Adobe® Creative Suite® 5 Bible

Chapter 4. Creating Production Workflows

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Understanding workflow concepts

• Setting up workflows for independent designers

• Creating workflows for workgroups

• Repurposing files

• Setting up your workflow

The Adobe Creative Suite is built around the concept of facilitating design production in workflow environments. Designers and production artists create workflows either as independent workers or as participants in workflow groups. A workflow helps you perform your work quickly and intelligently, often by streamlining redundant tasks. Workflows are designed to dramatically reduce the time you need to perform your work and reduce the time required to train new workers.

This chapter covers the initial development of production workflows as they relate to using the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium edition. With all the tools at hand, you'll gain an understanding of how to use the CS5 applications in workflows and how to save time producing artwork.

Understanding Workflows

Workflows as they pertain to the Adobe Creative Suite can be divided into several groups based on the individual or team doing the work. Another way to think of workflows is in terms of the final output. So you could have a workflow that defines a set of tasks for a digital artist, or you could have a workflow to produce a magazine ad for print.

As a graphic designer, you may be primarily concerned with production workflows where artwork creations originate in programs like Adobe Illustrator CS5 and Adobe Photoshop ...