I’m delighted to say that the biggest and best release in Adobe’s history is now shipping! Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Bridge, Contribute, Device Central, and Version Cue are now available via the Adobe.com store and can be downloaded in tryout form shortly. The CS3 editions of After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Soundbooth will be shipping this summer, and they’re available as pre-release downloads from Adobe Labs.
One important note: If you’ve installed a beta build of Photoshop, Flash, Soundbooth, or other CS3 software, you must first uninstall the app(s) before installing the shipping versions:
- On the Mac, the uninstaller is in Applications/Utilities/Adobe Installers. Note: You cannot uninstall by dragging CS3 applications to the trash; instead, you must use the uninstaller.
- On Windows XP, uninstall via Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel.
- On Windows Vista, in the Programs section of the Control Panel, select Uninstall a Program.
If you experience problems with the uninstall or the install, you may need to use the Adobe CS3 Clean Script which will be available within a few days. [Update: The Mac version is available now; Windows is due shortly. –J.]
“One important note: If you’ve installed a beta build of Photoshop, Flash, Soundbooth, or other CS3 software, you must first uninstall the app(s) before installing the shipping versions”
Can you reinstall them after you install AE and PPro beta?
[Possibly, but I’m not sure why you would: the Photoshop public beta expires at the beginning of May, and the shipping version corrects various bugs reported against the beta. Therefore I don’t see a reason to re-install the beta.
The info above applies to the shipping software, and I haven’t been given info about how the AE/PPro betas factor into things. I’ll look into gathering more details. –J.]
Goody Goody Goody Goody Goody Goody Goody Goody Goody Goody Goody …well, you get the picture…
John,
I was just talking on the phone with the Adobe store. They told me I do not get a free upgrade to CS3 even though I upgraded to CS 2.3 after the 27th. They said I was just buying upgrades to Acrobat and Dreamweaver, so I do not qualify. And then they have the nerve to say not only do I not get the free CS3 upgrade I was told on the phone I would get from an Adobe salesperson, but I am now going to have to pay an additional $440 on top of the $159 I paid a month ago! This is ridiculous! It’s bait and switch.
I am not happy with Adobe at all. This is VERY BAD policy to do this, not to mention illegal. What is Adobe going to do to make this right?
Heya John, could you please define “shortly” in terms of the release of the CS3 trial downloads? After looking on Adobe’s site, all I could find was a blurb saying:
“We expect trial versions of each of the Adobe Creative Suite 3 editions and component products to be available within six to eights weeks of the product’s shipping.”
I’m hoping I’m missing something, as I’d love to start using trial editions while I wait for my boxed copy to arrive.
[I’m with you, Jon. I’m beating a drum about this right now. At worst it’ll take another three weeks, but I’m trying to make it happen sooner. –J.]
Phew and at double the cost over here in the U.K.
Forget it! I’d love to have it but it’s totally out of my reach, especially being semi-retired.
I think a lot of U.K. photographers are going to be very negative too. Adobe could lose a lot of custom…
Awesome! The day I’ve been waiting for!
We’ve got several workstations just waiting for Photoshop. However I don’t see the download available yet … a test in patience I suppose…
Thanks to you and the legions of hard-working engineers that have made my job not only easier and more enjoyable, but simply POSSIBLE. Your software makes my job possible.
Thanks again and congratulations.
Just wondering what happened to the CS 2.3 premium discount. Wasn’t Premium supposed to be available to those users for $450 in the US? I remember seeing it on the site before and now there is no mention of it but there was nothing saying it was for pre-orders only or that it was a limited time offer.
[Let me see what I can find out. –J.]
John,
Do know if volume licensing is going to be even close to the same schedule for shipping and download availability. I am concerned because usually it seems they lag a bit behind the consumer side of the house, but if the the PS CS3 beta expires prior to the availability for volume customers it could be problematic.
Thanks,
Tom
I have a gripe about the new pricing scheme for upgrades, and this seems as appropriate a place as any – perhaps John can enlighten?
As an owner of Macromedia Studio MX, MX2004 & Studio 8 over the past years, and an owner of Adobe Web Collection, Creative Suite Premium and Creative Suite 2 Premium; why do I not qualify for a further reduction on the upgrade price for CS3 Design Premium? The upgrade is covering all apps I already have licensed, and whereas previously I would have had to pay out two seperate upgrades, I still would have received an upgrade concession on the former macromedia suite, whereas the balance seems to bias towards people who only previously owned Adobe Suites – i.e. I have the latest version of Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks *and* Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat (actually, not the latest version anymore) etc etc – but my upgrade eligibility is set by the ownership only of the former Adobe products. What’s especially grating is that CS2.3 owners get additional upgrade options, but as I already have Studio 8 the upgrade to 2.3 was a no-brainer – absolutely nothing to gain from my P.O.V.
Other than that, really looking forward to getting my hands on the new apps, and giving them a good road-test in anger.
Sam
John, when is CS3 available for customers in the UK? Thanks!
[I don’t know, Hao; I thought it was available now. I’ll check. (Man, there are a lot of details to track these days.) –J.]
Maybe shipping for some. My order for CS3 Web Premium ordered from Adobe says not until the 23rd.
hi,
Just a quick question. I was on line with customer service for several hours today and got really frustrated. Can you please tell me if you can only download the new ae beta version if you have only a license for ae and not if you have the Production Studio Premium. I was told today that because I have the bundled version I can not dowload the ae beta version, eventhough the premium version has the ae professional. How was I able to download the photohop cs3 version eventhough I had the creative suite cs2? It makes no sense for me at all. Please help!!! I was really excited that I could preview the new beta version. Thank You.
when the Adobe CS3 Clean script is available will you notify us?
I’ve runned the uninstall, and removed all the listed files and still can’t install CS3, what a pain.
[I know; believe me, the process of getting the Adobe and Macromedia apps onto a single installer platform while dealing with Mactel & Vista was a vale of tears. Anyway, please try the script, which has just been posted for Mac and which will be posted for Windows in the next couple of days. –J.]
Thank John for everything
~m
[You bet. –J.]
Adobe should give serious consideration to offering the “Image Stacking” collection of Photoshop scripts at a price that is less than the difference between Standard and Extended Photoshop to photographers who otherwise have no need for 3D and the scientific features of Photoshop CS3 Extended.
i have the Mac download CS3 Design premium, and i have tryed to install it many times and some of the shared components installed the first time but none of the main apps did and still wouldn’t in other tries. what should i do? should i use the clean sweep script?
thanks
Chase
Hey John, great news. Do you know if there still is a link up for the Flash alpha that was up in Labs? I have it on my home pc but wanted to try some stuff out at work while the trail doesn’t come out.
Greg
[Hmm–it seems that’s been removed. The Flash alpha was only meant to make ActionScript 3.0 support available for testing, so it wouldn’t be useful for previewing any of the other CS3 features. –J.]
John, for sure, CS3 is not available in Europe including the UK, for the time being. It is very frustrating that the products from Adobe are always late for UK customers compared to the States and with much more expensive prices. And the Customer Services in the UK is really bad.
John,
What is shipping? I pre-ordered CS3 Web Premium back in March, and my order status is still set to “Pending” (5 days after your announcement. It looks like I am being penalized for pre-ordering. I have tried contacting Customer Service, but I am only getting the run around. (Phone help desk says I need to submit a ticket online, online says I need to call, then phone says I need to send an email…). Are you sure this is really shipping? Sure wish I could download it… 🙁
Ray
[Sorry for the run-around, Ray. I don’t know the exact status of shipping products. Everything started shipping Monday morning, so I’m not surprised that the phones are jammed up and that not everything has gotten onto store shelves or into the mail. That said, I’ll see what I can find out. –J.]
In my experience Adobe has done a fine job at paying attentiont to workflow. They’ve allowed a fair share of customization and an impressive offering of automation with actions, javascript and Applescriptablity. Hence I’m a bit surprised that there aren’t any Automator Workflow Action sets available. Am I missing something or is this really the case? To the bang-up extent that Adobe has wired the Suite for Applescript, I had hopes that Adobe would walk the last mile and drum up some clever Automator Actions. Silly me.
[We can’t do everything ourselves, and time spent on one thing comes at the expense of something else. Adobe’s job it to make the plumbing robust and to prime the pump where possible; it’s up to the community to exercise the plumbing. –J.]
Any knowledge on why Adobe passed on this? As a developer and a designer I can live with my text editor, but I know a slew of “right-brained” Suite users for which script-reading/writing is akin to translating Archaic Sumerian.
While all the power of Scripting can’t be woven into Automator, I have to imagine that there are still many useful Actions that could be created to give the non script-savvy some more options for automation and integration.
Maybe Adobe hopes third-parties will continue attempts to fill the void?
[Absolutely. –J.]
John,
I think you should be commended (eh,hmm maybe committed) for the incredible job you do with this blog and the way you go about attempting to give/get answers. I can’t imagine, what with your ‘regular’ job, that you have any time for this… when the heck do you sleep? Amazing.
That said, I’m with RAY. I too ponied up $600+ for my upgrade on a PreOrder and have yet to see squat. What was the point of PreOrdering when folks can go out TODAY, and buy & download product before I can get it. Please pass on our collective displeasure to SALES and whomever is responsible for Product Distribution. Its frustrating to read your blogs this week, with all the excitement emaninating from them, and NOT be able to do a single thing with CS3 because ADOBE doesn’t think… well, I don’t know what ADOBE is thinking… I just can’t imagine treating my loyal customers this way. Shame on me for expecting more I suppose. I thought, for some strange reason, that a preOrder would mean that I’d be among the first to get the product that I have been eagerly anticipating since I downloaded and started to use the public beta (bugs and all, I love it!). Again, No reflection on you, but somewhere else in ADOBE it is obvious that they do not share your quality of character. We arguably don’t mean as much to them.
…excuse me, I’m going back to my buggy beta.
Keep up the Incredible Work. I am an unabashed fan.
Rich
Well put Rich… The sales / distribution teams certainly have come up short here… Shows what happens when lack of competition exists in the marketplace… affords companies a certain degree of arrogance.
[Hang on a sec, Jim. I can appreciate that you guys want the software, and I’m very glad for that. But it just started shipping a matter of days ago. The fact that not every copy hast yet gotten off the trucks isn’t tantamount to World War III. Frankly it’s pretty hard to hear that Adobe is arrogant, etc. after we bust ass to put out public betas of Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere, Soundbooth, etc. I’d like to accentuate the positive… –J.]
John, if there is any way for you to influence a download option for Adobe’s loyal customers… the ones who put there money up front, we would be appreciative.
[*Believe me* I’m working on it. The situation will be fixed within two weeks. I’m continuing to try to make it happen faster. I’m annoyed that various people dropped the ball here, and I wish there were more accountability for stuff like that. –J.]
What chaps my hide is this: I pre-ordered CS3 on March 29th and it said it was shipping on April 16th. Some time later it says “Estimated delivery” is on April 23rd. As a customer, who sees a shipping date and plans around it, and one that also pays for “express” shipping, I feel ripped off.
Add to that, it is now the 24th of April and there still appears the product has not shipped. Here’s the thing – if I order a $10 book from, say, Amazon – I expect it to be here when it says it will be here, not change the dates and fail to meet them repeatedly (this comes awful close to bait and switch). For a product a customer is paying over $1500 for, the least you would expect is that it would be on time within reason.
I also had a pretty bad experience on the Adobe online store, while checking for my order status a few weeks back. I went to an informational screen on my account and someone else’s info populated all the fields – I am not on a public computer so it wasn’t a cookie issue. It was, however, pretty disturbing. I contacted Adobe and they blew it off – yikes.
Obviously these things are not your fault, I just found this blog and needed a place to vent.
Hi John,
I’m a Photoshop CS2 and After Effects 7 user and I have been wanting to update to the Production Premium package for Photoshop Extended and AE CS3 along with Encore, etc. However, since that package is not shipping until sometime later in the year, this is going to leave me with several months that I’ll be unable to use Photoshop CS3 on my Mac Pro since the beta will have expired. Why is Adobe not offering purchasers of the Production Premium the ability to gain access to the applications that are ready now, and then ship them the ones that are in beta (AE and PPro). It seems as though we’re stuck in a holding pattern until all the apps are ready, and for me that’s almost reason to just purchase the Photoshop Extended and AE individual upgrades, so that I can actually use Photoshop CS3 for the next few months and then get AE later. Any ideas?
Thanks and I enjoy reading your blog often,
Santiago
Hi John,
Not sure if you can answer this or not – I’m struggling for answers…
What if I did what I wasn’t supposed to – I dragged PS3 Beta to the trash instead of using the uninstaller. The clean-script ran, but didn’t change anything for me… I still can not install.
When I do run the uninstall – it says I should reinstall PS3 beta – but of course that’s not available anymore.
Any ideas?
[Victor, let me see what I can find out. –J.]
Adobe are really having a laugh with the pricing structure of CS3. I bought a license for a premium CS2 less than a month ago and am now being asked to cough up £534 to upgrade. Are you kidding?
[Have you called customer service? I’d really encourage you to do so. –J.]
I installed photoshop extended (free trail). After i get the code, i only get an other 30 days. Anyone with the same problems?
I also ordered Premiere CS3, but don’t remember reading a delay in shipping. Is there a delay? My order (placed July 11) still shows pending.
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