Although I can't fully disagree with Mark Willis' comment that transparency features should stay the domain of Photoshop, I strongly disagree with his assessment that InDesign is "clunky, non-intuitive, and awkward to use." In fact, as a longtime Adobe products user, I find the InDesign interface and workflow a natural progression from their other excellent products. (BTW, to brand Illustrator as having "only gotten worse" is, again, to miss out on many of its great new features). Yes, no software is perfect--we all have our gripes--but to quickly dismiss InDesign as he does is proof of his lack of familiarity. As Mr. Willis says, he's been using Quark since version 1.0. Naturally he feels more comfortable in Quark; he's been using it for years. I suspect if Mr. Willis dropped his preconceptions and gave InDesign an honest try he'd discover, as I have, that this is an excellent tool despite its current shortcomings. Stay tuned, Mark, InDesign will only get better.
Submitted by Scott Citron on Tue, 02/06/2001 - 10:22.
After reading the message from gyuen on problems at Service Bureaus with the new features of text transparencies of InDesign, there's something that needs to be said of it. The RIP has to be of Postscript level 3 to be able to render accurately this new features. That would possibly explain the problems experienced by service bureaus. Hope this helps!...
-Jerome
Submitted by Jerome Pare on Tue, 02/06/2001 - 11:44.
I agree with previous verbiage - get InDesign right, then start playing with the fancy stuff. I've got fancy now with Canvas and functionality with QXP.
I wish Adobe would spend a whole lot more time making InDesign an efficient production tool instead of adding fancy capabilities that I would be doing in Photoshop anyway.
InDesign has never fulfilled its pre-release hype of being a "Quark killer." It is clunky, non-intuitive, and awkward to use. In fact, it is a multi-page version of Illustrator, which I might add, has the same problems I've just attributed to InDesign.
What Adobe needs to do is left the Photoshop user interface team redo the user interfaces for both InDesign and Illustrator. THEN maybe we'd have some products worth using in a production environment.
I qualify as an expert in these issues: I've been professionally using Quark since v1.04, Illustrator since v1.0, and Photoshop since v2.05. Photoshop has had its ups and downs, but has generally improved overall. Illustrator has steadily gone downhill. Now that Photoshop handles text properly, my uses for Illustrator are steadily diminishing and my uses for InDesign almost non-existent.
Quark still has its problems, but has steadily improved, though their customer support still sucks. I'd abandon QXP in a New York minute if Adobe would ever get their InDesign act together.
Submitted by Mark Willis on Tue, 02/06/2001 - 06:06.
After Adobe added transparency effects to the last verion of Illustrator my prepress house told me of the myriad problems they encountered when designers used this feature. He actually heard from an Adobe rep that the feature was a "loaded gun".
InDesign's future
Although I can't fully disagree with Mark Willis' comment that transparency features should stay the domain of Photoshop, I strongly disagree with his assessment that InDesign is "clunky, non-intuitive, and awkward to use." In fact, as a longtime Adobe products user, I find the InDesign interface and workflow a natural progression from their other excellent products. (BTW, to brand Illustrator as having "only gotten worse" is, again, to miss out on many of its great new features). Yes, no software is perfect--we all have our gripes--but to quickly dismiss InDesign as he does is proof of his lack of familiarity. As Mr. Willis says, he's been using Quark since version 1.0. Naturally he feels more comfortable in Quark; he's been using it for years. I suspect if Mr. Willis dropped his preconceptions and gave InDesign an honest try he'd discover, as I have, that this is an excellent tool despite its current shortcomings. Stay tuned, Mark, InDesign will only get better.
Re: Transparency effects...
After reading the message from gyuen on problems at Service Bureaus with the new features of text transparencies of InDesign, there's something that needs to be said of it. The RIP has to be of Postscript level 3 to be able to render accurately this new features. That would possibly explain the problems experienced by service bureaus. Hope this helps!...
-Jerome
Fancy/schmancy
I agree with previous verbiage - get InDesign right, then start playing with the fancy stuff. I've got fancy now with Canvas and functionality with QXP.
Keep at it, tho'!
InDesign
I wish Adobe would spend a whole lot more time making InDesign an efficient production tool instead of adding fancy capabilities that I would be doing in Photoshop anyway.
InDesign has never fulfilled its pre-release hype of being a "Quark killer." It is clunky, non-intuitive, and awkward to use. In fact, it is a multi-page version of Illustrator, which I might add, has the same problems I've just attributed to InDesign.
What Adobe needs to do is left the Photoshop user interface team redo the user interfaces for both InDesign and Illustrator. THEN maybe we'd have some products worth using in a production environment.
I qualify as an expert in these issues: I've been professionally using Quark since v1.04, Illustrator since v1.0, and Photoshop since v2.05. Photoshop has had its ups and downs, but has generally improved overall. Illustrator has steadily gone downhill. Now that Photoshop handles text properly, my uses for Illustrator are steadily diminishing and my uses for InDesign almost non-existent.
Quark still has its problems, but has steadily improved, though their customer support still sucks. I'd abandon QXP in a New York minute if Adobe would ever get their InDesign act together.
transparency effects
After Adobe added transparency effects to the last verion of Illustrator my prepress house told me of the myriad problems they encountered when designers used this feature. He actually heard from an Adobe rep that the feature was a "loaded gun".