PhotoDude.com

Mon. Sep 29, 2003

Another Hand In My Pocket

Another Hand In My Pocket – In case you haven’t heard, there’s a new program version in town: Photoshop CS. The list of new features includes ”comprehensive 16 bit support” (layers and brushes at 16 bits!!), a Histogram Palette, an improved File Browser, a new Color Match command to make a series of images consistent, and the Camera RAW plug-in that was $99 is now included in the $169 upgrade. Interestingly, Photoshop will now also export Macromedia Flash files.

I guess they’ve also taken Macromedia’s lead (nothing like being a follower!) on dropping version numbers. Macromedia went from Dreamweaver 4 to Dreamweaver MX. Abobe is moving from Photoshop 7 to Photoshop CS.

Two things come immediately to mind. The first connotation I get from ”CS” is … not positive. And I can’t help but wonder, what’s next? Both companies are trying to market these programs as part of a bundle, a ”Creative Suite” (I think that’s what ”CS” is supposed to stand for).

So, what happens in 18 months when it’s time to upgrade the package? Will you call it CS 2.0? CS.2? Seems like there’s no way to permanently avoid a number sequence of some type, so this just ends up looking like copycat marketing to me.

And another chunk of change for me to cough up.