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Which CS3 Version Should I Buy?

nidserz

nidserz

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 28, 2008
955
16
Dubai x Toronto
Well I am planning my next Mac already (waiting for the updates) but have been thinking of taking advantage of the great prices on CS3 products Apple is giving with the purchase of a Mac.
I think its a pretty big investment so I want to purchase the right one which could cover any future interest.

I am very into web design, but casual, not working for a design company or anything - just for fun. Also I use photoshop a lot for fun - once again just editing some pictures, creating icons and banners for fun, nothing professional.

I am debating between Web Premium and Design Premium. They both have Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Flash, and Dreamweaver. The difference is that Design Premium has InDesign (Web does not) and Web Premium has Fireworks and Contribute (Design does not). I do not know much about those three applications so does anyone have a suggestion as to which one would be more useful? Are Fireworks/Contribute good? What about InDesign? I am only familiar with Photoshop / Illustrator so I don't really know what those are used for. I have heard about Fireworks and InDesign, but don't know which one I may want to use in the future as I don't know what each is good for.

Any advice would be really appreciated.
Thanks
 
Indesign is used for document layout - magazines, brochures, lets etc.

Fireworks is used to help create web pages etc. essentially it has taken over from adobe image ready.
 
Its been a while since i used Fireworks (probably Fireworks 8) but it basically allows you to graphically make webpages. you can edit the code after exporting. it also allows you to make animated pictures. so idk if they change much since then.

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/

the above link will tell you the difference between the CS3.3 products. about midway down the page it says "Product Selector." just check the boxes and it will tell you what they recommend.

hope this helps!
 
I think Fireworks is a must for web design, it's significantly better for slicing images. That being said, when CS3 first came out, the design premium package was $200 cheaper than the web premium, so I bought the design premium and then bought Fireworks separately for about $100 (student rates).

While, in theory, Contribute is a great program, unless all of your clients have it, are willing to buy it and are willing to learn how to use it, you'll likely find you won't use it as much as you think you will. Basically, Contribute lets your clients go in and make changes to the assigned parts of your web design (kind of like Dreamweaver's template system).
 
Thank you everyone for all you helpful information.
I'm just buying this for photoshop at the moment, but for an extra $200 in one shot i can get a great package.
Since I'm no professional and don't plan on getting too into web design, I think dreamweaver is sufficient enough for now - i will go with the design premium.
I can always purchase fireworks later if i need.
 
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