oreilly.com: What's New in CS2?

Published on O'Reilly (http://oreilly.com/)
See this if you're having trouble printing code examples

The full Creative Suite 2 (CS2) contains InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, GoLive, Acrobat, and Version Cue, plus Bridge (a browser built right in for connecting to CS2 products). Depending on what you use InDesign for, chances are you will need at least one of these other applications and will probably find yourself using most, if not all, of the rest. If you think you'd use at least one of these products on a regular basis, in addition to InDesign, you may want to consider purchasing the full Creative Suite. If you think you may use two or more of these products, then the full Creative Suite is a must-have. Let's look at each of the apps in the CS2 suite:

Photoshop: used for doing more to photographs and other images than basic adjustments such as cropping, rotating, or resizing. Photoshop allows you to retouch photographs, "airbrush" out unwanted elements, remove red-eye, darken or brighten an image, balance or shift colors, or combine elements of different images. Photoshop is also ideal for repurposing images, since it allows you to save composite, multilayered images and then go back and pull out pieces of an image at a later date.
Illustrator: used for creating line art or other drawings such as logos, diagrams, maps, or illustrations. InDesign has some drawing tools, but for anything other than simple shapes and line drawings you will want the full set of vector-based drawing tools and features found in Illustrator. These will allow you (with a little skill and creativity on your part) to create rich, complex, and compelling illustrations.
GoLive: used for creating websites. If you are creating content for a purely printed method of distribution, you don't need GoLive at all. However, as ubiquitous as the internet is, less and less content is being prepared only for print distribution.
Acrobat: used when you want to create PDF files that are more ambitious than simple online versions of printed documents. Acrobat will allow you to combine, modify, and customize PDF files, secure PDF files, create sophisticated navigational structures, and add multimedia and interactivity to PDF files.
Bridge: used to track different versions of publications, source files such as text documents, photos, illustrations, or stock images, work collaboratively on a project without having to check files in or out, or host web-based PDF reviews for clients or colleagues.

What's New in Photoshop CS2

Photoshop is so ubiquitous that in many circles, it's used as a verb. And it's so mainstream that people who have never used the product know of it and have a basic grasp of its capabilities. Photoshop becomes much more specialized when combined with the Creative Suite 2 applications. Photoshop is:

An image editing and correction tool that is used on photos prior to placing them into InDesign, Illustrator, or GoLive.
A graphics enhancement tool that is used to enhance graphics created in Illustrator.

These are the areas to master in Photoshop as a Creative Suite user. Although Photoshop can certainly do more than this, these are the tasks it excels at in the world of the Creative Suite. New features found in Photoshop CS2 are:

Vanishing Point: continue a perspective plane for a building or object using the brush or clone to retain the correct perspective.
Layer control: better control of layers by clicking and dragging right from the object on the screen to move, transform, and warp. Smart Guides also enable easy aligning of objects.
Smart Objects: Allow scaling, rotating, and other transformation and preserving the quality and retaining the original image data.
Multi-image digital camera raw-file processing: process multiple images while you keep working in Photoshop.

What's New in Illustrator CS2

When you ask designers what program they'd use to do graphics, the answer is always Illustrator. Graphics can be sketches, line art, maps, cartoons, logos, and more. No other program offers the variety of tools and ease of use that Illustrator does. From basic logo design to high-end realistic graphics, and all the stops in between, Illustrator can handle any load. You can take a rough sketch, use Live Trace, add text, color, and shadows, and in no time at all have a finished product for printing, video, or web.

Live Trace: trace photo or scanned images with a variety of presets, such as Hand Drawn Sketch, Comic Art, Detailed Illustration, Inked Drawing, Technical Drawing, Text, and more.
Live Paint: lets you put color in defined areas quickly and easily as well as an automatic correction for any gaps.
Control Palette: access tools that work with the object selected. Being docked at the top of the work area makes for easy find and use.
Custom workspaces: create a custom workspace by arranging palettes and save the arrangement so you can activate it. This works great, especially when you have to share a computer with others.
Photoshop layer support: when importing Photoshop files with layer comps, you can pick the version of the file you want to bring into Illustrator.

What's New in InDesign

Page layout is the process of combining text, graphics, and other elements together on a page. Page layout can be as simple as placing a couple of columns of text and a graphic or two together to create a one-page newsletter to photocopy and hand out at a local club meeting. Or it can be as sophisticated as a full-color, high-gloss, multipage advertisement in a major magazine. The key factor in page layout is the focus on combining existing content, rather than on creating new content.

Object styles: apply and save a variety of object attributes so you can quickly apply to other objects to increase productivity.
Photoshop and PDF layer support: now you can display layer and layer comps and PDF layers right in InDesign.
InDesign snippets: create a snippet from an object for exporting from InDesign. Use the snippets to share with others, or use in another layout with all the original formatting and positioning.
InCopy CS2 assignments: allow a user of Adobe InCopy to work with specific sections of a file.
Save backwards to InDesign CS: save your InDesign file to CS by exporting the file.

What's New in GoLive

Of all the applications in the Creative Suite, Adobe GoLive is probably the one least familiar to the average user. But what GoLive lacks in recognition, it more than makes up for in power. GoLive has a huge number of truly impressive features and has something to offer any web designer.

GoLive is tightly integrated with the other Creative Suite products, especially through Smart Objects and Version Cue (discussed later in this article). A Smart Object is a web-optimized version of a native Photoshop, Illustrator, or PDF file. Without images created in Photoshop and Illustrator, GoLive's websites would look empty indeed. And with Smart Objects, modifying native Adobe files is fast and easy.

Improved live rendering: view any changes in real time.
Visual tools build and edit CSS-based pages: using the standards, you can build a web page easily.
Visual CSS authoring for mobile devices: create content for mobile devices easily and quickly using simple tools.
Visual SVG-t inspection and authoring for mobile: be able to view interface, source, outline, animation, and more with mobile devices.
Inclusive site management: organize and keep track of your website, including links and uploading content as well as synchronizing files.

What's New in Acrobat

Nowadays, Acrobat is used in a variety of ways because it is the easiest and most common way to share files. With the free Adobe Reader software, anyone can view your file format. From sharing photos among relatives to encrypting private documents in law firms, Acrobat is a truly versatile tool.

Whether you are a seasoned Acrobat user or just starting out, you can create PDFs for email distribution, uploading to the Web, starting a PDF for comment and markup review, developing forms, proofing and preparing for prepress, creating a slideshow, and more.

Electronic reviews: let anyone with Reader 7.0 participate in an electronic review.
Better preflighting: use the improved preflighting tools to ensure a smooth printing process.
New print production tools: take advantage of the new Print Production tools to create a seamless printing production.
Better warnings: control inks, overprinting, and rich-black detection.
Standards support: PDF/X-1a:2003 and PDF/X-3:2003 print production support.

What's New in Version Cue

Version Cue CS2 brings an all-powerful file manager to the Creative Suite 2 products. Use Version Cue CS2 to access files or to search for files with Version Cue CS2's powerful search engine. With Version Cue CS2, you can find any and all versions you may have created with a file. Many creative professionals provide multiple versions of one file to show their clients a variety of ideas. Version Cue CS2 lets you organize and track these versions, as well as historical versions of the file. Track a file through the workflow process with various Creative Suite 2.0 products, or send PDFs for commenting and review using Version Cue CS2.

Productivity: locate and track files across the CS2 applications and prevent any overwriting problems.
Shared project information: track a project's flow and share information with workgroups.
Small workgroups easier connection: share files and view file status.
Easier file naming: no more worrying about what you named a file version.
File version notification: when updating or placing images, you'll be notified of any problems.

What's New in Bridge

Just when you thought you knew it all about Creative Suite, Adobe has gone and given you the power to connect your Creative Suite 2 products. Adobe has created Bridge as a connector program for the Creative Suite 2 applications. Adobe Bridge is a browser built right in for Creative Suite 2 products. This control center lets you browse for files, view thumbnails of the files, and organize files in all of the Creative Suite 2 products. You can access Bridge from any of the Creative Suite 2 Products. Bridge also enables you to do an extensive search for files, even down to a specific attribute that you entered in the description area. The Bridge Center also contains the capability to view and buy stock photos.

Organization: organize, locate, search for files created with various CS2 applications and have viewable thumbnails to make the work easier.
Project and file sharing: work with alternate images, access various versions, and organize and track the progress of a project.
Accessibility: go between CS2 programs quickly or use as a browser application alone.
Amazing file searching: powerful search features such as finding a file based on a specific color or keyword used when the file was saved through Version Cue.
Access to stock photos: search and purchase royalty-free images for use in any project from within CS2.
Stock photos: access a variety of photo libraries as well as keep track of them and purchase them right from within CS2.

Jennifer Alspach is an expert on Adobe technologies and has written and coauthored many books, including the upcoming Adobe Creative Suite 2 Workflow (December 2005), from O'Reilly Media.

Return to digitalmedia.oreilly.com