The recent news that they will not support CS3 on Snow Leopard is just another sign, but it has been going on for a long time. For me the first time I noticed it was when I tried to upgrade to Windows Vista 64. Back then CS3 was the newest release and people running Photoshop are the most likely to want more than 4GB’s of RAM that a 64bit OS provides. However first off Adobe Acrobat Pro 8 would not even install without several error messages and trips to the message boards. Once it was installed the PDF printer would not work at all. It took several months for them to release a fix, and to this day CS3 still has some more minor visual bugs that stopped me moving to 64bit Vista.

Now they are going one step further and just saying if you move to Snow Leopard you are on your own. So the software I spent nearly $1,500 on (more than the total cost of my main computer) just over a year ago is now unsupported on OS I might want to use it on. I have heard some people say that CS3 runs on Snow Leopard, but that is not the point. CS3 is so large there are many features that may not work properly, and even more situations we can not predict. That’s why rely on Adobe to release patches and fixes when these bugs crop up. With this announcement they are basically saying screw you to all the more cutting edge people trying to upgrade to Snow Leopard, but can not afford the several hundred dollars “UPGRADE” cost to move to CS4 from CS3.

Adobe is creating a lot of bad will by trying to force people to pay $500 dollars a year to get a few features each year. Which is pretty much what you have to do if you want to get updates to your software and keep the thing working.

What scared me more was when I looked around at my alternatives they are really thin. There is no option with the amount of integration Adobe CS provides between applications and bridge. There are a bunch of separate apps that provide some of the functionality. I do not like where this is leading at all.

As an average user, I use a lot of the features of the Creative Suite, but I have not yet had any use for many of the new features of these applications. So as an average user the only change I am really noticing is the new user interface, and that is big.

From the first time I used Photoshop I would hate the way the screen looked with windows floating everywhere, and overlapping my workspace. The problems only got worse when resizing the application window, or opening new palettes (now called panels).

The new user interface is a huge improvement and fixes many of these problems. Now all the panels can be docked into sidebars on the left or right side of the screen. When docked they can either be expanded to show their usual options, or minimized to just an icon, or icon with text. When the panels are minimized you simply have to click on the icon and the panel slides out and allows you to select your options, then you can slide it back.

A simple design, but it makes the world of difference.

So far I am happy with the update, and excited to keep finding new tools to use in the future. The interface alone makes the upgrade worthwhile, so everything else is a bonus for me right now.