Adobe Spins Off Prepress Products to Luminous

Luminous to market Adobe prepress application products

Mountain View, Calif., (January 11, 1996) (Nasdaq: ADBE) -- Adobe Systems
Incorporated today announced that negotiations for creating a new company,
Luminous Corporation, to support prepress application products have
concluded. Under the terms of the agreement, Luminous has acquired or
licensed, and will continue to develop, market and distribute, Adobe's
award winning prepress products. Adobe has an equity stake in Luminous and
maintains ownership of certain core technologies for Adobe prepress
products. Also, Adobe has designated Luminous as the exclusive distributor
of version 1.0 of the Adobe Virtual Network product. Luminous will be
primarily staffed by former Adobe prepress personnel. Financial terms of
the agreement were not disclosed.

"Adobe is committed to providing our customers with the technology they
need to produce industry-leading printing solutions, from low end with
PrintGear to high-end with our core technologies for professional,
on-demand, and high-end commercial printing," stated Fred Schwedner, Adobe
vice president printing and systems division. "This is a win win situation
for both Adobe and Luminous customers. As part of our strategy to realign
our resources, Adobe can focus on the development and enhancement of our
core technologies in production imaging, including the prepress market. We
can deliver solutions to the high-end through our OEMs, which now includes
Luminous. Luminous can focus on developing the distinctly different
distribution channels required for the specific needs of customers in the
prepress industry. This is a positive move for both companies."

Core technology rights retained by Adobe include the trapping, imposition
and OPI technology. Adobe will also retain a dedicated engineering team
working on developing these core technologies and integrating them into
the Adobe production imaging technologies.

Luminous will consolidate product development and marketing for Adobe's
prepress products at Luminous' headquarters in Seattle, Washington.
Customer and technical support for ColorCentral,For Immediate Release For
more information Jennifer Polanski Adobe Systems Incorporated 415 962.2197
http://www.adobe.com/ or Barbara Burke Burke & Associates for Luminous
Corporation 206 938.8827 bburke206@aol.com

TrapWise, PressWise, PrintCentral, PrePrintPro, OPEN and Adobe Virtual
Network version 1.0 will be provided by Luminous for North America
effective January 1, 1996. Support in Europe will be provided by current
distributors through January. Luminous and its distributors will provide
European support beginning February 1. For more information, customers can
call Luminous at 800-685-6736.

The Luminous prepress products all support professional printing and
publishing with Adobe PostScript. The Luminous prepress products will also
be expanded to include Adobe Acrobat PDF capabilities. Adobe provides
customers with high-end image setter and printing product solutions with
its CPSI (Configurable PostScript Interpreter) technology. Luminous has
licensed Adobe CPSI to develop products for the digital desktop prepress
market and to expand the Adobe PostScript RIP (Raster Image Processor)
market in the high-end printing arena.

"We are looking forward to forging new territory in the high-end print
production world by blending Luminous' innovative product development,
delivery and support with Adobe's core technology," said Jim Betlyon,
Luminous' president and chief executive officer. "Luminous will offer
customers the industry leading products they are used to while developing
new components for a comprehensive production environment to meet the
increasingly complex technology requirements in the print publishing
market."

Adobe Systems Incorporated, founded in 1982, is headquartered in Mountain
View, California. Adobe develops, markets and supports computer software
products and technologies that enable users to create, display, print and
communicate electronic documents. The company licenses its technology to
major computer, printing and publishing suppliers, and markets a line of
applications software and type products for authoring visually rich
documents. Additionally, the company markets a line of powerful, but easy
to use, products for home and small business users. Adobe has subsidiaries
in Europe and the Pacific Rim serving a worldwide network of dealers and
distributors. Adobe's 1995 revenue was approximately $762 million.

Luminous Corporation is a privately held company based in Seattle,
Washington that develops and delivers innovative software and systems to
the prepress, print production, printing and graphic arts industries.
 
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