Adobe is 25, and I’m still young.
Adobe: The second quarter-century begins
Just think.. Adobe is only 25 years old.. in another 25 years, you won’t even have to “Photoshop” your pictures… they’ll come out of your digital camera as PSDs with layer masks already in place. Imagine PSD as the future camera RAW.
I must admit, I am relatively new to creative design software… compared to some well-seasoned folks. I started out with Photoshop 5 for Windows in 1998 and taught myself enough to make my first band’s DIY CD artwork. I couldn’t imagine doing it with another program. Back then, InDesign didn’t exist. I didn’t know how to use Illustrator. And I didn’t even know what QuarkXPress or PageMaker was. The other graphics program for me was Microsoft Image Composer, which I liked VERY much. It was SUPER easy to do cool things like gradients.
I began doing websites using either notepad or Microsoft Frontpage earlier than that, in 1995. I was in 7th grade. I remember thinking about how cool Frontpage Extensions would be if they really worked. I think they were more of a pain. The other alternative for me was Netscape Navigator and it’s built in editor. It did NOT play well with Frontpage. Framesets were the thing to do then. One of my very first sites somehow has survived the past decade without being touched. You can go look at it here. I have no idea how to log in to change anything, delete the account or whatever. I thought it was history when Yahoo! took over Geocities, but it survived.
And so, in this short time that I’ve been keeping up with Adobe, I have come to realize that it’s not what your software can do, but what your software enables you to do. With Creative Suite 3, I truly find myself concentrating more on what I am creating instead of how I am going to create it. It no longer matters what program I start out in, because workflow is so streamlined that I can work on the same design in multiple applications if needed. That’s what it is all about. I congratulate Adobe on this fine achievement.
And right now, it is 5:16 AM, and I need to be waking up at 7 AM. I tried to go to bed 3 times already, but I suppose my nocturnal self doesn’t want to sleep.