Boy, there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think how much more productive I could be if every single one of my creative apps ran online.

Wait.

Scratch that. No, I’ve actually never thought that.

Online applications can be fantastic. I’m using one right now. Having Flickr for photos and Vimeo for videos, and so on, can vastly expand the potential of what you can do with media. And I certainly see casual users of those applications preferring online services in some cases. (On the other hand, I also know even a lot of casual photographers who would rather sit in Aperture or Lightroom and tweak their photos than struggle with a Web app — for them, the Web is about uploading and sharing, not editing.)

It’s just really hard to see why pros would need to do everything online. And here’s the fundamental problem: why are we talking about taking applications online rather than taking online to applications? Witness Adobe’s Bruce Chizen making vague predictions about the far-off future — ten years, to be exact. By that point, we might as well start talking about how we’ll all be flooded by global warming and under attack by the Mutant Bug People who have dominated the Earth. But in ten years, says Adobe, their products will be fully online. Why? Uh … haven’t figure that one out yet, evidently.

Let’s cut through the marketing. Adobe has a new, giant box of software. It’s a giant box of software you’re probably going to get if you do visual work. It’s finally a box of software that runs on Intel Macs at speeds that don’t make you feel like your Mac Pro is a blue&white G3. And it does a bunch of stuff that you’ll have to, well, learn.

We’ve got enough of a preview, though, to see that there’s a lot to be truly excited about. Most importantly, Photoshop finally understands time and animation, enabling all kinds of artistic effects working directly with animations and video and painting on frames. And After Effects finally eases some animation tasks, opening up some unique effects with vectors and 2D. For visualists wanting to build better materials for live and interactive production by creating more original footage, all of this opens up some interesting new possibilities. (Disclaimer: what looks great on paper means nothing until you’ve tested this. So consider this a preview until we get out review copy.)

So, getting straight to it, what’s cool for visualists in CS3? We’ll be answering that question over the coming months, but here’s the shortened version, plus the arcane and bizarre ways CDMotioners intend to warp Adobe’s tools beyond their PR firm’s wildest expectations:

Flash, All Integrated Up

1. Native Photoshop and Illustrator import. Finally, you’ll be able to work with full-fidelity, seamlessly-imported files from other tools. Some people love Flash’s own vector tools, of course, but no one won’t love the ability to link up with Photoshop and import, complete with layers. CDMo is excited about: insane, multi-layered graphics for VJing in Flash.


2. Edit audio cues easily. Part of why I’m excited about Soundbooth CS3, Adobe’s new audio app, is that it’s perfectly-suited for editing audio for Flash (and, other marketing ideas beside, I’m fairly certain that’s how the tool came about in the first place). More on Soundbooth over at Create Digital Music.

After Effects, Now Better at Animation

1. Shape Layers. Draw and animate vector shapes in After Effects, without leaving the program. CDMo angle: I could see doing a whole gig’s footage with this feature alone.
2. Puppet. Manipulates and warps 2D images for animation. CDMo angle: Your challenge is to use this without looking like all the other motion graphics artists who are about to overuse it. I’m sure it can be done; I love the impact of manipulating 2D and quasi-3D After Effects.
3. Brainstorm. Generate and preview “animation variations.” Again, AE goes to better animation.

On the eve of Macworld Expo, Adobe has announced it’s finally restoring feature parity between the Mac and Windows versions of its Production Studio suite. That means Premiere Pro, its video editing app, and Encore DVD, its DVD authoring package, will both be available as part of the Mac suite.

That makes three Intel-native (and Intel-only) Mac releases:

1. Premiere Pro: First Mac release since its completely-rebuilt, Windows-only 2003 upgrade. (see original Adobe announcement)
2. Encore DVD: First time on the Mac since its 2003 introduction.
3. Soundbooth: New product; first major Adobe-developed Mac audio app ever and the first “Macromedia” audio app since SoundEdit 16 sales were discontinued in 2004 (after a long, slow death).

Macworld News: Adobe brings Premiere back to the Mac (Official Adobe announcement due later today)

Intel-only Soundbooth development caused a bit of a stir in the Mac community, but it’s clear that Adobe has decided they can develop these products for two platforms if it means developing for only one processor architecture. After a difficult year of making the Intel transition, in other words, 2007 will be the year Mac users can reap the rewards. I’ll be especially interested to see what video performance is like in the OS X release of Premiere, as the Mac has some very nice optimizations for video.

The response so far from Mac users seems to be very positive; a lot of Mac advocates are (rightfully) seeing this as real momentum — long lost momentum — for the Mac platform. Some will continue to question Adobe’s Mac commitment, but it’s important to note that Adobe didn’t really “drop” Premiere support on Mac. They re-built Premiere almost from scratch in 2003, and decided it didn’t make sense to make that version run on the Mac, partly because Apple made it clear they wanted to own the whole platform. Don’t get me wrong: I love Apple’s pro apps, both on the music and visual side. But I love multiple vendors and competition even more.

Ironically, the biggest challenge facing the Mac release may be that Mac users just aren’t very familiar with the package. I’ll talk this weekend about some of the integration features, but as good as Final Cut Studio is, my own feeling is that Adobe’s suite has both better, more comprehensive integration, and a more complete suite to integrate in the first place. Motion, while a powerful tool, isn’t comparable to After Effects, and Apple has no equivalent of Photoshop or Illustrator.

But whichever suite you choose — or if you use a combination of both — for the first time in a long time, the Mac will have some real competition. And Mac creatives won’t have to go buy a PC just to run the full suite. Windows just won my 2006 platform pick. The Mac may dominate 2007.

Now, about a Mac release of DV Rack to complete the picture. (Hey, at worst you can boot into Windows on Boot Camp.) (Jaymis: Your wish is their command: Previously mentioned ScopeBox was released recently and is the subject of an extensive review and comparison with DV Rack. Of course, Adobe have purchased Serious Magic, so the future may indeed hold a Production Suite bundled tethered shooting tools.)

Adobe will have demos of Premiere next week at Macworld; we’ll be there to cover it.