IS CS5.5 Worth It?

Hi Guys
We're a micro-SME and went through a lot of financial pain last year investing in upgrading our equipment for CS5 and then expense of buying the programme, principally to work with AE, PPro, PS, Ai and In. I thought we were future proofed for another few years until CS6 arrived. You can imagine how we laughed to find out that, less then a year later, there's nearly another £500 on top to buy CS5.5. What really are the benefits (I've heard a lot of it is just bug fixes)?

It's impossible to answer "is ABC worth it?" as it depends on what your business needs are, how much profit you could make upgrading vs. not, and so forth. What's true for one user isn't true for the next.
If you work with Prem Pro and AE, both have some significant extra features - but not every user will go near them. If you're working with location footage, Warp Stabilizer might save you the purchase price in one shoot - but if your cameras are all locked off, you won't care. Similarly the extra import and timeline features in Prem Pro, like merged clips, are amazingly powerful IF you work that way.
The apps which are marked "5.1" have no major new features, only bug fixes. The ones marked "5.5" are the ones to look at, plus of course the arrival of Audition and Acrobat X.

Similar Messages

Upgrading from CS2 to CS5 worth it?

I got an email from Adobe that said CS5 is my last chance to upgrade. I'm happy with CS2, and see that some people here are having issues, so I don't know if it is worth it. I'm not rich, so I'd be kinda mad if I spent $199 for something that wasn't worth it, or gave me big headaches.

There are new features in each new version that make it attractive. Personally, I love the new features and am glad I upgraded.
Is it worth it? That's something only you can decide. I believe you can download and try CS5 without obligation (and certainly without removing the CS2 version you're currently running).
-Noel

CS6 upgrade from CS5 worth the cost?

CS5 upgrade to CS6 costs $199.00. Is it worth it? Thanks.

All depends on how you use it. If you buy cameras, CS6 will read future ACR (currently 8.2) although no "enhancements" will be included. CS5 will be stuck with 6.7 forever.
http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/whats-new-cs6.html#id_70139
Look at the list of CS6 enhancements and see if you might use them. Beware that CS6 uses the video card more heavily and therefore at least a moderate card is needed. 3D requires at least 512 meg VRAM.
Hope this helps.

Upgrade from CS5.0 to CS5.5 Worth It?

If I could get the Warp Stablizer to work on some of my more difficult shots, I'd probably pay the $179 for an After Effects upgrade. That's the cost of a good plugin.
But Premiere? I don't really see any of the "What's new?" features that make me go crazy... In fact, I don't really care about them at all.
BUT, I do care about speed and stability. I'd spend money if it made my work significantly faster.
Does CS5.5 cut down on response time? Right now in CS5 everything is great until my project gets big, then it starts becoming a lot slower to jump from Windows/Anything back to Premiere. It lags 5-10 seconds before the program is available. And of course with a lot of dynamic linking, going to AE for a minor tweat and coming back to see it in Premiere can become tedius if it takes 10 seconds every time.
I also have slow response time from the time I press play to the time the video plays. Not at first, but after the project has grown.
Does CS5.5 adress any of this at all?

Well, it depends what you consider "significantly faster." In general, CS5.5 is more responsive than CS5; projects load and save faster, GPU acceleration has been refined a bit, and shuttling through a busy timeline is--with most media--very fluid. I've had some issues with H.264 stuff, though; I'm convinced (or, at least, I've convinced myself) that CS5.5 hiccups a bit more with such footage than CS5 did. My projects use a lot of such media, now--primarily AF100 AVCHD and Canon DSLR. This could totally be placebo effect, though--I haven't done any real scientific measurements. It's not enough for me to decry CS5.5 as "bad" in this respect, because it's not.
There are a few operational enhancements, as you're aware, but if you don't need them or can live without them, they're nothing to go crazy about. I've only tinkered with Merge Clips to see what it does, and the Audition integration is interesting but not something I'm too likely to use for my kind of work.
I'd really suggest downloading the trial and giving it a go; while you won't be able to do anything with your projects that have DL'ed comps (PPro CS5.5 won't talk to AE CS5), you could import one of your other projects and beat on it for a bit. It'll will ask you to convert the project, so it'll leave the original alone. I think the only true way to ascertain whether it's a worthwhile upgrade for you is to kick the tires yourself.
I might not be the best judge of this, since I usually will upgrade within a few weeks of release just because I like to stay current, but I think that on the whole, CS5.5 is worth it, even if it's not bringing a whole lot of whiz-bang to the table.
That's my two cents, but what with the exchange rate these days, that's not much

New Roto Brush in CS5. Worth the upgrade?

I'm sure everyone by now has seen presentations of the new AE CS5. Besides native support for 64-bit platforms, they introduced a very appealing feature called Roto Brush. Besides Adobe employees telling "how great it is", did anyone outside Adobe try it? What do you think, is it really that intuitive? And, is it worth $300 for an upgrade?

As for my previous claim about Ps being on the forefront of Adobe's innovations, then take a look, there are so many things that Ps has that AE doesn't, for instance: range of (handy) selection tools, or cloning brushes, or layer grouping would be just a few off the top of my head. So, no offense, but Ps is way ahead of AE in that sense. (Again I understand that I cannot compare two side by side, since they both work with different media. I'm simply pointing out those nifty tools that Ps has, that would be very nice to have in AE.)
So is it just me, or anyone else feels the same?
I think you are getting yourself to worked up over this and not considering many quite specific things. Software engineering is a complex process (which you as a programmer should know) and doesn't mean just linking a few source files and compiling them. There are different APIs at work here and just the addition of time as a concept complicates matters a bazillion times. Or do you think PS selection tools would be of any use if the only produced jittery output because they did no temporal smoothing? Equally, "Groups" can mean a whole lot of differnt things and adding such a feature will have to be carefully weighed against things like rendering order and the whole concept of how AE structures projects. Would groups be just a meta structure to bundle existing property streams? A whole new way of working? Eliminate pre-comping? Please think about this. Blnaket statements as to one program being behind another are neither fair nor are the in any way correct after the fact. and last but not least, do not forget the human resource factor: Only so many people are working on any given program. Compared to a flagship app like Photoshop that keeps 300 people busy, AE with its 50 people (just do an Alt+click on the About to get a list), of which only a part are the actual programmers, has much less resources and I think it's still amazing, that they can manage to maintain the app on 2 platforms and handle of a bazillion media formats. Yes, AE has its flaws, but it's not that you cannot get anything done with it, is it? I also find such discussions insincere in that you are free to choose your tools and if you are unhappy with AE, you can always try Nuke, Fusion, toxik* or whatever.... Nobody is forcing you to work with Adobe programs.
Mylenium

Is upgrade to flash catalyst CS5.5 worth it?

I'm using panini and burrito right now. If i spend the $80 to go to FC CS5.5 is it worth it?
Will it still round trip with Burrito? (FB upgrade is about $400 I think)
Other option is to upgrade my Master Collection but that's still gonna cost $600 I think. Not sure which version of FB that gives me.
I guess I'm wondering , will FC CS5.5 give me anything significant that I don't already have in Panini?

For me, the two main reasons to upgrade are:
- The ability to create resizable applications
- The possibility to import a FXPL with custom skinnable components created in Flash Builder, and to skin these components in Flash Catalyst
But there are other improvements concerning transitions, the timeline and so on...

64 Bit CS5 Won't run after I unchecked the 'C' Scratch Drive....

The problem started when I went into the 64 bit version of CS5; edit : preferences : performance and in the scratch drive options I unchecked the ‘C’ drive option. (I know.... doesn't make sense to do that) CS5 runs from the C drive BTW. I then closed the program and on restart it would not work. When trying to open CS5 64 bit version I get an Adobe Photoshop CS5 message that states: “Could not open a scratch file because the file is locked or you do not have the necessary access privleges. Use the ‘Properties’ command in the Windows Explorer to unlock the file. When I click on the OK button I get a second message that says, “Could not initialize Photoshop because the file is locked or you do not have the necessary access privledges. Use the ‘Properties’ command in the Windows Explorer to unlock the file. Un install and install takes me to the same problem. For what it’s worth the 32 bit version of CS5 runs fine. This is probably an easy fix for an expert but alas... that is not me. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Richard on the Eastern Shore of Virginia

The root cause is likely a permissions issue. You need to make sure you have Full Control privileges to the root folder of each of the hard drives you have told Photoshop to use, as well as to the folder identified on your system by the TEMP environment variable.
Also, you may want to just turn off Windows UAC entirely, though you should research UAC and fully understand what it does and what the additional risks are before making the decision to do this.
A quick fix for you to get you working again might be to press and hold the Control and Alt keys immediately after starting Photoshop from its icon or menu item. If you're quick enough, it will pop up a dialog allowing you to re-specify the scratch disks you had before when it worked.
-Noel

Long load times normal for Adobe Media Encoder from Premiere CS5?

When I export a sequence from Adobe Premiere CS5 using Adobe Media Encoder, the system freezes for several minutes before giving me the exporter screen. Then, when I've loaded my settings and clicked "export," the system again freezes for several minutes before beginning to encode. I'm using a system with an Intel I7 CPU 930 @ 2.80Ghz 2.80 Ghz., 24 GB of ram, Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit operating system and an Nvidia quadro FX4800 graphics card.. Everything else is fast, but AME is slow. Is this normal? Should I reinstall AME?

Not sure what you mean about the process. From Premiere CS5, I click on "export" which brings up a menu. I select "media" from the menu which brings up the Adobe Media Encoder. I adjust my settings and click "export" from the bottom of the screen to immediately render the Premiere file. Clicking "Queue" would put the program into the AME Queue. Am I missing something? On the slowness issue, looks like I need to reinstall AME. I've been reluctant to do that, partially because I'm using some Matrox hardware and I'll have to reinstall the Matrox softare to populate the matrox settings into the media encoder. Looks like it may be worth it.
Thanks.

LR 4.1 photos (still) MUCH darker than in PS CS5 - why?

Right: Photo in LR4.1, shown using Process 2010 to be compatible (as good as possible) with PS and ACR 6.7 (a switch to 2012 shows a difference regarding darkness, but not too much)
Left: Top the same photo opend via LR (it matches the LR version), bottom the same photo opend directly via PS. This bottom version is how it should look like IMO.
Photo is a Canon .CR2 RAW file. Of course all parameters for the RAW converting process are the same for LR and PS.
Screen is Eizo CG243W, hardware calibrated with the Eizo Color Navigator (coming with the monitor) and Spyder 4. Win7 64Bit, all currently Adobe Updates installed, no RC versions.
Simply ALL photos are shown way too dark in LR, not only RAWs but also jpgs. Photos match between PS and e.g. Firefox, which supports color management.
It is also clearly visible how different the histograms between the two open versions in PS look like:
Dark version (opend via LR):
Opend via PS directly:
No clou what to check anymore, and quite desperate already... it makes no sense to spend a lot of work to improve the photos in LR with high effort (and all drawbacks of going to the limits with Exposure etc.) if this is all only based on some wrong interpretation of LR, which it looks like to me...
Ah yes, I read about that LR cannot handle V4 ICC monitor profiles correctly, but I checked this, mine are V2.2, so this should be fine... but maybe still some incompatibility between the profiles produced by the ColorNavigator and LR!? I also found the other topics regarding similar problems here in the forum, but as we are already talking about LR4.1 final and ACR 6.7 for PS, it seems like the bugfix mentionend there did not solve this issue...
Anybody any clou?
Thanks!
Klaus
UPDATE: OK, now it is getting really weird... I just saw that I opend the file with PS as 8 bit only, so I tried to do again with 16 bit. Result is that I now cannot reproduce my screenshot from above at all, no matter if using 8 or 16 bit - but what I can manage is to have the photo opend twice in PS, looking exactly the same, both 16 bit, but with totally different histograms!?

With Nikon raw files I can't reproduce what you're seeing.
I'm also using LR4 (.2RC in my case) and PS CS5.
Provided the raw file is set to PS2010 in LR, then it looks the same in LR as in CS5. CS5 evaluates histograms differently, so they don't exactly compare - but the histogram in LR looks the same as the histogram in ACR.
Have you got LR, Catalog settings, Metadata tab, "Automatically write changes into XMP" checked? If not, you need to right click the image in LR, select Metadata, then "Save metadata to file" to make sure the xmp data that ACR sees in the .xmp file is the same as the edit data LR sees. And, as you say, set the process in LR to PS2010 or there may be slight differences, even though ACR6.7 is supposed to be able to read PV2012 files (in my experience, ACR6.7 does not render PV2012 files identically to LR4.2RC, or it didn't when I was using them last weekend).
Can't help you with the Spyder or Eizo kit - I have two different monitors both calibrated with a ColorMunki Display, set to create v2 profiles. As everyone says, v4 profiles seem to be more trouble than they're worth.

Problem with textboxes in Flash CS5

Hi, I am currently a Flash CS4 user and am trying Flash CS5 currently to see if it is worth it to pay for the upgrade. I currently have a problem with the use of textboxes in CS5 comparing with the previous version. When I try to change the texts of a text box using the following command in actionscript:
showlmytext.text = "My string: " +String(somevariable);
I would get weird misaligned text outputted in my textbox, which exact same code did not cause this problem on Flash CS4.
Can somebody please tell me what is the problem and how can I fix it?
Thanks

Hi Mario,
I hope you are well. My name is Sandi Langlotz.
At my job at greenidea.com, here in SF; I am having difficulty with using Hebrew in the trial download of CS5 Flash. Russ Mumford my boss has also contacted you regarding our problem.
Flash has a new TLF (Text Layout Format tool). My difficulty has to do with text boxes that are formatted for Right to Left text, with Hebrew selected as the Locale. We are pasting from Microsoft Word.
I hope that you may have a suggestion, a referral or a possible work around for me to try.
I have tried Adobe Customer Service several times to no avail.
Problem 1.
The first sentence below, (in blue) is correct format for Hebrew. Hebrew reads from R to Left.
When I paste the Hebrew text into the Flash animation, one of two things can happen;
the punctuation is cut off of the left side completely; or it is pasted in to the Right side of the Text box, (at the wrong end of the sentence).
I have tried to click the cursor into the left in order to insert the punctuation mark; this works sometimes but often I am unable to click in to manually correct the problem. I don't understand why it is cutting it off, or why I am sometimes unable to click into the left side and insert the punctuation.
Problem 2
In the second paste (the 2nd bold sentence), .CSO on the left side of the sentence is correct, as is the rest of the sentence.
When I paste the text into Flash from Word, Flash puts it in as reversed order. the word CSO. has the punctuation switched to the right (CSO.) Flash reverses the order of the other characters in the sentence also (like in the 2nd black sentence).
שולחן נקי הוא שולחן מאובטח.
שולחן נקי הוא שולחן מאובטח
מבוסס על רעיון ממגזיןCSO .
.CSOןיזגממ ןויער לע ססובמ
Adobe says it supports Right to Left text, but I can find no info on these two buggy problems. Do you have any idea what is wrong?
Thank you ahead of time for any info or referrals you may suggest.
Sandi Langlotz
שולחן נקי הוא שולחן מאובטח.
שולחן נקי הוא שולחן מאובטח
מבוסס על רעיון ממגזיןCSO .
.CSOןיזגממ ןויער לע ססובמ

Launch flash builder from flash cs5 don't work

hi
I have a trial version of flash builder (eclipse plug-in) and registered flash cs5 pro
I'm trying to open a new AS3 class like in this tutorial: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/learn-flash-professional-cs5/using-flash-pro-and-flash-builder-t ogether/
and it doesn't work.
at first it did asked if I want to edit the file in flash builder or not, and it didnt work.
now it won't even ask.
what can I do?
and also I cant open a flash proffessional project in flash builder, it says "This feature requires Adobe Flash CS5 or higher to be installed."
but it is installed!
frustrated...

I gave this a shot, using CS5, and when I started a new AS3 file I got the appropriate prompt asking me which application should edit my file...
Flash Pro
Flash Builder
When I chose Flash Builder, (which I had already running), it opened the new AS3 file there with no problems. Interestingly, when I closed FB, and with Flash Pro created a new AS3 class, I wasn't prompted (and the AS file opened in Flash Pro) - so it does require that FB be running, or else Flash Pro will be the default editor.
For the issue of Flash no longer prompting you "Who" will open a new file, you can change that here:
Edit > Preferences > ActionScript > Several items down is the Class editor. Change that to Flash Builder
If you still have problems...Are you able to successfully launch Flash Builder 4 by itself? Or has the trial expired?
Last but not least, it's worth mentioning another fantastic AS editor (in case you don't really need FB, and/or your trial runs out):
http://www.flashdevelop.org/wikidocs/index.php?title=Main_Page

Fireworks CS5 crashes often due to buggy memory handling. Will there be a patch?

Fireworks CS5 has a major bug that causes a memory leak or memory "cap" where the application stops functioning once it has used approximately 1.5 GB of memory or so. (I read that 2GB was the cap, but I have never seen Fireworks make it to 2GB). I only have 10 undos set in Fireworks, so I know that's not the problem. I have searched high and low to resolve this, but it seems like Adobe just hasn't recognized this as a high priority.
I read other discussions about the same problem and I now believe that Adobe either doesn't read the forums or they don't care. I hope this is not the case because I truly love the product. But, for the record, I shouldn't have to:
- "Limit the number of undos to less than 100" (I have limited mine to 10, but after 6 months of trial and error I have found that to be irrelevant. The errors occur anyway). Don't encumber your users with such an archaic request. This is like a software bug from 1985.
- "Save, shut down, and restart Fireworks every hour or so". Are you kidding? I can't believe someone on the forums even suggested this. This isn't a solution to the Fireworks bug. This is a work around that does nothing to prevent the error from occuring. Sometimes the error occurs on the very first click after opening a file in Fireworks, after a full system restart. A 5MB file takes 3 minutes to open in Fireworks on my quad-core 3Ghz machine with 8GB of memory. I don't mind that, but I shouldn't have to do it every 30 to 60 minutes. Users shouldn't have to look for "workarounds" to keep a software application running without crashing, especially such an expensive application. I think Fireworks is worth every penny, but only if it runs without crashing.
Perhaps most importantly, I cannot - ever - open two 5MB files in Fireworks at one time. Which makes it extremely cumbersome to impossible to copy/paste content between two files. In fact, I am designing a web application in Fireworks, and I've had to split the app into approximately 15 different files because Fireworks can't handle files bigger than 6 or 7MB.
I had the same problem with CS4 on a different machine, so I know it's not a new issue. I have Fireworks installed on two PCs, both have quad core 3Ghz processors, one PC has 6GB of RAM, the other has 8GB. Once an hour I have to shut down what I'm working on and wait several minutes for Fireworks to reopen the file. Sometimes Fireworks just stops responding and won't let me save my work at all. And since there is no autosave in Fireworks, I probably lose work at least once a day.
Please, please, please address this... I love Fireworks, and I'd really like to keep using it.

I am using Fireworks CS5 in Windows 7 to sketch a large site, and it was taking an extremely long time to do anything and seemed to crash on me once or twice every hour. I saved every couple of minutes and could at least rely on my last save being able to be reloaded. However, a few days ago, I lost a lot of work when Fireworks crashed halfway through the save and destroyed the file. At the time, my most recent backup copy that I had on another drive was a day old, so that crash was not only frustrating but hazardous to my project deadlines (needless to say, I've since implemented a more aggressive backup policy). Anyway, I searched for answers and forums about the problem, and I'm disappointed that it seems that it's a common problem for a lot of folks that has been around for a very long time throughout multiple releases of the software. Memory and resources also seem to be a common factor in contributing to the crashes and are also a theme in the few solution responses that I was able to find. I hope that Adobe will respond with a once-and-for-all fix / a much more efficient and stable way for Fireworks to do its magic. I typically have had very positive things to say about Adobe software and was even the one who recommended the suite for my work, but especially as "well seasoned" and *expensive* as the software is, there is no excuse for any major, well-tested component of it by now to be crashing so consistenly and causing so many problems for so many people.
The solution to the crashing that seems to work for me so far - and I hope that it works for you as well: I doubled the size of my swap/paging file to ~4GB and set the maximum to double that (~8GB). Since I did that, Fireworks has only crashed once (only once.. as if that is even acceptable considering the short time since then). It still runs fairly slowly (granted, I'm working on a large project, so I can tolerate that more), but at least I can use it again.
Hope that helps! Best,
-j

How do I get a copy of Acrobat with my CS5 Master Collection???

I activated my Adobe CS5 Master Collection (running on Snow Leopard) with a serial number purchased from CDW and everything went smoothly, but after a few days of using the core products I typically use I noticed Acrobat was not included in the installed software.
Now, Adobe lists Acrobat PRO as an included product in the Master Collection and rightfully so since it contans just about every product they make.
When I emailed Adobe about this but the only response I got was some pre-formatted auto-response probably sent to me from the help desk in India or something. The auto-response said absolutely nothing about how to obtain a copy for the Mac, and just had a link taking me to the Acrobat home page, which basically says there is no trial version of Acrobat for Mac available for download.
I gave up on it since I do not use Acrobat very much but now I am in a situation where I do need to have Acrobat Pro to finish a job and I cannot figure out how to get a copy installed with the Master Collection.
There was no disclaimer indicating that you would not be able to get a copy of Acrobat when I purchased the downloadable version vs. buying a boxed DVD set, so I am expecting there must be a way.
Adobe's help has been pretty much useless when I emailed them, and I cannot find anyone with the same problem on Google or in the Adobe forums, so is there someone out there who can give me the answer or help me?
If I have to purchase a seperate copy of Acrobat so be it, but since it is supposed to be included with the Master Suite that would be kind of stupid if I have to purchase a copy of Acrobat seperately.
Thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction!!!

This is just getting beyond ridiculous...
AND I can see from several forum threads I am not alone in this issue.
Adobe, you absolutely SUCK for making it so difficult to install this software. I am normally a fan of Adobe products, but now that you guys have bought out all your competiton you are getting lazy and stupid.
This is the most ridiculous crap I've ever seen when trying to install a product I PURCHASED!!!!!!!
So, after over another week (I have been trying to find a way to install Acrobat with my purchased copy of the Master Suite for MONTHS)... My IT guy finally gets me the installer DMG for Acrobat and now I cannot install it with my master collection because the serial numbers are not the same?
I never got a god damn serial number for Acrobat Pro when purchasing the master collection.
Asking Adobe for help is totally worthless and not even worth taking the time to do so because all they give you is some BS pre-recorded response that doesn't help you with JACK...
It has been a long time since I've had a problem installing a piece of software I PURCHASED.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YOU SERIOUSLY SUCK ADOBE ON THIS ONE!!!!!!!!!!!

Photoshop CS5, Photoshop CS5 ex, Photoshop Elements 9, iPhoto, Aperture????

Okay.... so I am a bit overwhelmed with trying to decide if I should be upgrading from iPhoto or not.
iPhoto has been great for making my photobooks. But, on occasion, it has been a bit frustrating trying to get the right number of vertical vs. horizontal photos on a page. Sometimes when adding, if you add in the right order, configurations can change, usually in size (not necessarily orientation unless it is the fewer photos per page layouts 2-3 or 4). But, it makes it go really quickly to do albums as there isn't much engineering going on as you go from page to page (on occasion, I make a separate dummy album that has a different theme that I think manages my horizontal v. vertical issue or perhaps the number of photos allowed on a page (as some themes only have up to 4 or 6 photos per page and on occasion, I like to have more 9, for example)).
Primarily, I have used iPhoto to do personal albums. I intend on possibly starting to offer my services to get albums done for people and/or do slideshow videos for them. With that, I do end up, even with my own, photos from years past or current that have coloring issues or rips/tears/fading.
As it is right now, I have used iPhoto to work on the highlights, shadows, etc, which for me right now, is by trial and error.... I don't really know what I am doing and iPhoto doesn't seem to care. Fortunately, whatever I do, I can go back to the original, which I think is true in Aperture as well... However, I think I might have heard differently with Photoshop (CS5 or Elements)?
I have not installed any plug-ins for the other printer services in iPhoto (eg. Leather Craftsmen), but, I know it is possible a client may want a 12x12 album or some of those other shapes, sizes, cover options out there.... e.g. Shutterfly, even.
One other bit of information is that I am not just a candid completely amateur photographer either. I do take quite a bit of photos with my Canon Rebel Xsi. Not top of the line.... but, although I can should in raw, have chose to always just go with jpeg as this is a hobby of mine and I really don't have loads of time to just adjust all my photos... nor necessarily the space on my computer to put everything at raw. But, I could be persuaded otherwise, if I really knew how to use and really know what the benefits of it are (again, I know I should take classes or something, just don't know where to focus my attention).
So, what am I asking? Well, a few things:
1. If my primary goal is to make Photobooks, which program(s) should I have?
2. I understand you could have iPhoto or Aperture and then edit photos in PhotoShop.... Does that save the file back to Aperture/iPhoto or does it make a separate file in Photoshop?
3. Which books, classes, etc would you suggest to learn the uses of such program(s)?
4. Does the program you mention in #1 strong enough to handle typical adjustments on jpegs-aging, color casts, lack of proper lighting, red-eye (iPhoto seems to do okay on this even in the auto function, but on occasion, it sometimes replaces with too dark of a correction, or not fully complete.)
5. Does Shutterfly have a print plug-in so I could make photobooks on either Aperture or iPhoto and have Shutterfly print? Or is that just available on Photoshop (unless I print to jpegs and then upload to Shutterfly using the Shutterfly uploader)?
6. Is it really beneficial to shoot in raw over jpeg?
7. If Photoshop is even part of your answer in #1, is it worth it to have CS5 or CS5 Extended with the 3D option?

1. If my primary goal is to make Photobooks, which program(s) should I have?
iPhoto is entirely template driven, Aperture's books are very customisable and there are losts of online options too. Google a bit and see what's out there.
2. I understand you could have iPhoto or Aperture and then edit photos in PhotoShop.... Does that save the file back to Aperture/iPhoto or does it make a separate file in Photoshop?
Yes and Yes. In iPhoto: You can set Photoshop (or any image editor) as an external editor in iPhoto. (Preferences -> General -> Edit Photo: Choose from the Drop Down Menu.) This way, when you double click a pic to edit in iPhoto it will open automatically in Photoshop or your Image Editor, and when you save it it's sent back to iPhoto automatically. This is the only way that edits made in another application will be displayed in iPhoto.
Note that iPhoto sends a copy+ of the file to Photoshop, so when you save be sure to use the Save command, not Save As... If you use Save As then you're creating a new file and iPhoto has no way of knowing about this new file. iPhoto is preserving your original anyway.
In Aperture, Preferences _. Export and set your external editor there. WHen you send a pic to PS with Aperture it makes a tiif or psd and sends it over. Saving in Photoshop brings it back.
4. Does the program you mention in #1 strong enough to handle typical adjustments on jpegs-aging, color casts, lack of proper lighting, red-eye (iPhoto seems to do okay on this even in the auto function, but on occasion, it sometimes replaces with too dark of a correction, or not fully complete.)
Photoshop Elements is a good compromise between the cost of full photoshop and the features you'll need.
5. Does Shutterfly have a print plug-in so I could make photobooks on either Aperture or iPhoto and have Shutterfly print? Or is that just available on Photoshop (unless I print to jpegs and then upload to Shutterfly using the Shutterfly uploader)?
You could look that one up at Shutterfly yourself, no?
6. Is it really beneficial to shoot in raw over jpeg?
Depends on what you want to do... Really that's a massively basic question. I would check out some o the online Photo forums and see what advice you can find there tom get you started. You could do worse than look here
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/
7. If Photoshop is even part of your answer in #1, is it worth it to have CS5 or CS5 Extended with the 3D option?
Given the amount of your experience, rather than diving in and spending a whole lot of money, start with iPhoto and Photoshop Elements. Explore. IF you want to upgrade, when you're ready, migrate to Aperture and Elements. I think you're a good way from facing CS5 yet.
Regards
TD

Newbie Here - How to Create a Slide Show in CS5?

I am using Windows 7 and I am familiar with PSElements 8 where creating a slide show is easy. I just want to create a slide show in CS5 (in Bridge?? View>Slideshow Options?) using vacation photos from several folders, and I want to order them manually.
First, I can't figure out how to display more than one folder in the Content panel in Bridge. Second, I can't figure out how to create and intersperse "blank" slides with text.   Third (and I haven't even gotten this far yet), how do I save the slide show and burn a VCD? This was all so easy and intuitive in PSE8, I can't believe it seems nearly impossible in CS5!
As an alternative, should I simply re-save the photos as JPEGs (they are PSDs now), export them to a Desktop folder, open them in PSE8 and create the slide show there instead?   Thanks for any help and suggestions!

I am using Windows 7 and I am
familiar with PSElements 8 where creating a slide show is easy. I just
want to create a slide show in CS5 (in Bridge?? View>Slideshow
Options?) using vacation photos from several folders, and I want to
order them manually.
First, I can't figure out how to
display more than one folder in the Content panel in Bridge. Second, I
can't figure out how to create and intersperse "blank" slides with
text.   Third (and I haven't even gotten this far yet), how do I save
the slide show and burn a VCD? This was all so easy and intuitive in
PSE8, I can't believe it seems nearly impossible in CS5!
As
an alternative, should I simply re-save the photos as JPEGs (they are
PSDs now), export them to a Desktop folder, open them in PSE8 and create
the slide show there instead?   Thanks for any help and suggestions!
1) Bridge has a new feature (can't think of the term at the moment) but it works like instancing or virtual copies. Select all of the photo's that you want and place them in the "collection" (Ah I knew I would think of it) Move to another folder and move them into the same collection and so on. These are virtual copies in that they don't really exist, but are a link to the original images. You then can use the collection for the slide show.
2) Just create a page same size as your photo's in photoshop with what ever color background and put your text on it.
3A)The slide show can be exported as a pdf or swf. Windows can then copy the file to a cd. If you choose swf, you may need to alter the html file (I assume it generates one, if not it isn't har to create one) The html file would help the web browser determine the correct size to display at. If you have flash, it can be used to create a html file as well.
3B)If you would like the slide show to be displayed on a tv screen, then your cd/dvd will need to use a format that your dvd player can play, mp2 is the standard, but some can display jpg's, some are blue ray, etc. For exporting into the correct video format, then one of the following can be used. After Effects, Premeire pro, Encore, Photoshop (If you have quicktime installed and you are using one of the formats that quicktime supports like mp4)
If you have quicktime installed, paying the 20 bucks may be worth it as it will allow you to take your jpg images and generate an animation file as avi or mov. But can save as mp4 as well.
4) In Bridge you can select all of the images and run image processor on them. This plug in is part of photoshop there fore it will be in the menu's under photoshop. It will let you specify the files size, format and any actions, etc. It will then place them all into a folder that you specify.

IS CS5.5 Worth It?

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