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April 1, 2009, Adobe

04/04/2009 07:30 PM
  • April 1, 2009 - Adobe come to the Chicago Apple Users Group!
We were very privileged to have Adam Pratt as our guest speaker on April 1, 2009. Adam has authored or co-authored quite a large number of books on the Adobe applications, and is certified on every application in the CS suite. Adam works for Adobe helping many customers in print, web, and multimedia fields, and consults with many companies.

We were treated to an overview of a few of the new features in the CS4 products. For example, we saw how to use Adobe Bridge to manage all kinds of media. Bridge works with photos, pdfs, SWF files, and much more. Adam was able to demonstrate how to use Bridge to navigate to media content, and preview it within Bridge. As a good note, Adobe Bridge comes with all of the CS4 applications.

Next we took a look at some of the new features and tools in Adobe Photoshop CS4. A couple of tools stand out. One is the features is a Canvas Rotation tool which Adam was not able to use because of the limitations of the projector. We also saw an example of how to use the new Vanishing Point tool in PS, as well as the new selection tools to quickly select and edit the color of a tie on a model. The effects were non-desctructive.

We were also treated to a brief tour of some of the new features in InDesign. Adam’s main point was that InDesign can import old Quark files. However, he pointed out that several of the most recent versions of QuarkXPress can not be imported, except as PDF files, and he suggested that one option would be to import the Quark file as a PDF and then re-construct the file in InDesign. Adam also previewed how InDesign can output to Flash, without writing a single line of code for the Flash. InDesign can output to print or Flash. Another significant element was pre-flighting in InDesign. It’s now possible to do pre-flight within InDesign, and see how many errors a file contains, and whether or not a Creative wants to output the file or not. The pre-flighting can be customized to each job.

Next was a brief tour of Illustrator CS4. Adam showed us the new Gradient Tool in CS4, which allows live editing of a gradient in real time, without having to open up multiple dialog boxes. He said that Illustrator has quite a number of other new features, more than time can allow.

Adam took questions on a broad range of CS4 topics, and handled them with comfort.

We also had an open Q&A session, and showed the MacHeist bundle as a great software offer for the next several days, and concluded with our free prize giveaways, where several people went home winners.
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