Adobe introduces Creative Suite 5.0

Adobe on Monday formally announced Adobe Creative Suite 5, the latest release of its design and creative workflow software that delivers full-version upgrades to all of the company's flagship creative tools in order to offer workflow enhancements to designers and developers.

Featuring integration with online content and digital marketing measurement and optimization capabilities for the first time, Creative Suite 5 products include access to Omniture technologies, to capture, store and analyze information generated by Web sites and other sources. Additionally, a brand new component, Adobe Flash Catalyst, joins the Creative Suite, ushering in the ability to design interactive content without writing code and improve the collaborative process between designer and developer.

"While Creative Suite 5 continues Adobe’s storied history of delivering astonishing new creative features, this release puts us front and center of the big issues facing publishers and creatives worldwide – how to build businesses around digital assets and content," said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer, Adobe. "With Omniture Web technology we’re integrating critical business analytics directly into the creative process, shortening the time it takes to create and deploy high-impact content."

Due to to ship within the next 30 days, the Adobe CS5 product family also enables the creation of content and applications for Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2, which Adobe says are optimized for high performance on mobile screens and designed to take advantage of native device capabilities for a richer, more immersive user experience.

Product Family

This release line-up includes the following Creative Suite 5 editions:

• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection ($2599)
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium ($1899)
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Standard ($1299)
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium ($1799)
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium ($1699)

Included with the various suite editions are 15 point products, associated technologies and integration with new Adobe CS Live services: (CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time.)

• Photoshop CS5
• Illustrator CS5
• InDesign CS5
• Acrobat 9 Pro
• Flash Catalyst CS5
• Flash Professional CS5
• Flash Builder 4
• Dreamweaver CS5
• Fireworks CS5
• Contribute CS5
• Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
• After Effects CS5
• Encore CS5
• Soundbooth CS5
• Adobe OnLocation CS5
• Adobe Bridge CS5
• Adobe Device Central CS5
• Adobe Dynamic Link

Comparison Tool

Adobe offers a Creative Suite 5 editions comparison tool that breaks down the components included with each suite edition:

New Features

Among the suites major new features are:

• Truer Edge technology in Photoshop CS5 Extended offers improved edge detecting technology and masking results in less time. Photoshop CS5 Extended also lets users remove an image element and immediately replace the missing pixels with Content-Aware Fill.
• InDesign CS5 powers the transition to digital publishing with new interactive documents and enhanced eReader device support.
• Native 64-bit support in Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects enables customers to work more fluidly on high resolution projects.
• New Text Layout Framework in Flash Professional CS5 provides professional-level typography capabilities with functions like kerning, ligatures, tracking, leading, threaded text block and multiple columns.
• New stroke options in Illustrator CS5 allow users to create strokes of variable widths and precisely adjust the width at any point along the stroke.
• 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.
• The new Roto Brush tool in After Effects helps users save time by isolating moving foreground elements in a fraction of the normal time.
• Dreamweaver CS5 now supports popular content management systems Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress, allowing designers to get accurate views of dynamic Web content from within Dreamweaver.

Adobe CS Live

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium also integrates 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. CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time and currently include:

• Adobe BrowserLab, a tool for testing Web site content across different browsers and operating systems.
• Adobe CS Review, which enables online design reviews directly from within Creative Suite 5 applications.
• Access to Acrobat.com services, such as Adobe ConnectNow Web conferencing, to enhance discussion and information exchange with colleagues and clients around the globe.
• Adobe Story, a collaborative script writing tool that improves production and post-production workflows in CS5 Production Premium.
• SiteCatalyst NetAverages from Omniture, which provides Web usage data that helps reduce the guesswork early in the creative process when designing for Web and mobile.

Pricing and Availability

Adobe Creative Suite 5 and its associated point products are scheduled to ship within 30 days, with availability through Adobe Authorized Resellers, the Adobe Store and Adobe Direct Sales. At 11:00 am ET (8:00 am PT) today, Adobe will offer a live streaming preview of CS5 through its website.