Adam and Eve, Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, Laurel and Hardy. Now here’s the question: what do all these couples have in common? Well, they just work so darn well together. With a little lateral thinking, it’s a dead cert you’ll soon be chalking up Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash to that list.

Back in December 2005, two leading software manufacturers, Adobe and Macromedia, merged. At the time it was a surprising acquisition, however, the benefits of the merge were soon recognised and with the release of the CS3 suite, users have been offered an explicit synergy between the two different applications.

Not surprisingly these days, Photoshop and Flash are being coupled to create some of the industry’s most adventurous and compelling design productions, such as web-based application, interactive elements and primarily animation. Photoshop allows users to craft and create the necessary sophisticated still imagery and artwork by offering an extensive amount of creative control through its ever-evolving imaging science, filters and editing options. These can then be complemented by Flash’s ability to import your creations, bringing your still images together in numerous ways, incorporating them into interactive content.

A new feature in the CS3 suite allows you to import native PSD files. Flash can now preserve many attributes applied within Photoshop and import them into Flash layers, individual keyframes or a flattened image. These elements can then be used to create an animation sequence in Flash, exporting it as a QuickTime video. These files can then even be imported into Photoshop for further editing. Creatives using the two software packages to develop their artistic visions have never had it so good in terms of user ability and professional recognition. This contributing factor is an integral part of the software’s overall popularity with contemporary interactive artists, a fact undoubtedly endorsed by one of the motion-graphic industry’s leading lights, award-winning artist David Newton.

After graduating, Newton soon rented out a slice of the web, establishing his very own design boutique Paper Raincoat in 1999 (www.paperraincoat.com). Ever since, he has produced interactive and motion material such as websites and animations, as well as more traditional illustrative projects, for a variety of large and small clients in New York, Los Angeles and Boston. Firmly familiarised with the digital medium, Newton is no stranger to using Flash and Photoshop in unison. "You’d be hard pressed to create websites without them," advises Newton. "Both programs offer a significant amount of functionality in a straightforward interface. Having worked with these programs for years and become comfortable with the interface, they just get things done and leave me with happy clients." Newton’s latest major project is a great example of the potential of this method producing an online music lounge, www.h-lounge.com, for MIT start-up Harmony Line Inc. "I used Photoshop to create the initial layouts, draw rockstar-style avatars for users and create all images used in the site itself. We later used Flash to create a robust music player that could dynamically load music from a database, display, play and rate music uploaded by the user." This use of Photoshop as an assemblage tool is common practice. Newton puts this down to one imperative principle – Photoshop’s ability to easily mimic a variety of styles instead of pushing a preset style, "It has all the capabilities to create collage, typographic designs, brush-heavy illustrations or clean vector/comic-styled art."

After completing the creative groundwork in Photoshop, many turn to Flash in the need of developing an interactive applet that goes well beyond the abilities of simple script. Or, even more impressively, when a client has a need for eyecatching animation to really spice up what seems a static website. But the merger between the software packages offers far more than just on a superficial level. It has also improved functionality, foremost on a basic level. Newton explains that even these smallest of developments have had an affirmative affect on his working process. "The unification of the interface has sped up my workflow considerably. Keyboard shortcuts that have been used in Photoshop for years, such as holding space to pan around or Alt to pick a colour, are now right where I expect them in Flash." He goes on to add, "Adobe has a good sense of the design community. I’ve found most features that get added were directly requested by the community."

Adobe has intuitively reformed Flash’s interface, making it comparable to other Adobe programs in the CS3 range. These reforms, including the same range of tabbed palettes and also the borrowing of a few of Adobe Illustrator’s drawing tools to help out when creating graphics for animation, have been a real hit with motion artists. Another big name that endorses this new found compatibility is James Farr, proud creator of Xombie, the highly successful webanimated series.

Working with Flash since version 2 in the late Nineties, when it was still deemed a novelty, Farr has come to appreciate the changes and evolution of the potential provided by using both packages. "Photoshop and Flash, especially in concert, allow almost anyone to get their ideas in motion and distributed for the world to see," explains Farr. "We don’t all have studio funding right out of the gate and Flash, in particular, has become an exceedingly effective way of getting your work noticed and your concepts validated by a worldwide audience." And in such a competitive worldwide market, the utility and velocity of this compatibility is a real godsend to producers such as Farr. "Most of my animations feature pretty complex designs or backgrounds, stuff that tends to bog down any processor attempting to render it. On those occasions, I use Photoshop to convert the more complex vector designs into compressed Bitmap files, which relieve a lot of processor and frame-rate issues." In light of such evidence it becomes apparent that Flash, so often regarded as more of a programming tool than a piece of creative software compatible for consumer designers, has opened up its potential. In doing so, it has become far more accessible to clientele experienced in the usage of creative software such as Photoshop and not just application development tools.

This creative liberation, credited to the expansion of the software’s capacity, has unsurprisingly amplified recognition within the artistic community as artists and art enthusiasts consistently strive to push boundaries and augment recognition of this working platform. A good example is the Torino Flash Festival (www.flashfestival.it), an annual Italian event already beyond its sixth edition. Flourishing from its humble beginnings in 2001, where only Italian moviemaker’s submissions were acknowledged, now entrants hail from far and wide across the globe. Their objective is to set free web-restricted animation, publicly screening content and thus promoting the artistic dimension of the language of Flash. Another is the Flashforward Conference and Film Festival (www.flashforwardconference.com). It’s one of the longest running and largest Adobe Flash-user conferences in the world. The event offers inspiration and education from industry experts all over the world specialising in all things Flash, from Photoshop integration to animation, video and audio, plus much more. Lynda Weinman who co-founded the conference in 1999 and founded Lynda.com in 1995 (an online training resource for Flash and Photoshop artists) offered her own view on the pragmatic nature of this precedent-leading software. "With Adobe’s purchase of Macromedia in 2005, one of the hopes among customers of both companies was that there would be better integration between their two flagship products. With the release of Photoshop CS3, that hope has been realised." She went on to add, "For the first time, Flash directly imports PSD files while preserving layers, their names, layer nesting, blending modes, layer effects and live text layers. You can even export layered Photoshop files in the FLV (Flash Video) format, meaning each layer can be set to include a frame o animation or artwork that will ultimately animate on a web page." So with many functions now at a digital artist’s disposal, it was surely only a matter of time until these creative individuals started to think ‘big’ about their projects and none more so than Swedish Flash animator, Ola Schubert.

Having won both film festival and popular internet awards on such sites as Newgrounds, Schubert has expanded his horizons, producing a Flash feature film Nim’s Journey, which has been in production since 2004. "Things have developed quite a lot and rapidly. Computers and specific software have given us the possibility to create motion graphics without using a huge budget and lots of manpower," says Schubert. So how does incorporating Photoshop aid him in such a time-extensive project? &qwuot;First of all the use of pixel images does help the processor a great deal. With pixel graphics you can create a more diverse image with more colours and shades than with vector graphics and, in this way, add more depth to the image. I have also developed a technique using bitmap textures within an animation to make it look more 3D. The reason for doing this is to keep the weight of the file down even if you make complexlooking animations." Regarding layer importation, Schubert added, "It’s speeding up the process as I don’t have to export every layer by itself. Let’s say I’m creating a background image containing seven layers describing seven different depths, foregrounds and backgrounds, within the same Photoshop document. Now I only need to export one document, not seven documents, as was the case before."

So with the combination of both Photoshop and Flash CS3, an implicit practical and attractive workflow is capable and it’s this factor that’s influencing new trends with users way out east, perhaps soon to affect Western shores. This new-found tolerance and credence in the mobile phone industry can be credited to devices like Adobe Flash Lite and Adobe Device Central CS3, which have seen explosive adoption from developers in Japan and throughout Asia. The mature Flash-authoring environments and enhanced rendering engine of such devices drives this growth. Flash Lite is essentially Flash technology specifically developed for the mobile platform and electronic consumer devices.

With its delivery of rich content, browsing and rich user interface, coupled with Device Central availability, users are now able to develop, design and test in an engaging environment. Consequently, the mobile phone has developed into a new media for designers, illustrators and animators all using related packages. Artists can now occupy this tiny space, personalise animated wallpapers, screensavers and even redesign the menu.

What with over 100 million mobile users in Japan and everyone looking at a monitor at least 30 times a day, Mao Sakaguchi founded the project Gengei, an adventurous art mission setting out to provide "more output for the artists in Japan, hoping that Japanese people get closer to art in their lifestyles.&qwuot; Without the mentioned technological advancements of the CS3 packages in question, Sakaguchi explains, "this art site can’t be realised. Without Adobe Flash our project would have never happened. In Japan the new merged company Adobe kept having many conferences for the digitalminded public, teaching and introducing the Flash player and so on. It gave higher attention to the digital market and more Flash professionals came out producing Flash sites and increasing market size." And when asked how this project can expand Sakaguchi explains, "Photoshop is truly necessary for the artists who only have actual paints, or even for photographers. I hope Photoshop files can be saved in a much smaller size, then our capability of showing Flash art will increase more."

This innovative niche that has found its way into such a productive consumer market seems to underline the true essence of what Adobe’s software compatibility is all about. That it can bring an extra creative essence to artwork produced, evolving creative development for all artistic genres. The function of mobile Flash content manages to avoid itself being used as merely a platform to drive marketing and sell content, but it has also served to educate modern-day digital creatives throughout Asia. It has allowed them to realise their professional potential and ‘change the art culture in Japan.’ In a rapidly moving market, it can be challenging to serve consumer needs. Be it web design or animation, game design or interactive content catering for the enthusiastic masses – speed and efficiency are crucial in both planning and production stages.

It has become apparent that the alliance of Adobe Flash and Adobe Photoshop provides users with a required and superior degree of creative control, defining a new and contemporary creative era among digital artists.