I also really fell in love with the new Adobe Bridge, especially the fact that you can view Flash files inside of it finally. I felt that was something Bridge should have been able to do from the get go even though Macromedia was the competition. I have not spent much time in Illustrator, Flash or Dreamweaver yet, but the consistent interface I am really excited about.

My most anticipated feature is something I had suggested to the Photoshop Product Manager at Photoshop World in Boston two years ago. I realize I am not the reason they put it in, I am just happy to see it is there. This is the integration between Flash and Photoshop and Illustrator. Now any file you create in Illustrator or Photoshop can be imported to Flash in a number of ways, most importantly with each layer remaining its own layer. This should make cartooning in Flash, which has always been cumbersome to draw in, much easier to do.

As a graphic and web designer I spend quite a bit of time in Illustrator and Photoshop. I find that a lot of time can end up being wasted working in the colors. If you customer doesn’t come with a color pallette picked out for the project ahead of time, a designer can be left scratching their head. I find myself playing games of trial and error to see if I have enough contrast, or lack of contrast, or if the colors clash. Once I have the palette it is easy to save it as part of the project and go back and forth, but finding it in the first place takes time.

That is until about a month ago when Adobe launched Kuler from Adobe Labs. This Flex based, but AJAX like interface lets you create color themes with up to five colors in analogous, monochromatic, triads, complimentary, compund, shade and custom modes. In addition to that you can get the color output in HSV, RGB, CMYK, LAB, or Hexadecimal (my personal favorite).

In addition to the easy to use interface, Adobe worked in a social networking web 2.0 voting system. This way, you not only get to create, but discover popular color schemes. As a designer trying to stay ahead of trends this is a nice tool to have.

Once you have created or found the color scheme you need for the project at hand, the best part comes around. Instead of having to sit there and jot down the values you need and then find them back in you graphics application, you can actually save them and import the swatches directly into Photoshop and Illustrator.

I have been using this since its launch and it has actually sped up my production significantly. This is a handy tool and I hope that it either stays in beta a long time or remains free when it is finally complete as it is a nice complement to the rest of my Adobe arsenal.