Adobe has done it again.

As if dominating the market with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver (just to name a few) weren’t enough, Adobe has stepped into the realm of digital publishing with some amazing tools for both designers and filmmakers. Adobe Digital Publishing Suite gives creative folks with little to no experience programming software the ability to design, publish, and sell interactive apps for tablet devices such as the iPad.

As our society becomes increasingly digital, the line between digital and physical continues to blur. When I buy a new CD, for instance, I burn it right on to my computer and never touch the physical CD again. The music industry has moved into digital publication, and the film industry is doing the same. If you could avoid the costs and time it takes to create, package, and ship a physical DVD by simply selling your next film in the form of an iPad app, would you do it?

It is definitely worth the consideration!

Created primarily for the graphic designer and magazine publisher, Digital Publishing Suite gives publishers all the tools to make their publications interactive and available for purchase or distribution through the app store. Readers can now scroll through and interact with magazines in ways unheard of just a few years ago. Using their iPad, readers are able to flip through articles, view slideshows, play movie clips, and click through interactive maps. But don’t stop reading just yet! If you think that Adobe’s Digital Publishing Suite is only for the graphic designer or magazine editor, think again. While this hosted platform focuses on turning print magazines into digital publications, it only takes a bit of creativity to consider how this could impact the world of film.

Adobe Digital Publishing Suite comes in three different editions: Single Edition, Professional Edition, and Enterprise Edition. This review will focus specifically on the Professional Edition, but you can look at this webpage to decide which edition will work best for your next film.

It also must be noted that you must have CS5.5 in order to use Digital Publishing Suite.

Ease of Use

Adobe Digital Publishing Suite walks users through the process of designing, publishing, and selling an app in minutes.

If you are familiar with any of Adobe’s other programs (Photoshop, InDesign, etc.), you will have no problem picking up how Digital Publishing Suite functions. Put simply, this new addition to the Adobe family is a set of hosted services that can be accessed from within InDesign. It functions in direct connection with InDesign, the Internet, and the app stores of Apple, Android, and Kindle Fire Newsstand.

In InDesign, create and upload your .folio file to the Content Viewer for publishing or file sharing.

Within InDesign, Digital Publishing Suite’s tools are found in two separate panels along with your ‘pages,’ ‘layers,’ and ‘links’ panels. The first panel—the Overlay Creator panel—makes your images or movies interactive, and the second—the Folio Builder panel—gives you the ability to publish your finished creation first to the Digital Publishing Suite Content Viewer. Once your .folio is created, you are then able to publish your app for sale and distribution within Digital Publishing Suite’s Desktop Content Viewer, which is accessed through the Internet.

Make your images interactive by allowing your viewers to swipe through a slide show or zoom in on detailed photographs.

Everything is easily accessible within InDesign, and the rest of the process after you leave InDesign is even easier yet. After Adobe uploads your creation from InDesign straight to the hosting platform of Digital Publishing Suite. It is here that you can then finish the process of building your application and determining the price of your new app. After you have secured your developer credentials with Apple and Google, Adobe then helps you take care of the annoying steps of sending your app off to the Apple and Google app stores.

It’s that simple. No programming. No confusion. No fuss.

Depth of Options

If you don’t think of Digital Publishing Suite as another Adobe program (like Photoshop or Illustrator), it truly does offer a number of options. The most obvious option for the filmmaker is the ability to embed videos within your app, but Digital Publishing Suite also gives the filmmaker options of adding interactive elements into the app along with the film itself. For example, you can easily give your viewers the ability to access cast bios, outtakes, or trailers for other upcoming films with the swipe of a finger. This is where the other interactive options of this powerful app publishing suite will come in handy.

And I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of the interactive options Adobe will be creating in the future.

Allow your viewers to interact with conversations happening in real time on the web.

Once your creation is uploaded to the Digital Publishing Suite hosted platform, you have more options available. In an easy-to-use interface, Adobe allows you to choose other settings such as whether the document will be a public document for sale or will be a private document released to a select few. Within this part of the publishing process, perhaps my favorite option is the ability to share your creation with others on your team (this can also be done through the Folio Builder panel in InDesign). You are able to create a .folio on your computer, share it with your team, and invite them to critique your creation. Collaboration like this has become even easier thanks to Digital Publishing Suite.

Performance

Digital Publishing Suite performs flawlessly!

The entire flow of app development and publication is both smooth and intuitive. What was once impossible for most filmmakers—making tablet apps—has now been made simple because Digital Publishing Suite’s performance is so wonderful. I honestly did not believe that any company could do something this well when I first heard of this revolutionary concept. Creating apps has felt like an intangible feat, seeing as how I am not a software developer, but Adobe has lived up to their promises. Digital Publishing Suite now places app creation well within the reach of those who have chosen to focus on, say, making films instead of developing software.

Value

Because Digital Publishing Suite is not like other programs like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro, the pricing is a bit different. Most of the tools you will need to make your own film app are included within InDesign CS5.5. So, if you own the newest version of Adobe InDesign, the cost to construct your next app within InDesign is free. In order to submit the app to the iTunes app store, however, you will incur two fees. The first goes to Adobe, and the second goes to the respective app stores. Let’s break these prices down because they can get quite confusing.

First, let’s talk about what you pay Adobe.

Adobe has given users three different editions of Digital Publishing Suite: Single, Professional, and Enterprise. The breakdown of the prices is found here. Put simply, the Single Edition allows users to publish one app at a time. A submission price of $395 gives you the ability to upload an app to the iTunes App Store. Once there, each app is allowed to be downloaded 5,000 times. If you plan on selling more than 5,000 downloads or would like to sell your app in an app store other than iTunes, you then step into the Professional Edition. Based on your volume of sales, you are looking at costs starting at $9,000. Again, make sure to check Adobe’s website for pricing.

Second, you pay the respective app stores for developer fees.

If you decided to choose the Single Edition, you will only be able to sell your app in the iTunes app store. The fee to sell your app within that store is $99 per year. If you have enough volume to warrant the Professional Edition, you are then able to sell your film in app stores other than Apple. The fee for the Android store (run by Google) is a flat $50. You don’t need to pay this fee annually (like you do with Apple).

With those prices in mind, let’s talk a bit about the value of a platform like this.

For those of you who own InDesign CS5.5, the value of Digital Publishing Suite is wonderful. Instead of paying a software developer to make an app for you next movie, you are paying around $500 to do it all yourself. Because you are creating apps for tablet devices, you have now stepped into the realm of software developers. This means that you will need to register as an app developer with Apple (and pay the fee of $99 per year) to sell your apps in Apple’s app store.

Create interactive maps or use this feature to make your next film more interactive.

While the final costs may seem a bit steep, you have to remember that Adobe has completely cut out a large cost of paying a software developer to make a personalized app! It was only a year ago that services like this were completely unavailable to the filmmaker. The ability to create your own apps is definitely worth the price, especially as the popularity of tablet devices is rising exponentially.

Final Comments

With the release of Digital Publishing Suite, Adobe has proven themselves as a company on the cutting edge of app development. The creative filmmaker has been excluded from this field of app development until now. In the coming years (perhaps coming months), I believe we will begin to see an integration of platforms (iPhone, iPad, and computer) that will revolutionize the film industry. No more will we need to only distribute DVDs or BluRays; we will be able to sell our films digitally in multiple formats. With Digital Publishing Suite’s smooth, intuitive interface, Adobe is leading the way in app development for tablet devices. If you want to think outside of the box for your next film release, this program is definitely worth the consideration!