New Jersey - Central InDesign User Group

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Great seminar. Excellent presentations. Relevant information.

Rob

Meeting Summary: THE NEW ADOBE® CREATIVE SUITE® 4 : SHORTCUT TO BRILLIANT

Wed, Nov 12th, 2008 at 8:00 AM

Crowne Plaza Edison

Event Details

Our Creative Suite 4 Launch, Shortcut to Brilliant, was very successful! The presentation was set up at the Crowne Plaza in Edison on November 12. We had four presenters and covered the new features in print, web, and video applications.

The morning started off with a keynote address by Noha Edell from Adobe. She then showed the great new features in Bridge including breadcrumbs and new outputting features. Next, Photoshop wowed the crowd with the new tabbed interface, the Target Adjustment Tool, and Content Aware Scaling.

Alison Cattelona, the IDUG Chapter Rep, covered the great new features in Illustrator, such as the improved Appearance panel, the Blob Brush, and the long-awaited multiple artboards. From there, we moved to just the beginning of the updates of InDesign. Smart Guides and Cursor, Workspaces, Auto-Fit to Place Images, Story Editor, button and hyperlink enhancements, and exporting as Flash SWF created a nice segue for Jerome Silverman from Adobe with the web updates.

Jerry made the audience drool with the ease that has been built into Flash. Even the most Flash-phobic can see that the enhancements can make an animator out of anyone who works in print. The ActionScript 3 animal has been tamed and can be produced without ever typing code. Woo hoo!

Dreamweaver and Fireworks continued after lunch. Dreamweaver's integration features with Photoshop have soared even further with this new version. You can now also work in Live View, Spry has been updated, and CSS is easier to edit. Fireworks is a great addition to your web workflow. Many cool features, including creating a CSS layout straight from a Photoshop layout.

Mat Gilbert, the other NJ IDUG Chapter Rep, demonstrated the 3D features and video capabilities in Photoshop (yes, Photoshop!), and then just an introduction into what After Effects and Premiere can do.

Noha finished up with additional features in InDesign: Conditional Text, GREP Styles, the updated Links Panel and Online Services. Acrobat rounded out the day with the new Portfolio features, the updated Web Capture, and more.

Thank you

Thank you to Adobe for sponsoring the event!
Thank you also to the companies that provided raffle items:
Mobile Mac & PC Training gave away a training certificate
Peachpit Press, Adobe Press, Pearson, Steve Weinrebe and Gabriel Powel gave away many books
Brochure Templates and Letterhead Templates provided by Stock Layouts
Photoshop User Magazine subscription provided by NAAP
Creative Suite 4 Design Standard provided by Adobe

Comments from attendees

Adobe should be applauded in our industry for not only giving excellent seminars for their new products, but for giving FREE seminars that are excellent - Joanne

Noha is the absolute best! Every presenter was excellent and knowledgable. I learned so much and am crazed to now upgrade to CS4 ASAP. WOW. - Nicki

Great, Detailed & Entertaining - Bill

Very good event. Exciting technologies. The user group is a great way to keep up with with the product enhancements. Noha is a wealth of knowledge. - Rich

GREAT! Really made my decision to buy it - Dorrie

Excellent introduction to many new features with enough depth to get started using them in real projects. Noha is always funny and informative. - David