Software convergence

I have definitely taken note of the trend in Adobe products to overlap more and more...in fact, I was frustrated when I discovered that Illustrator files actually can have scaling limitations due to pixellated elements such as drop shadows. But I definitely love having vector capabilities in Photoshop, drop shadows in InDesign and Illustrator, etc... it makes my job much more efficient.

I am sure Adobe will continue to overlap these applications as much as possible and will integrate them even tighter. However, I am guessing they will never combine them into a single application. Here's why:

1. Primarily the financial factor....I believe they can make quit a bit more money by keeping them as three separate applications....why would they want to do something that would decrease their revenue.

2. Intuitiveness...I believe it would be extremely difficult to pull all the features of the three programs into one application that would be efficient and useful to graphic professionals....it would be overwhelming to users especially beginners. It just seems to make sense to have different tools for different jobs....a super tool would likely be bulky and unwieldy...(do ya like that word?..unwieldy...yeah!)

InDesign is for layout...Photoshop is for pixels...Illustrator is for vectors.

3. I don't have a third reason, but I felt like my comment would be incomplete without a third point.

That's my two-cents...

Joel

I definitely agree with regard InDesign as I think this is a different offering completely and has a very different job to do than Illy and PS. Now that Adobe have Macrmedia's tools in the family I don't see why they wouldn't simplify their line up a little. I think it would make much more sense to offer a set of 3 apps for design: drawing, animating, coding for web; drawing, layout, PDF for print.

I think their money is in offering Creative Suite these days and think they would probably sell it for the same amount whether it had Illy and PS or a new combined app.

Don't think so...

It is true that Photoshop can print vector work much better than in the older days. But the include vector data applies only when you print. When you save and place in InDesign your vector data will be pixelated.

My idea of the future within the adobe apps will heavily rely on the Bridge.

Creating one thing and use it for various outputs, web, print, pdf.

Another thing to take into consideration is that such a super app would become somthing like Microsoft Word... It can do anything but nothing really good and people use it for 80% only as a typewriter, so why put all those features in it?

By the way Microsoft is working on such an app where pixels stay pixels and vectors stay vectors... But if they need about 5 years to create a new operating system how long will it take to create something totally new and that has the power and technical specifications that all those different projects need?

The Suite will get a new dimension, Adobe is already selling bundles, one for Print, one for Web and Flash(player) will be very important in the evolution of the new suite. Especially when combined with Ajax, Flex and PDF.

So I think they will stick with their strategy but the Bridge will be a big player in the CS3 next year May...

Fidel

Can you say Corel Draw Suite?

Nuff said.

I'm currently using Adobe Photoshop CS2 and do all of my photography related post processing using that tool. As a photographer, why would I need to pay for the additional features in Adobe Creative Suite?

I remember someone commenting on this convergence more than 10 years ago. And yes, it appears more evident with every new version. I don't see it as good or bad really. Take, for instance MS Office—there's a calendar, e-mail, task function wrapped up in one app. On OS X, there's a seperate (but very well integrated) iCal and Mail. I think that as long as the integration is seamless, there's no problem of having one or three apps open.

The bigger issue, in my opinion, is how these apps run on my system. For the past few versions of Photoshop/Illustrator, I feel like these apps have been boggin down my system way too much. They just don't run as smoothly as many other apps. It almost seems like it was built in a completely different environment and ported over to OS X. If I were to make a suggestion to Adobe, it would be to concentrate on this before trying to merge 2 apps.

Also, I seriously doubt they will merge due to the matter of marketing and sales. It seems logical to sell 2 or 3 software titles rather than one big one. I could be wrong on this one, I'm no financial genius.

And finally, on the matter of integration—Adobe also needs to clean up their act on standardising their functions across software titles. For example, the layers and history palette in Illustrator is different than Photoshop. They need to conduct a usability study or something and make certain global functions the same.

Or they can just leave everything alone and I'll continue to use these products as I don't feel there's any real runner-up in this category of graphics software. :)

O'Reilly just came out with a good book if you need help with the CS2.

One of the most interesting things for me was the suggestion to have Bridge be your program of choice with 3 or 4 hitmen of programs to tackle specific parts of every project.

Before the book I would still do vector work in Photoshop (mostly because of my comfort with the tools. Now, I think a bit different.

It is:
"Adobe Creative Suite 2 Workflow"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0596102364