Adobe Announces Web-Enabled Creative Suite 5

Adobe Systems has announced Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5), a new release of its design and development software that the company claims suits virtually every creative workflow.

Announced on 12 April, the focus of the new version of the Adobe Creative Suite is on interactivity, performance and maximizing the impact of digital content and marketing campaigns across media and devices, Adobe officials said. Creative Suite 5 brings full-version upgrades of flagship creative tools, and features integration with online content and digital marketing measurement and optimisation capabilities with technology from Adobe’s acquisition of Omniture. Creative Suite 5 includes access to Omniture technologies to capture, store and analyse information generated by Web sites and other sources.

Moreover, Adobe Flash Catalyst joins the Creative Suite and enables users to design interactive content without writing code and improve the collaborative process between designer and developer, Adobe officials said. The Adobe CS5 product family also enables the creation of content and applications for Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2, which are optimised for high performance on mobile screens and designed to take advantage of native device capabilities for a richer, more immersive user experience, the company said.

The new CS5 lineup is headlined by Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, which includes, in a single package, all of Adobe’s renowned Creative Suite tools, such as Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash CS5 Professional, Dreamweaver CS5, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 and After Effects CS5. These tools also are available separately or in one of the five Creative Suite editions.

The complete Creative Suite 5 lineup consists of five versions: Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Creative Suite 5 Web Premium, Creative Suite 5 Production Premium and Creative Suite 5 Design Standard, as well as 15 point products, associated technologies and integration with new Adobe CS Live Services — CS Live Services are complimentary for a limited time.

“While Creative Suite 5 continues Adobe’s storied history of delivering astonishing new creative features, this release first and foremost addresses the challenges facing publishers and creatives worldwide—how to build profitable businesses around digital content,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer at Adobe, in a statement. “By coupling sophisticated online business analytics with dazzling creative tools, we’re ensuring that publishers, designers and marketers can create, deliver and optimise beautiful, high-impact digital experiences across media and devices.”

Using Flash Professional CS5, designers and developers can create, test and deliver web content across a range of mobile platforms and devices such as smartphones, tablets, netbooks, smartbooks and other consumer electronics. Users can look forward to deploying content in the browser with Flash Player 10.1 and as a standalone application with AIR 2 when those planned products become available. In addition, designers and developers can now build AIR applications, using the new Packager for iPhone tool preview, a component of Flash Professional CS5 that can be deployed on the iPhone and iPad, with future device support planned for Android, BlackBerry and Palm webOS, Adobe officials said.

Meanwhile, more than 250 new features have been integrated into the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Adobe officials said. InDesign CS5 is powering the transition to digital publishing with new interactive documents and enhanced electronic reader device support. Image creation and editing get a boost in Photoshop CS5 with Refine Edge, which offers better edge detecting technology and masking results in less time. Photoshop CS5 also includes the ability to remove an image element and immediately replace the missing pixels with Content-Aware Fill. New stroke options enable Adobe Illustrator CS5 users to create strokes of variable widths and precisely adjust the width at any point along the stroke.

In addition, Adobe officials said engineering breakthroughs throughout Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection work together to dramatically improve performance. Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects are now native 64-bit applications on both Mac and Windows, enabling users to work more fluidly when working on high-resolution projects. And the 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.

Moreover, the Roto Brush tool in After Effects helps users isolate moving foreground elements in a fraction of the normal time. In addition, Dreamweaver CS5 now supports popular content management systems Drupal, Joomla and WordPress, allowing designers to get accurate views of dynamic Web content from within the product.

The Adobe Creative Suite 5 products integrate with new Adobe CS Live, a set of five online services that accelerate key aspects of the creative workflow and enable designers to focus on creating their best work, the company said.

CS Live online services include Adobe BrowserLab, Adobe CS Review, Acrobat.com, Adobe Story and SiteCatalyst NetAverages from Omniture. Adobe CS Review enables online design reviews directly from Creative Suite 5 applications, while Adobe BrowserLab is a tool for testing Web site content across different browsers and operating systems. NetAverages provides web usage data that helps reduce the guesswork early in the creative process when designing for web and mobile.

Adobe Story is a collaborative scriptwriting tool that improves production and post-production workflows in CS5 Production Premium. Access to Acrobat.com services, such as Adobe ConnectNow web conferencing, is also included to enhance discussion and information exchange with colleagues and clients around the globe.

The 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 $2,599 (£1685) 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. Upgrade pricing and volume licensing are available.

For more information about features, OS support, upgrade policies, pricing and international versions, go to www.adobe.com/go/creativesuitemaster.