Adobe Introduces Creative Suite 5

Finally, some positive Adobe news! After hearing so much negativity surrounding the Adobe/Apple spat (and feeling that Flash won't even come to Apple's mobile product portfolio), it's great to hear that one of our favorite software suites is getting an upgrade. The Web has known that Creative Suite 5 was on the horizon, but today the company made everything official. Adobe CS5 is now a reality, and everything looks to make CS4 look like history.

Everything in the Adobe stable is getting upgraded, and if you're looking for the full monty, Creative Suite 5 Design Premium is the package to get. That includes Photoshop CS5, Flash CS5 Professional, InDesign CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Fireworks CS5 and Acrobat 9 Pro. There's also integration with CS Live services. Obviously, Photoshop CS5 is the main item of note, and the new additions are definitely worth looking at. The main newcomer is the extra intelligence and awareness of content within images, which allows for "complex and magical manipulation in just a few clicks."



The Adobe CS5 product family also enables the creation of content and applications for the much anticipated releases of Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2, which are optimized for high performance on mobile screens and designed to take advantage of native device capabilities for a richer, more immersive user experience. All told, more than 250 new features have been integrated into the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, and 64-bit operating system users will see a huge boost. Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects are now native 64-bit applications on both Mac and Windows, and NVIDIA GPU-accelerated Adobe Mercury Playback Engine allows Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 users to open projects faster, refine effects-rich HD sequences in real time and play back complex projects without rendering.

Adobe Creative Suite 5 products are scheduled to ship within 30 days, with availability through Adobe Authorized Resellers, the Adobe Store and Adobe Direct Sales. Estimated street price for the suites is expected to be $2599 for Master Collection CS5, $1899 for CS5 Design Premium, $1799 for CS5 Web Premium, $1699 for CS5 Production Premium and $1299 for CS5 Design Standard, though upgrades are available for CS4 users.