Adobe Unveils Creative Suite 5

Adobe Systems has announced Adobe Creative Suite 5 for creative workflow. The new lineup includes five separate bundles:

• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, which includes all Adobe Creative Suite tools: Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash Professional CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, and After Effects CS5.

• Creative Suite 5 Design Premium: Photoshop CS5 Extended (includes everything in Photoshop CS5 plus tools for editing 3D and motion-based content), Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Flash Professional CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Fireworks CS5, Acrobat 9 Pro, integration with Adobe CS Live services, and Flash Catalyst CS5.

• Creative Suite 5 Web Premium: Full-version upgrades of Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Fireworks, and Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder. Also features support for open source content management systems, access to Omniture SiteCatalyst and Omniture Test&Target from within Flash Professional and Dreamweaver, and integration with Adobe CS Live online services.

• Creative Suite 5 Production Premium: New releases of After Effects CS5, Premiere Pro CS5, Photoshop CS5 Extended, Illustrator CS5, Flash Professional CS5, Soundbooth CS5, Adobe OnLocation CS5, Encore CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, and integration with Adobe Story.

• Creative Suite 5 Design Standard: Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Acrobat 9 Pro, Bridge CS5, and Device Central CS5.

All Creative Suite 5 products integrate with new Adobe CS Live, a set of five online services designed to accelerate aspects of the creative workflow: Adobe BrowserLab (for testing website content across different browsers and operating systems); Adobe CS Review (enables online design reviews directly from Creative Suite 5 applications); SiteCatalyst NetAverages (provides Web-usage data to help reduce guesswork early in the creative process); Adobe Story (a collaborative scriptwriting tool to improve production and post-production workflows in CS5 Production Premium); and Acrobat.com services (such as Adobe ConnectNow Web conferencing).

Estimated street price: $2599 for Master Collection CS5; $1899 for CS5 Design Premium; $1799 for CS5 Web Premium; $1699 for CS5 Production Premium; $1299 for CS5 Design Standard.

Photoshop CS5 and Photoshop CS5 Extended are also available as standalone applications (as are most of the Creative Suite tools). Now a native 64-bit application on both Mac and Windows, Photoshop CS5 allows users to more easily perform advanced image manipulations and compositing, Adobe reports.

New features include: Content-Aware Fill (removes any image detail or object, examines the surroundings, and seamlessly fills in the space left behind); Refine Edge (precisely detects and masks tricky edges, such as hair and foliage, while eliminating background color contamination); high dynamic range capabilities (for ghost-artifact removal and tone-mapping and adjustment control); new tools such as Mixer Brush (blends colors onto a single paintbrush tip), Bristle Tips (brushstrokes), and Puppet Warp (precisely warp any image element to generate a new perspective); automatic image straightening; and the ability to save 16-bit images as JPEGs. Photoshop CS5 Extended adds advanced tools for 3-D to address the needs of the video, Web, medical, manufacturing, and engineering industries. Price: $699, Photoshop CS5; $999, Photoshop CS5 Extended.

ADOBE SYSTEMS
www.adobe.com