Fortunately, InDesign CS5‘s Control panel includes a full version of the color Swatches panel, so you can save yourself some screen real estate by using it instead of keeping the Swatches panel open on the screen at all times. The bonus of using the Swatches panel this way is that it scoots out of the way automatically when you’re done applying a color swatch to a fill or stroke to your object or text. You also have access to the Swatches panel fly-out menu.

My one year old 13″ MacBook Pro was churning along just fine, so I wasn’t really thinking about upgrades for myself when she finally had enough and told me to get my butt to the Apple Store. She doesn’t need a powerful laptop, just plenty of storage for her music, photos and videos. I had a tough decision to make, because I’ve already been eye-balling a new 27″ iMac to replace my six year old MacPro sitting beneath my desk. I didn’t want to spend too much, but I do need a capable laptop for working on the go.

Enough of the background, what did I buy?

After reading a few forum discussions, playing with the demo units at the Apple Store, and three days of inner termoil, I decided to toss caution to the wind. I went with the 13″ MacBook Air, with the 1.7 GHz Core i5 processor, stock 4 GB of RAM, and the 128 GB SSD storage drive. My only question remaining to be answered was how would the Adobe Creative Suite perform on this lower-spec laptop?

It was a big step for me giving up a faster processor, more RAM and an optical drive. But after thinking about it, I realized that I really haven’t used the optical drive at all. In fact, the only disc-based use I’ve had in the last few years is installing Adobe Creative Suite and Microsoft Office. I’ve since switched to Apple iWork for heavy-duty office work, and I’ve ripped the CS5 install DVDs to disc images and stored them on an external HD. You can now purchase Adobe CS online, so not having an optical drive shouldn’t be a problem moving forward. I then took a look at what I really use my laptop for, and decided that I really didn’t need all the power and extra RAM that a MacBook Pro could offer. Finally, I considered the weight of the 13″ MacBook Pro vs. the 13″ MacBook Air. I hated the weight of the MB Pro, so my decision to purchase the Air was made.

It’s the little things

It’s amazing how much difference the lighter MacBook Air makes when carrying it around in a laptop bag. Even sitting on the table or desk, it seems smaller than it really is. It still feels sturdy, but at the same time it’s elegant in appearance. One of the things that kept me from considering past Air models was the lack of backlit keys. This is no longer an issue with the latest models.

I would be not at all surprised if Apple doesn’t begin phasing out the 13″ and 15″ MB Pros in favor of the MacBook Air

Boot-up, wake from sleep, shut down, and app launching are all wicked-fast. And this machine was definitely built with Apple’s OS X Lion in mind, because it runs spectacularly. Because I have the MacPro at home serving as my main machine, the relatively small 128 GB SSD isn’t an issue for storage, and I must say that when I do get that iMac later this year, I’m definitely getting the model with the SSD hard drive! I also love the fact that the Air has a USB port on both sides. The SSD card slot is handy. Even though my previous MacBook Pro had one, I never used it. Now I’ve actually come to love having it.

How does it perform?

I’ve been working on the MacBook Air exclusively for two weeks now, and I’m delighted to report that it has performed beyond my wildest expectations. No, really! I had prepared myself for slower speeds due to having less RAM than my previous MacBook Pro – but not only have I not suffered any slow-downs, I’ve found it to be quite a bit faster. This is most likely due to the ultra-fast SSD hard drive. In fact, in every-day tasks, the Air easily out-performs my dual-Xeon processor Mac Pro with 11 GB of RAM and 7200 RPM hard drive.

Photoshop boots near instantly, and working on 200MB files is no problem at all for the Air. Screen re-draw is smooth, file saving is rocket fast, and filters run at acceptable speeds.

Illustrator actually seems usable for me now. Even on my MacPro, Illustrator is easily the biggest slug I’ve ever used – but on the Air it’s a pleasure to work in.

InDesign runs just awesome. Normally, it’s the slowest CS app to launch, but on the Air it takes only three or four seconds after a fresh boot-up, and under two seconds to launch if it was previously run. Shocking!

The same can be said of Dreamweaver, Acrobat and Bridge, they just run better than they do on my MacPro and MacBook Pro.

Would I recommend it for any designer?

This of course is a loaded question. The Air is perfect for my needs, which includes blogging, writing, web and email, and light-to-moderate Adobe Creative Suite duty. But I believe it probably could serve as my only Mac if I had the extra storage and larger monitor to plug it into while working at home. Unfortunately, I can’t plug my 30″ LCD screen in to the Thunderbolt port on the Air to see how it performs.

With the Air, you must have a wireless network in place because there is no Ethernet port built-in; although you could order a USB-to-Ethernet adapter. I chose not to, and haven’t missed it yet. Nor have I missed the optical drive.

If you’re in the market for a second Mac to take on the road, the Air is by far the best option, in my opinion. In fact, I would be not at all surprised if Apple doesn’t begin phasing out the 13″ and 15″ MB Pros in favor of the MacBook Air; keeping only the 17″ MB Pro at the top end.

The only down-side to running Adobe CS5 on the MacBook Air is the lack of support for Lion’s new features like Full Screen and Resume – but those will no doubt come with the next CS upgrade.

Adobe has announced the next version of their Creative Suite software. CS5.5 is heavily focused on designers wishing to take their work to tablet, smartphone, and EPUB users. All versions of their individual apps will be updated (except Acrobat, which remains at version X), as will the Creative Suites that comprise the apps – including InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Flash.

Beyond the numerous features for building interactive documents for use on iPad, iPhone, and other tablets and smartphones, there’s not much information available covering feature updates for print-based designers.

An Adobe CS5.5 pricing chart is available to help you decide what versions of the Suites or individual apps you wish to purchase.

This is where it gets interesting. Adobe has also announced a new month-by-month subscription plan for all their major Creative Suites and individual applications. For instance, you can rent Dreamweaver for as little as $19 per month, or the entire Creative Suite Web Premium for $89 per month. Serious Creative Suite users will most likely still want to purchase their preferred Suites, but for those who just need to complete a quick website and only own Design Standard can rent Dreamweaver for the price of a week’s worth of coffee at Starbucks.

With any Adobe Creative Suite update comes discussion of frequency and cost of updates. Adobe is making changes in this area. From now on, the Creative Suite will be on a 24-month development cycle for major upgrades (CS3, CS4, CS5, CS6, etc.). Every 12 months they will also release a mid-cycle update (such as the CS5.5 just announced) which will offer only minor feature enhancements, bug fixes, and code tweaking. Previously, Adobe released Creative Suite upgrades around every 18 months.

Unless you’re doing a lot of work destined for a tablet, smartphone or ebook reader, you’re probably going to skip this release and wait for Creative Suite 6. But if you do that type of work, CS5.5 appears to be a dandy update.

When you think of 3D applications, you rarely think of Adobe Illustrator CS5, but the fact is that Illustrator has some decent tools to create simple 3D vector art. VectorTuts has a great Illustrator 3D tutorial to introduce you to the tools and help you create some neat effects like you see in the image above.

Rather than selecting your object and using the Rotate tool in the Tools panel, simply move your cursor to just outside the corner of your object with the Selection tool to reveal the hidden rotate icon – then just click and drag the mouse to rotate.

Of course if you’re looking for a keyboard shortcut, you can always just hit the R key to select the Rotate tool without visiting the Tools panel.

Either way, you can rotate multiple objects without grouping them – yet another time saver!

I have no set criteria for deciding what stays and what goes, but for the most part the app has to serve a particular need, look good, and work as advertised. The following is not a complete list of what’s installed on my Mac, but it represents what applications and utilities have stood the test of time, and what I use the most.

My favorite apps are, in no particular order:

JustNotes

There are lots of note-taking apps out there, but when I set out to find one that was dead simple, had a Mac and web client, and synced with my iPhone – I found only one that worked for me. JustNotes uses the SimpleNote service and syncs with all my Macs, my iPhone. It offers a menubar item for quick access, a few keyboard shortcuts, and not much more. It’s exactly what I was looking for, and it’s free.

Note: SimpleNote offers a web client, as well as iPhone app by itself – so you only need JustNotes (or other compatible app) if you want a Mac client.

Evernote

Now you might wonder why I would need Evernote when I just told you I use JustNotes/SimpleNotes. The reason is simple. Evernote offers image, PDF and other file support. Evernote also offers the ability to create multiple notebooks to keep things organized. Like JustNotes, Evernote also offers a Mac client, an iPhone app, and a browser plugin. I use Evernote more as a web-clipping service than a notes app. Evernote offers a free version, and a paid subscription version that removes ads and increases storage.

DropBox

While the original intention of Dropbox was simply to share files with other people, it has turned into an indispensable app that many other utilities and services take advantage of. With referral bonus space pushing my storage limit to over 10GB of free storage, I have plenty of space for sharing files with printers. But Dropbox gets the most use from other utilities and applications to store their data files for syncing between my laptop and desktop Macs, a storage bin for article ideas, and a simple way to bring files home from my PC at work.

Spark

Though Mac OS X has the ability for the user to assign keyboard shortcuts via the System Preferences, it’s a truly half-hearted offering. Quite frankly, I find it useless. In searching for a utility to allow system-wide keyboard shortcuts for launching apps, opening folders and assigning events, I came across Spark. It’s not sexy, and doesn’t get updated very often, but it works perfectly and is absolutely free.

AppTamer

I use my MacBook Pro for work on the road. I carry it everywhere and don’t always have the ability to plug it in to charge, so preserving the battery is always in the back of my head. AppTamer is similar to Apple’s stock ActivityMonitor app in that it lists all running apps and processes and allows you to quit them at will. The advantage AppTamer has over ActivityMonitor is that it offers an AutoStop feature. AutoStop puts an application or process to “sleep” until needed. Though the battery charge savings aren’t significant, every little bit helps. You also get the advantage of saving a few extra CPU cycles and MBs of RAM by AutoStopping apps you aren’t using. AppTamer is $14.95 for a single-user license.

RipIt

Before I found RipIt (actually, the developer found me after I was complaining about not finding a great simple app to backup my DVDs on Twitter), I tried Handbreak, and a host of other apps that were all WAY too complicated. RipIt is just fantastically simple to make backup copies of your commercial DVDs, and for me at least has worked every time. You put a DVD in your drive, launch the app and click a button to make a disc image of your DVD which you can then backup to a hard drive or burn to DVD. There are a few compression options available, but the lack of “features” to decipher is what makes this app so great. RipIt costs $24.95.

SneakPeek Pro

When Apple introduced Quick Look into Mac OS X, I immediately took to it. It annoys me to no end to have to open a file just to see what it is. Unfortunately, Quick Look doesn’t always work with graphics files like InDesign documents, and it offers little other than a preview of the file. SneakPeek Pro not only works with those InDesign files, but also offers information about the file itself, such as a list of fonts used in the document, color plates, and more. SneakPeak Pro can be had for $19.95.

AppCleaner

Experienced Mac users know that simply deleting an application does not completely uninstall it. There are a load of preference files, frameworks files and more that litter the hard drive. For years I used AppZapper, or rather, I tried to remember to use AppZapper to more thoroughly remove an application. The problem was I had to remember to use it. AppCleaner automates the job by collecting those lingering preference files when you drag an application to the trash. You can also customize AppCleaner to protect default applications and create your own protected list so you don’t accidentally delete anything you don’t want to. The process is so seamless that I’ve forgotten that it’s not part of the default Mac OS X installation. AppCleaner is free.

Toast Titanium

With all the free apps to create CDs and DVDs, including Apple’s built-in burner software, I’m still amazed that I’ve been using Toast since the days of Mac OS 8 and 9 to burn CDs. I shouldn’t be surprised though. Toast is the by far the most comprehensive app for doing the job. It offers plenty of options to burn a CD or DVD in virtually any way you wish. Over the years, Roxio has added secondary applications to the app, such as a utility to catelog your CDs as your burn them for later searching. In the end though, I rarely use all the add-on apps – Toast does its job so well that I long ago stopped looking at alternative applications. At $99, it’s worth every penny for me – but if it seems a bit pricey, there is a $20 mail-in rebate available.

Adobe Creative Suite 5

Many years ago, I used a mix of tools for print design, which included Quark XPress, Macromedia Freehand and Photoshop. When Adobe released InDesign, I immediately switched to an all-Adobe workflow – and haven’t looked back. Having recently released Acrobat Pro X, Adobe has reaffirmed its dominance in the graphics and content creation market. While there are other cheaper alternatives out there, none even come close to offering the professional features that the Creative Suite apps do – and none are more widely accepted by printers and professional organizations. If you’re just getting started in the business, you might as well get the Adobe apps now, because you’re going to have to use them eventually. Pricing varies depending on which suite you purchase.

In part 2 of this article (which I’ll publish on Wednesday), I’ll share several more utilities and apps I use on a regular basis. Until then, feel free to share your favorite apps in the comments.

Take the image above for example. Rather than inserting hard returns, using the Enter key to force text to the next column, or adjusting the size of the text container itself, you can simply use the Balance Columns feature. To do so, select the text container to make it active, then go to Object>Text Frame Options… (or hit Command + B). In the dialog box that appears, tick the Balance Columns checkbox. The results are a balanced columns of text, regardless of the text container size as seen in the image below.

The beauty of this feature is that you can add more text later and the text columns will always adjust to stay balanced, as opposed to having to go back manually and remove hard returns or re-adjust the size of the text container.

Bokeh 2 gives photographers and designers a wide range of tools to focus attention where they want it. The focus region is easily placed over the subject and then the fun begins. Every aspect of the lens blur can be customized, from highlight intensity and shape to motion blur and vignette.

Bokeh 2 now works in Lightroom, including batch processing. The 64-bit version of Photoshop CS5 works great with Bokeh on both platforms. Bokeh provides multiple techniques for non-destructive editing in Photoshop, including Smart Filter support and rendering effects on a duplicate of the original layer.

Bokeh 2 sells for $199. Owners of Bokeh 1 may upgrade for $99. Online or physical delivery is available through the Alien Skin website. Free upgrades will be automatically sent to purchasers of Bokeh 1 who purchased in April 2010 or later.

Bokeh 2 is a plug-in and requires one of the following host applications:

• Adobe Photoshop CS3 or later
• Adobe Lightroom 2 or later
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 or later

I’m a huge fan of Bokeh, and I plan on putting it through its paces and post a review as soon as I get my hands on it.

However, if you simply don’t like the screen clutter you can turn it off. Just select the eyedropper tool and take a look up in the Control Panel at the top of the screen. You’ll see a checkbox for “Show Sampling Ring” which you can uncheck to make it go away forever.