Adobe Creative Cloud Gets More Mobile For Creativity On The Go

Adobe issued a substantial update to its Creative Cloud platform back in June, and today, it's rolled-out another - just in time for the company's MAX conference. Despite the fact that only three or so months have passed since that June update, there's an incredible amount of meat with this one.

The new personalized Welcome Screen

For starters, 9 mobile apps have either been updated or added, and multiple desktop applications have been enhanced, either for performance, capabilities, or touch. In particular, Illustrator's desktop interface will suit touchscreens much better than before, while Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere Pro have been updated as well.

This update also brings the first public version of the Creative SDK, which will allow third-parties to tap into Adobe's technologies to let them create their own apps that tie in with CC. Further, desktop applications have seen a number of enhancements as well. Photoshop, for example, sees a faster Mercury engine, while After Effects gains an improved 3D pipeline.

One of the most important features to come with this update is Libraries, a feature that will allow you to share assets between different Adobe applications quickly, and easily. To take advantage of it, all you have to do is create a library for whichever project you're working on (or use a pre-existing one), then click and drag your asset over into it. By the time you go back to another application you're working in, that same asset will be available to you in the same location. This can really speed up your work, since you won't need to deal with files outside of the applications.

The Libraries feature is available on both desktop and mobile

Extract is another great feature that allows you to send your assets to the cloud, for use either in other apps, or through the Web browser itself. An interesting use for this is Web development, where the developer could view an artist's PSD file online and grab various elements from it to integrate into a real webpage. A really cool thing about this is that Extract can give you the raw CSS code for any text that PSD has; that will allow a developer to quickly match exactly what's seen in the document, rather than have to take a couple of guesses and fine-tune to death.

Adobe Shape allows you to turn real-world shapes into vectors

Adobe Shape allows you to turn real-world shapes into vectors

For on-the-go filmers, the new Premiere Clip app will avail you some incredible control over your movie. If you're happy with the result you can achieve on your mobile device, you can simply send it off to YouTube or publish elsewhere, but if you just want to take care of the basics first and then fine-tune it later, you'll be able to export it as a Premiere Pro project for editing on the desktop. It's features like this that really highlight just how much Adobe wants to tie all of its apps in together - desktop or mobile.

If you have a Creative Cloud subscription, you'll be able to download all of the updates announced today right now. The mobile apps announced today (which also include Adobe Color, Illustrator Draw, and Illustrator Line), can be had on the Apple App Store, and for free. You can get more information for all of the mobile apps right here. Adobe has said that Android versions of these apps are en route, but no hard launch date has been given.

Overall, an undoubtedly impressive update to CC, and one that's well worth clicking that "Update" button for.