Adobe software for image editing and web design - confused

[Italian]

Hallo and a happy new year
I am new in this forum and I hope you can help me with a question.
Although this is mainly a forum about photography and Pentax I also found in this section some posts about the other adobe programs of the creative suite. I have seen there are some people who do image editing and web design in this forum.
Up to now I used gimp (for a short time), Photoshop Elements 6 and coding oriented html/css editors (not wysiwyg). I made courses about / working with Photoshop CS3 standard and Indesign. So I have some experience, but not enough to decide on my questions concerning the Adobe software. I know you can download trial versions. But I think you will not get a real full insight in the software only by playing a bit with it. My opinion is, that you only really get insight working with software on projects / "real life". So I hope here are some people who are working in this field of activity (image editing and web design).
Answering my questions or only giving me your opinion would help me a lot

I would like to buy the adobe products I need to do tasks in web design, image editin and text layout. So I have looked on the adobe website and found two possibilities to buy the software I think would need.
I am from Germany - I do not know wether the Adobe creative suites differ from country to country concerning the combination of the Adobe suites. And I am still student - so I will buy student or the academic versions. So my two possibilities are:

A) The first possibility would be to buy 2 seperate suites: Creative Suite Web Standard + Creative Suite Design Standard. These two suites would contain:
Design Standard: InDesign CS3, Photoshop CS3, Illustrator CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional
Web Standard: Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, Adobe Fireworks CS3 (as a replacement for Imageready, which is no longer part of photoshop), Adobe Contribute CS3

B) The second possibility would be to buy the "Creative Suite Design Premium". This one would contain the following programs:
InDesign CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, Acrobat 8 Professional, Flash CS3 Professional, Dreamweaver CS3 Professional

So the advantage of the "Creative Suite 3 Design Premium" is:
- the extended version of Photoshop
- the professional version of Dreamweaver

The disadvantage of the "Creative Suite 3 Design Premium" is:
- Fireworks and Contribution is not part of the suite. This is espacially annoying, because ImageReady is no longer part of Photoshop.


Now the questions:
- I have tried to read a lot about the programs. So - if I have understood right - you do not need the extended version of photoshop for image editing. Is that correct?

The end of ImageReady seems to be a big problem for some people used to work with Adobe suites. And there are even people who go back to version CS2 only to get back ImageReady.
Adobe tries to tell the people they would have transferred the skills from ImageReady to Photoshop - and Fireworks should do now the things Photoshop can not do as well as ImageReady.
But there seem to be a lot of people who do not want to work with Fireworks or who are not content with it.

I do not produce 3D Animations, but I do webdesign. So, if there is someone who knows the photoshop versions in detail and who knows perhaps even Fireworks:
- Which software packages [A) or B)] of these two would you recommend to buy? So, what is more useful for webdesign: the extended version of Photoshop or Fireworks as an additional programm?
Or would you even say for web design you do not need Fireworks and you do not need the extended version. Do the new CS3 versions of Dreamweaver and Photoshop work together in a way, that makes possible a good workflow in the field of activity of webdesign without ImageReady or Fireworks?

A) Creative Suite Web Standard + Creative Suite Design Standard
+ plus Fireworks and Contribution
- "only" the standard versions of photoshop and dreamweaver

B) Creative Suite 3 Design Premium
+ extended version of Photoshop and professional version of Dreamweaver
- no Fireworks and no Contribution

What do you think?

[davemdsn]

I can't speak to the web design questions, but for the question about Photoshop CS3 vs Photoshop CS3 Extended... You do not need Extended for photo editing. The extended version is for 3D, motion and web animation.

I am one who is disappointed over the over complication of Adobe products. It used to be that they had a handful of very powerful products that were available separately or in a suite. Now they have different versions of the same program, they have divided the programs into more programs, and they have several different suites. They are probably trying to boost individual sales, but it could backfire.

[ricardobeat]

I'd say those suites are for studios. You can do all the web design you need using Notepad :] There also is an open-source program called Nvu if I'm not mistaken, it's good enough. If you're not using any server-side technology or the like, there is no need for Dreamweaver, it'll just play havoc with your code.

Fireworks works ok, but there is nothing in it that Photoshop or Corel Photo-paint can't handle. Slicing images? pff.

Simple and cheap is the way to go!

[Cloudy Wizzard]

Originally Posted by ricardobeat

I'd say those suites are for studios. You can do all the web design you need using Notepad :] There also is an open-source program called Nvu if I'm not mistaken,

Yes, NVU (pronounced N-View). It's started by the people at Linspire (based on the Mozilla Composer I guess).

Anyways, I think the NVU project isn't very active anymore. Their site has the 1.0 release but that's fairly old (stuff usable though).

I think this project is replaced bij Kompozer. At least the NVU site calls it Unofficial Bugfixes.

[Cloudy Wizzard]

Originally Posted by davemdsn

I am one who is disappointed over the over complication of Adobe products. It used to be that they had a handful of very powerful products that were available separately or in a suite. Now they have different versions of the same program, they have divided the programs into more programs, and they have several different suites. They are probably trying to boost individual sales, but it could backfire.

Well I guess did at least did some market research before making those decisions.

But maybe it would be better if they just had their customers build their own suites.
You know something like buit 1 product pay 100% of the price. Add 1 product and get a 10% discount, ...

this way people could decide what they need/want in their suite and just get that. Now Adobe decides for you that if you want Graphics and Web desigh you need Photoshop Extended since they only have Dreamweaver AND Photoshop in same suite if you pick the Premium suite and the Premium suite always has Photoshop CS3 Extended.