The Truth About Adobe

Adobe offers all of the necessary tools for everyone from design novices to professionals to develop any type of website or online application. You are only limited by your imagination.

Adobe just released its CS5 family of software. Adobe offers all of its software as standalone purchases and they also offer bundles, including one for web designing - Creative Suite 5 Web Premium. The applications included in this bundle or suite are: Dreamweaver, Flash Catalyst, Flash Professional, Flash Builder 4 Standard, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Acrobat 9 Pro, Fireworks and Contribute. At $1799.00 retail, it is a little on the costly side but you can buy each application separately and to build a website, you do not need this entire package.

Let me share with you the Adobe apps that I used to design websites for clients as well some websites for myself:

• Fireworks (FW) - FW has evolved over time to an app that can create some really awesome website prototypes for clients. I must admit that I was a little disappointed with some of the changes because I used to create my entire layout (interactivity and all) in FW, slice up the pages and then export the entire to Dreamweaver (DW). DW would reassemble the page and I was pretty much ready to upload it to the server for launching. This functionality for slicing pages has been changed dramatically and cannot be done the same way as in previous versions. But if you want to create mock-ups, click-throughs with animation, menus - the whole nine yards, FW can work wonders for you and really impress your clients! FW is also great for working with images.

• Photoshop (PS) - Many web designers use PS to create entire websites. I had never used PS for full site creation because I was still slicing up sites in Fireworks. PS is also great for image editing and optimization for your website. Any photos that you want on your websites, this is the application to use. Banners, images with cool fonts, collages - you name it, if it involves images, there is no limit to what PS can do. It has always been a valuable tool for photographers but has had a lot functionality built into it over the past several years for web development.

• Dreamweaver (DW) - You can design an entire website in DW without using any other application. But because of the customization of websites, images are usually created in other applications like Fireworks and Photoshop and exported into DW as content and backgrounds. DW is allows you to manage your sites within the application. This is very helpful for website designers because if you are uploading your website files to a remote server, you can configure your FTP settings within DW and upload.

• Flash - When you are browsing the Internet and see all of the animated ads - all of the cool effects, they were probably developed in Flash. Many of the movie studios create these spectacular Flash websites to promote movies. Go to www.themovies.com, to see some of them in action. When you click to see the trailer, you should see a link (on most of the movies) that will take you to the "official movie site" where you will be in awe of what you see. Flash programmers are in high demand and make great money. They are super talented and know their stuff. Flash is not the easiest application to grasp. The learning curve can be somewhat steep but with each new release, it seems like Adobe tries to make Flash more user friendly. I haven't had the opportunity to check out Flash CS5, but I'm sure that Adobe has continued to improve on an already fabulous product.

FYI - If you want the effects of Flash but do not have the time (or patience) to learn Flash, there is an application called Swish that is an excellent alternative. It is definitely easier to use, with more of a drag and drop environment. Swish is good if you want to create simple animations for your pages - maybe some pictures fading in with words changing...that type of thing. The only down side with Swish is that there is not currently a Mac version (sniff sniff...). That was a little disappointing but you can learn how I got around that by reading the article "Should You Switch to a Mac?" Swish is also less expensive at $149.95.

There are only a gazillion books and tutorials available to help you learn any of the Adobe applications. I highly recommend Lynda.com. Lynda.com offers online training of a wide variety of software applications - including the entire Adobe family of products. For only $25 per month, you can take all of the online training that you need and cancel at any time. It is well worth it. I have been able to enhance my skills with many of their tutorials and I had my first exposure to Joomla - a content management system (CMS) through Lynda.com. For an additional $10, you can download the exercise files so that you work on the same projects as the instructors.

As I mentioned above, Adobe products can be a little pricey but all of their products are available for a 30-day free trial download. Also, if you are in education or you are the owner of a non-profit organization, you may be eligible for discounts. You can also check on Amazon or Ebay for older versions. I have found so great software deals this way. You may come across unopened CS4 versions which may be considerably cheaper than a new CS5 package. Of course before purchasing software (or any other product) on Ebay and Amazon, read the reviews of the seller and check out their history to be sure that the seller is legitimate and that they have a high approval rating. I was scammed once on Amazon by a seller when I tried to purchase a less expensive version of an application. I paid for the software but never received it after sending several inquiries to the seller. But in the end, I was promptly refunded my money by Amazon.

There are many website tools available to help small business owners create their online presence. I will do the research and bring you useful information that will help you to find the best productivity tools for your online marketing needs.