Macromedia Studio 8 significantly advances its predecessor's abilities in filters, compositing, and performance. The suite ships with Dreamweaver 8 for HTML Web development, FlashPaper 2 for PDF creation, Fireworks 8 to edit images on the Web, and Contribute 3 that allows end users to edit Web content. Those in the know will recognize Dreamweaver as a market leader and the Flash authoring tool as Macromedia's flagship product. Flash 8 comes in two flavors: Basic and Professional. Both carry features such as recognizing the transparency channel in video clips and bitmaps, a superb addition since previous incarnations of Flash only recognized bitmaps embedded in the SWF file. Flash 8's new loading procedure creates smaller files, which are easier to handle. Blends are another new feature: lightening, darkening, subtracting and adding compositing models for a wide range of dramatic effects within the color palette. Flash Pro 8 offers filters that blur, glow, shadow, adjust color, and bevel images. A minor quibble: filter effects do not rotate when the elements they modify revolve. Although this is sometimes a desirable trait, users might want to rotate a drop shadow or a blur along with the original object. Fireworks brings a wide array of filters and modes, 25 in all, to the party. The concepts of negation, exclusion, difference all help users explore negative film effects. This software is simultaneously stable and robust, well worth the upgrade.