New Architect > Archives > 2000 > 06 > Design Product Review

At Home with Adobe Tools

By Melissa Piccone

Adobe Web Collection 2.0, a suite that includes LiveMotion, GoLive 5.0, Illustrator 9.0, and Photoshop 5.5, will be available in the U.S. and Canada for $999 in the second quarter 2000. The following two reviews by Melissa Piccone focus on two components in that product, the familiar ImageReady, and the brand-new LiveMotion. LiveMotion is a stand-alone product, and is shipping for $299.

Imageready 2.0

Adobe listened to many of the complaints about ImageReady 1.0 when it created ImageReady 2.0. The new product is not a stand-alone like its predecessor. Adobe has integrated it into Photoshop and included a toggle Jump To button to switch between the two programs. However, this isn't as convenient as it sounds. You must save your file, before the other program launches. Unfortunately, the second program takes the same amount of time it usually takes to open and the process eats up the same amount of memory as having two applications running. On the positive side, I rarely had to switch over to Photoshop, because ImageReady is now well equipped to handle most tasks. It has many of the same capabilities as Photoshop, including filters, the Crop tool (which was blatantly lacking in version 1.0), fully compatible type, the Rubber Stamp, and the Smudge tools.

ImageReady and LiveMotion Adobe www.a