Suggestions to Adobe

[Doug Griffith]

In a few weeks, I'm going to be in a focus group in front of (reading between the lines because they won't actually tell me) Adobe. Any suggestions come to mind? There will be 8 people there and I can only guess that I'm the only one who outputs to a laser cutter.

Cheers

[Darren Null]

A decent black and white conversion (not greyscale) wouldn't go amiss.

[Jim - Goodwin]

I would say make all the pen tools in Photoshop and InDesign work like the one in Illustrator. Consistency among all the little things like the shortcuts for all common tools and names for things... like in Illustrator and InDesign you have a "Control bar" and the same thing in Photoshop is called the "Options bar". Why don't all the Adobe programs have scrubby sliders in ALL palettes, dialog boxes, and options bars?


The Adobe Help Viewer gives me all sorts of shortcuts for Mac even though I have the PC version. Information that is useless for users of the Windows version (or versa-visa) should be removed. Also, a intelligent spellchecker when I search for something in help... And why aren't all the shortcuts in bold?

Aside from that, I really like the Adobe suite. Everything I have created in Illustrator and output to my engraver has worked out great.

Doug, thanks for passing this along.

[James Mooney]

A decent filleting tool! I know there is Effects>Round Corners but its pretty lame.

[Doug Griffith]

A decent filleting tool! I know there is Effects>Round Corners but its pretty lame.

I hear you. I currently use the CadTools plugin which has all sorts of useful vector functions.

[Doug Griffith]

I would say make all the pen tools in Photoshop and InDesign work like the one in Illustrator. Consistency among all the little things like the shortcuts for all common tools and names for things... like in Illustrator and InDesign you have a "Control bar" and the same thing in Photoshop is called the "Options bar". Why don't all the Adobe programs have scrubby sliders in ALL palettes, dialog boxes, and options bars?


The Adobe Help Viewer gives me all sorts of shortcuts for Mac even though I have the PC version. Information that is useless for users of the Windows version (or versa-visa) should be removed. Also, a intelligent spellchecker when I search for something in help... And why aren't all the shortcuts in bold?

Aside from that, I really like the Adobe suite. Everything I have created in Illustrator and output to my engraver has worked out great.

Doug, thanks for passing this along.

I don't use InDesign (Quark instead) but know what you mean regarding the pen tools. It has gotten a lot better though.

So... make the suites more standardized and consistent among the applications.

What is a "scrubby" slider? I haven't heard that term.

[Doug Griffith]

A decent black and white conversion (not greyscale) wouldn't go amiss.

I'm thinking the ability to control the stochastic dot size when converting to B/W. Anything else that ins't there already?

Also B/W conversion similar to DCS (B/W instead of greyscale files) with the ability to preview layering. This would be useful for people outputing film positives for burning silk screens as well.

[Doug Bergstrom]

I prefer Illustrator to Corel in so many ways having used it since it first came out years ago, but that being said there are some things that corel can do which would be helpful in Illustrator.

1.) Being able to separate items from clipart or hand drawn objects by colors instead of shapes. Corel will let you pick a color and make it the shape.

2.) The Pathfinder in Illustrator has difficulty sometimes separating and combining objects and knock outs. Flexi and Corel both will divide objects and knockout from background much easier and faster.

3.) fillet, scallop, corner round tools in Corel are easier to use

4.) This may be a Corel issue but if you set your stroke to hairline in Illustrator and bring the file into Corel, Corel cannot understand hairline and gives it an equivalent point size. This doesn't seem like a big issue but if you are cutting with the laser and Corel doesn't have it set to hairline that it will sometimes raster the line instead of cut it.

Thanks
Doug

[Jack Harper]

Illustrator limits the size of image it will raster. This includes being able to save as a .bmp file. I am at a loss while it complains since they should be using the the same libraries as photoshop, which of course will handle the larger sizes.

[Patrick Bauer]

I use Adobe CS2 for almost everything we engrave. I would like to see better options for converting photography for laser engraving of pictures. I usually start in Photoshop, but I'm not very happy with my output options so I can import into Illustrator for burning.

I would like to see onscreen halftone tools.

[James Mooney]

I'm thinking the ability to control the stochastic dot size when converting to B/W.

Doug I think you can do that via the input output settings.

[Doug Bergstrom]

Do not confuse Photoshop - a raster editor with Illustrator - a postcript / vector editor or Indesign - page layout. Many people want one software that will do everything but then it gets confusing what your final file is. You can place your Illustrator into photoshop if you want to convert to bmp.

[James Mooney]

Do not confuse Photoshop - a raster editor with Illustrator...

Doh! That's exactly what I did:D I seemlessly jump between CS products and often forget whick I'm in. The input/output is more easily handled in PS

[Jim - Goodwin]

...What is a "scrubby" slider? I haven't heard that term.

Scrubby sliders are a function of Photoshop CS3 where you don't have to click a dropdown and then move a slider to change values, instead you simply click and drag on the name of the filed you are changing. I like it so much I find myself doing it in all programs only to find that I can't.
http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/10.0/images/wa_22.png

[Marc Myer]

Am I the only Illustrator user who has trouble with the print dialog box? While not necessarily an Adobe problem, I have trouble printing to the laser. Page setup: page orientation can be frustrating.
And I find that raster settings above 400dpi can sometimes kill the print file. In fact, I'll sometimes export a file to Corel just because it's easier to print from. Or perhaps Illustrator simply dislikes me. Wouldn't be the first time.

[Doug Bergstrom]

While we use Illustrator all day, we do not output to our laser with it. Instead we open in corel and print to the laser. Seems a bit tedious but we are use to it since many of the RIP's for our output devises are on different machines.

[Scott Kilroy]

Sorry I don't work with lasers but I could pass up an opportunity to offer my 2 cents. I really like adobe but the direction they've been heading the past few years has been making it very hard for me to recommend their products.

Stop user interface ideas from Macromedia, the last 3 versions o illustrator and photoshop have gotten harder to use.

Make it easier to but your products, I'm in IT and work with design professionals and no one know what version of Creative Suite to buy anymore

The technology exist to sell a cheaper version of photoshop and allow users to pay for features as they need them.

No one like Adobe Premier, people use it because it didn't have any real competition

[Doug Griffith]

Except for stamp mode, I output exclusively from Illustrator CS to an Epilog Mini 24. Never really had any problems once I came up with the following process:

I create files on a Mac w/ the document size matching my laser's bed (12x24), transfer to the PC, then copy and paste in place (control F) into a template file (also at 12x24 with color maps, etc...) that was made using the PC version of Illustrator. Perform a "save as" and keep the template waiting for the next job.

Cheers

[Chad Voller]

In CS3 they added the tabbed palettes, is this what you are speaking of? You can still setup your workspace the old way with all of your palettes always in view, as I do. But if I had only one monitor, I'd be using the tabbed palettes in a heartbeat, as they don't block your image like in older versions on a single monitor. They also have to incorporate Macromedia interfaces, because it's now part of their line of products, and after every release, they are trying to get all of their products to look alike. They've still got a lot of work to do in this department, so expect even more changes. I can see if someone hasn't used Photoshop since version 7, that it might be hard to get around, as there's been so many improvements since then.

If people are having problems getting used to Adobe products, I strongly recommend lynda.com training videos. Not those crappy ones that come with CS3, there's so much more on the website. Maybe Adobe can get the rights to more of these videos and include them with the Creative Suite, as Lynda isn't exactly cheap for all users.

Of every release of the Creative suite, the changes that they have made have only increased my productivity. Especially the smart objects (CS2) and smart filters (CS3), which is the most valuable upgrades that Adobe has made in a long time for Photoshop IMO. If they could somehow get these to work in Illustrator in the same way, in the layers....instead of having to go to the appearance palette to see what effect is applied...

I do think Illustrator and Photoshop need some things to be a little more closer. Like I can setup my mouse wheel to zoom in in Photoshop, but it won't work in Illustrator without doing the old ALT + wheel, which is annoying to do if I'm switching between the two programs.

A history tab in the open file window at the top, that has a drop down list to folders of recently opened files would be awesome (like 3DS Max). Clicking open will bring you to the folder of the last file opened, but when you are working on more than one job, and want to open a file in the folder of a file you recently worked on, but not that specific file, you have to click your way their. In 3DS Max, I can click open, click the dropdown, and select a folder of a job I was working on days ago. It's so handy, especially if you have a large file structure because of many jobs/clients.