Make sure you check out the launch of Adobe CS3 today at 3:30pm EST.
The new products include:
- Adobe InDesign CS3
- Adobe Photoshop CS3
- Adobe Illustrator CS3
- Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional
- Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
- Adobe Dreamweaver CS3
- Adobe Fireworks CS3
- Adobe Contribute CS3
- Adobe After Effects CS3
- Adobe Premiere Pro CS3
- Adobe Encore CS3
- Adobe Soundbooth CS3
The launch will be broadcasted here:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/launchevent/webcast/
If you are interested, here are the new features of Flash CS3
http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/features/
The end of the long anticipated wait for Adobe Creative Suite 3 is almost here. I got my first glimpse of the goodness to come in Las Vegas at Adobe MAX 2006. I expect the differences between Adobe and Macromedia products will finally come to an end as the best of both worlds are merged into one. Of course I’m mainly interested in Flash CS3. I never managed to make it onto the beta testing list and the Flash 9 alpha was Flash 8 with ActionScript 3 support, which was fun to play around with, but boasted no new interface enhancements and other goodies. Friends who did make it onto the beta have told me about some of the new features and I’m pretty stoked to try them out for myself.
The official announcement from the Adobe Creative Solutions PR team.
http://blogs.adobe.com/creativesolutionspr/
Fraser 
A good friend and colleague of mine Scott Morgan has left us at Critical Mass and has taken a position as the Flash Manager at Yahoo! in sunny California. I’m really going to miss working with him, but I’m also very happy for him. This will be a great experience and I really can’t blame him for not turning it down. Plus, it is freezing up here in Calgary. He just told me he is going to be meeting with Mike Chambers and Ted Patrick later this week and that Yahoo! already has the latest beta (not alpha) of Flash CS3 (Blaze). Scott you lucky bastard!
Congratulations and the best of luck Scott!
P.S. Make sure you say hi to Schiller and Dr. Yes for me.
Mike Downey presented a preview of the next version of Flash (codename Blaze) at Flashforward Austin 2006. New features include the ability to import Photoshop files directly into Flash allowing for precise control over every layer. You can make choices about each layer separately and also edit the imported text fields. There will be support for layer modes, drop shadows, blurs, and more. Flash will also be using the the JPEG compression from the next version of Photoshop.
If you have any ideas for Blaze you should submit them to the Flash 9 wishlist.
I was just told that the next release of Flash with be titled Adobe Flash CS3. If you are unfamiliar with CS, it stands for Creative Suite. The current release of Adobe’s Creative Suite is CS2, so I think we can expect a whole bundle of software being released at the same time that may include titles such as Flash CS3, Photoshop CS3, IllHand CS3 (Illustrator + Freehand), InDesign CS3, DreamLive CS3 (Dreamweaver + GoLive), Acrobat Paper CS3 (Acrobat + Flash Paper) and more. This is all just speculation on my part, so don’t take my word for it. I am pretty sure about the Flash CS3 part of it though.
The new Flash CS3 will definitely have enhancements to its importing abilities with Photoshop and Illustrator. From what I have heard, you will be able to access bitmaps and vectors right down to a specific layer within the import window. I am sure copy & paste between programs will function a lot smoother than previously.
Fraser