Hi people.

Well, Im a little confussed right now about the Adobe Suite of products... since their description is not really clear...

I mean, supossedly, Premier is the "industry standard" for video editing, and photoshop the defacto standard as well for image edition...
But what about Elements, Illustrator, InDesign, InCopy and After Effects?

Elements... is a stripped down version of their other programs. "Photoshop Elements" can be translated "Photoshop with all the good stuff taken out". Don't waste your time.

Illustrator... is for illustrating. It's not the same as Photoshop at all. It focuses on drawing tools and suchnot for people who do graphic design or illustration.

InDesign is for page layout. Brochures, pamphlets, publications, etc. although I've always felt that InDesign was inferior to the program it was intended to replace - PageMaker. The ULTIMATE layout program is FrameMaker, but that's very VERY expensive.

AfterEffects is ... for motion graphics. Animations and the like.

InCopy is part of their "collaborative workspace" thing, it's for allowing a whole bunch of people to edit documents. Frankly, I dislike Adobe's entire "workspace" concept, although it IS, I suppose, a step in the right direction.

Whoa Gurm, you seem to be in the right track

So, one thing that is not clear is "illustrating"...like what is it exactly? I mean you say "people who do graphic design or illustration" isnt photoshop like the same thing or...?

And AfterEffects... so is it like Macromedia's Fireworks or something like that?

Thanks man.

Aftereffects is, yes, similar to Fireworks.

As for "illustrating"... Photoshop is for photos. Digital images. Photoshop is relatively useless for DRAWING. You have the line tool and the pencil, but that's pretty much it. Drawing, creating original artworks... is PAINFUL in Photoshop.

Ohhh... gotcha

Well thanks again for the help man, cheers!

Illustrator is for vector graphics.

Photoshop is for photo editing. Nice examples can be found here: www.worth1000.com

"Illustrator is for vector graphics."
So it is comparable to...? Macromedia Freehand perhaps?

And one last thing if you guys dont mind, what is better from your personal experience (well, better for you obviously ), After Effects or Fireworks?

after effects, if you use other Adobe products. adobe products integrate into each other very well. you could e.g. create a DVD menu with encore, edit the graphics 'gapless' with photoshop, import movies and clips from premiere... fits together very well...

Oh I see. Thanks for the quick answer man.
About this encore... is it really good?
Ive been told the pro solution was scenarist (or something )

well, encore (1.5) is a great software IMHO.
really easy to use, but very powerful and fast. very intuitive usage, very good online manual (short and precise) - my girlfriend used it first @ work, for creating professional dvd-menus (for dvd's sold in germany). one day i was able to test it there, and i was amazed how easy it is

Encore and Scenarist target different markets.

Scenarist is the unchallenged best professional mastering solution. However, since it costs many thousands of dollars (like $25,000) it is out of the reach of most of us mere mortals.

Encore is:

1. More graphical.
2. More intuitive.
3. FAR FAR FAR cheaper.

Ok thanks a lot Razor1982 and Gurm
And $25000? pffff... I can easily buy a license if I keep my current job.... for ten years

So Im not gonna lie... and say "this is the last question" from now on

Adobe Premiere Elements... so since Grum said that photoshop elements was a stripped down Photoshop... then this is the crappy Premiere Pro right? I mean it should be clear but Im just a poor n00b

Yep. Now, stripped down doesn't mean it won't do what you need. Check it out, look at the feature set.