With Dreamweaver, you can upload a frozen version of your web pages to BrowserLab using the Adobe BrowserLab panel. I found Dreamweaver’s integration with this service very functional and intuitive. To preview a page, you click the “preview” button in the panel, your default browser opens and BrowserLab uploads the file image. Then, you can choose from a list of several browsers and view how your page looks in each one. This is necessary for designers because although there's long been a push toward standardizing Web development, there's still quite a bit of difference between browsers.
Adobe Story shows promise as being the most filmmaker friendly CS Live service. You access Story like all the other services by signing in using your Adobe ID. Once inside, you'll find an easy to use interface that lets you create a new project from a comprehensive list of options, or you can import from several popular screenwriting software options. Many times you'll have to export your script as a .txt file or some other format to import from one app to another. But with Story, if you are a Final Draft or Movie Magic user, for example, you can easily import your script into Story leaving it in its native format. Also, from easy to use drop downs, you can create reports based on script elements, and production notes you'll want to use later. (More on this in the Depth of Options section.)
CS Review
So, let’s say you’re a graphic designer working on the poster for a new movie (an amazing, post-apocalyptic action movie that's more than a movie... it's an experience) and you’d like input from the project's stakeholders early on in the design phase. With CS Live, your best option is to access CS Review from within your design application (let’s say it’s Photoshop for this example) and upload an image of your poster to a shared workspace. To do this, you’ll open the CS Review panel in Photoshop and select a “Review", or you can create one. Then, with all visible layers turned on in the Photoshop file, you can capture an image of the document to upload. In the dialog box that appears, you'll choose the quality settings, and then choose to view it online. After the file uploads, the document opens in your personal workspace (which you already set up) on Acrobat.com.
Now you can share the poster image by inviting others to the workspace. All your guests will need is an Adobe ID so they can login to view the file. You can assign those you invite as either reviewers or co-authors. Of course, anyone you’ve shared the file with can add a comment, but if you assign someone the role of reviewer, they are limited to only making and deleting their own comments. Whereas, someone assigned the role of a co-author has the same privileges as a reviewer, plus they can add elements to a review (like uploading additional images that they'd like you to include in the poster). Co-authors can also delete the comments of others. Keep in mind that no one, not even co-authors, can edit the original document in the workspace.
Once a reviewer or co-author has left a comment, you can view it in the CS Review panel within Photoshop. Not only can you read the text of their comment in the panel, but if they’ve clicked a specific element within the file (called a “point comment”), or selected a larger area to discuss (appropriately called an “area comment”) you can view the part of the image they are referring to in the panel as well. Now you're free to make any necessary changes to the original document, re-upload the revised file image to the workspace, and leave a comment so that all participants know the poster has been updated.
Adobe Story
Not a graphic designer? Maybe screenwriting’s more your thing. Whether writing a script solo or in tandem with others, you can take advantage of Adobe Story’s plentiful tool set. First, I highly recommend downloading the desktop version of Story as it allows you to work offline and upload your pages whenever you’re ready too.
You can create a new script by choosing from a long list of options, featuring obvious templates like film script and A/V script (two columns), and not-so-obvious ones like logline, pitch, and research. Once the new document loads, it defaults to a pre-formatted title page. You can edit this page accordingly, or remove it from the project. Another helpful feature is that as you begin typing, Story uses “Smart Type.” This “intellisense” feature is fairly common in most screenwriting software, so I’m glad it’s included in Story. As in other programs, Story also tries to predict what element you are writing, whether it is a slug line, description, a character name, or dialogue, and it moves the cursor to the proper tab setting.
