strip. Wish me luck and please be sure to comment on the posts with any questions or requests!
Tracking is the process of changing the space between a selection of letters. In QuarkXPress people are used to tightening up the space by changing the amount to -1, -2, or -3 and most people are comfortable with these amounts. If you have been using Quark for awhile and then jump into InDesign, Illustrator or Photoshop and try to use tracking, you may run into some issues. Quark and Adobe measure tracking differently.
Ok I’m not one to geek out, but Fritz brought this to my attention a while ago and I just saw a live demo of this and it blew my freakin mind…
Check out a demonstration by the folks at 
Find out more 
You probably already know that when you find the file you are interested in, in Adobe Bridge, you can double click on that file and it opens in the program that made it. And that’s great. But what if you want to place a PSD file into InDesign or Flash (or After Effects or Illustrator)? The fast, convenient way is to do the following: select the item or items you want to place into another Adobe program, go to the File menu, go Down to “Place” and choose the program you want the files to goto. Voila!
Have you ever wanted to copy across multiple layers in photoshop without flattening your image? Try the “Copy Merged” from Photoshop’s Edit menu. It acts as if the document is flattened and grabs everything under your selection no matter what layer it’s on – if it’s visible in your selection, Copy Merged will grab it. Once you have it on the clipboard, paste the composited copy anywhere you like.
The wait is almost over. Ever since Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen’s announcement last September of an online version of Photoshop, the web has been a buzz about what this will look like, what will it feature, etc. Adobe since this announcement has already launched an online version of Adobe Premiere, called Premiere Express. (You can try it out here on 
You will be able to use familiar items, such as the healing tools, crop, and liquify commands. This also has a limited history so there are undos! The one downside is that it has a lot of “auto” corrections instead of the familiar menu options. The way this will work is you choose what you want to change in your photo, such as saturation, then the application gives you a drop down with several options of varying degrees to click on. Convenient but limiting.
So not only is today the birthday of James Fritz, one of our Rockstar instructors, but it also marks the 25th anniversary of Adobe Systems, Inc. 25 years ago, John Warnock and Chuck Geschke left Xerox to pursue a new computer system that would incorporate graphics and text into printable pages called Interpress. Interpress and another program called JaM would evolve into the Adobe Postscript language we have all used in our graphics applications today. This was the launching point for the desktop revolution.
Stephanie Shimerdla creates some of the best quality work I’ve seen in a while for brushes. You may recognize her “swirls” series as something right out of the Adobe.com website. She also has a link called “tip the brush maker” where you can donate $10 and she will create your own custom brush set!
You have always been able to add keywords to images in Adobe Bridge but new in CS3 is the ability to apply sub-keywords and their parents in one simple click, assuming you have made a series of keywords that are related. I created an “animal” keyword that applies to all animals, a “dog” sub-keyword for dogs and a “Labrador Retriever” sub-keyword for just that breed of dog. If I click on just “Labrador Retriever” I apply only the keyword “Labrador Retriever”
But why wouldn’t I want to apply the parent keywords of “animal” and “dog” to this image also? I can do so with 1 click, not 3. If I shift-click on “Labrador Retriever” it adds that keyword and all its parents which is very frequently what I want
