Adobe Creative Suite is a great tool for Web designers and Web developers. It offers extremely high-quality Web development and graphics tools. But how do you decide which edition you need? I was tempted by the Master Collection, just so I didn't have to decide, but it's really expensive. On the other hand, price isn't the only reason to choose your edition. This list shows you the best editions for Web designers and Web developers and how to choose between them. What is in the different Creative Suite editions?
1. Adobe Creative Suite Web Standard
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Creative Suite Web Standard is the minimum a freelancing Web designer needs to build and maintain Web sites. It comes with Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, and Contribute. These give you graphics editing, HTML editing, and Flash as well as Contribute to provide your customers with support. It also comes with Bridge to manage your images and Device Central to work with mobile devices. If you don't anticipate needing a lot of graphics manipulation, this is the perfect suite for a freelancer. It also offers a lot of features that a member of a Web design team can appreciate like check-in check-out, templates, and integrated version control.
2. Adobe Creative Suite Design Premium
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If you are a graphic artist and then a Web designer you should consider Creative Suite Design Premium. Unlike Design Standard which doesn't include Dreamweaver, Design Premium gives you InDesign, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, SoundBooth, and Acrobat. Because it includes Dreamweaver it includes all the power you need to build Web pages. But Web designers who focus more on multimedia (graphics and sound) and less on the purely HTML aspects of the job will appreciate this suite for the extra graphic features included in it.
3. Adobe Creative Suite Web Premium
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Creative Suite Web Premium is the best suite for Web designers who do it all on the Web - such as 1-person freelance shops. It offers a great combination of graphics programs (Photoshop extended, Fireworks, and Illustrator), Web programs (Dreamweaver and Contribute), multimedia applications (Flash and SoundBooth) and additional support programs (Acrobat, Bridge, and Device Central). This is the suite that I prefer of the Creative Suite editions as it provides me with all the tools I need without a lot of extra features.
4. Adobe Creative Suite Master Collection
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Creative Suite Master Collection is the ultimate in creativity suites, and the price reflects that. It includes all of the Adobe design products including Dreamweaver, Photoshop extended, Illustrator, Flash, InDesign, Acrobat, Contribute. Plus all the production products like AfterEffects, Premiere, SoundBooth, and Encore. If you plan to do video editing along with your Web design, you might want to look at this suite to get them all bundled together. But it might be less expensive to buy only the exact products you need. You should do an evaluation of what your needs are, unless the price of the Master Collection doesn't daunt you (or your purchasing department).
5. Other Adobe Creative Suite Collections
Adobe Creative Suite 4 also comes in Production Standard and Production Premium editions. These editions include products like AfterEffects, Soundbooth, and Premier, as well as graphics programs (like Photoshop and Illustrator). They don't come with Dreamweaver, so I don't believe they make good Web design tools. If you need to do video or sound editing for your Web sites, you might want to look at purchasing the products you need separately, or looking again at the Master Collection.Do you own a version of Creative Suite? Which one did you get, and why? If you don't own a version of Creative Suite, which one would you want to use?
