Company: Adobe Inc.

Website: www.adobe.com

Price (MSRP): $1,699 (upgrade from $799)

Alternatives: Apple’s Final Cut Suite 2

After a roll-out that was just short of presidential in scale, the CS3 line of software is beginning to ship as we write this. We have been looking at the latest beta version over the past weeks and Adobe was kind enough to put into our grubby little hands an early copy of the final release of their CS3 Production Premium suite, which they describe as “a complete post-production solution for video professionals”. This hands-on review is based on that shipping version.

Let us start by defining the package, as it has changed since their last video bundling for CS2. Since last time around they have acquired a number of companies, Macromedia and more recently Serious Magic, so there were more toys to put into each of their bundles. The Production Premium package includes an incredible amount of software. The heavyweight applications include: After Effects Professional, Premiere Pro, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator and Flash Professional.

Each of those applications are updated versions and each wear the new version moniker of CS3. There is a second wave of applications that are also included: Adobe’s new audio application Soundbooth, a new version of their DVD encoding tool called Encore, and they have also included copies of their newly acquired Serious Magic tools called Ultra (for green screen keying work) and OnLocation (the award winning suite of video analysis tools formerly named “DV Rack”). These last two items are currently Windows only, but are said to work under Apple’s Boot Camp. Also, Flash Pro comes with its Flash Encoder application.

Overwhelmingly, there are actually even more applications included in this package: Adobe’s new incarnation of its “Bridge” software, Device Central for designing and previewing multimedia content for mobile devices, and Adobe Acrobat Connect which is a fee based web conferencing service. Behind it all runs Dynamic Link, which is the core to the entire suite’s interoperability.

This is an extensive package of tools, certainly the most we have ever come across for the absurdly low retail price of $1,699. Street prices will undoubtedly be a bit lower, and the educational cost is just $599.

The Workflow

Though designed with the videographer in mind, CS3 Production Premium (CS3PP) is great for multimedia developers, animators and others. The key to the new CS3PP suite, and all of Adobe’s new suites for that matter, is their attentiveness to solving a production team’s overall workflow needs. There are two very good reasons for this, first that it was the next logical step of software evolution. Second, Adobe is the only company that has a broad enough range of professional applications to do this quite so effectively.

Here’s how the basic flow works, using a videographer’s needs as the model.

PRODUCTION

During the actual video shoot you will want to think about using either of the tools formerly from Serious Magic. OnLocation sets up NTSC monitor, scope and other input checking devices. Ultra is the high end chroma keying tool for various effects work.(Both Windows.)

POST PRODUCTION

Once the video material is on your hard drive CS3PP allows the videographer/editor to do their long-form editing work in Premiere Pro. Send out to After Effects Pro for higher end effects and compositing work, and send out to Adobe’s new Soundbooth for additional audio capture, sweetening, and even for basic music creation work.

You will likely need a range of graphics to supplement your video work. This can be created or modified using Photoshop or Illustrator, and then brought into Premiere or After Effects.

DELIVERY

For the last leg of the process use either Flash or Encore to bring your work to the web or DVD disk delivery mediums. If mobile media is your game, output to a wide range of mobile formats and test them out with Device Central.

Adobe has worked to sure up each program’s interaction with its sibling, in theory allowing production to run smoother than ever. But how did it all work in real life?

On the next pages we get into some of the nuts and bolts of the individual applications. See our conclusion for each application at the bottom of its page. Our findings for the entire suite can be found at the end of this article.