Adobe Creative Studio 4 review

Adobe dominates the world of commercial design for print and web, and is quickly gaining a similar hold over video production.

For the first time, Adobe has brought together every one of its 14 high-end creative applications and upgraded them simultaneously in Creative Studio 4 (CS4). We review the four core applications that make up Adobe's latest creative platform - Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver and Premiere Pro - over the next three pages.

As well as these standalone applications, Adobe provides some important support utilities: Bridge CS4 for asset management, Version Cue CS4 for workflow management and Device Central CS4 for previewing projects on mobile devices. For the first time Adobe has made every application share the same broad look and feel. Most of them also benefit from new interface features, such as instant switching between customisable workspaces. Adobe has improved integration at a deeper level, too, most notably with its introduction of the new XFL exchange format. This enables users to load InDesign and AfterEffects projects directly into Flash CS4 Professional, where they can be made more engaging, and then output to the Shockwave format for efficient online delivery.

XFL shows the real strength of Adobe's creative platform by bringing together the previously separate worlds of print, web and audiovisual (AV) production. To get your hands on all this power you can buy Adobe's Master Collection at a fraction of the combined cost of the standalone applications. You could argue that this provides the best value, but few of us would even install, let alone use, every one of the supplied applications.

Around the four flagship titles are a host of other applications, most of which have undergone significant upgrades. Photoshop CS4 Extended takes Photoshop's bitmap handling into new areas with support for video and 3D object painting. Illustrator CS4 takes care of vector drawing and at last offers multiple page support through the use of artboards. Acrobat 9 Pro provides advanced PDF handling and new support for Flash and online document collaboration. Flash Professional CS4 offers rich web content handling and new animation capabilities. Fireworks CS4 provides web-oriented graphics handling and improved site prototyping. After Effects caters for motion graphics and effects and works hand-in-hand with Flash for online delivery. Soundbooth takes care of audio and now supports multi-tracking and speech search. In fact, there's only one application that has clearly been put on the backburner. Contribute CS4 enables content creators to add their material directly to websites. It's an important job, but standalone applications are giving way to browser-based tools. For more details, see our Dreamweaver CS4 review.

Contrary to this mass of applications, most creative professionals have quite focused needs. The most practical option is likely to be one of the Design, Web or Production bundles, as these strike a balance between functionality and value.

However, you need to be selective. For example, the Web Standard suite offers a strong, coherent bundle, but a web specialist is unlikely to benefit much from the Web Premium suite's addition of Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Acrobat and Soundbooth. Many creative professionals will never stray beyond a single CS4 application, and so shouldn't get sucked into buying a suite unnecessarily.

CS4 isn't aimed at the average user, but at the creative professional. Casual users will be better served by simpler and cheaper alternatives such as Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7, which are now available as a bundle for only £95 including VAT from www.pcwb.com. The step up in price to the CS4 version of Photoshop alone is a staggering £475 including VAT.