Adobe announces Creative Suite 5 Product lineup

Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced Adobe® Creative Suite® 5, a breakthrough release of the industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow. Focusing on interactivity, performance and maximizing the impact of digital content and marketing campaigns across media and devices, the Creative Suite 5 product line brings exciting full version upgrades of flagship creative tools while delivering significant 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 signature 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.

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.

Adobe Creative Suite 5

The new 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 (see separate release), Illustrator® CS5, InDesign® CS5 (see separate release), Flash Catalyst CS5 (see separate release), Flash Professional CS5, Dreamweaver® CS5, Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS5 (see separate release) and After Effects® CS5. These tools are also available separately or in one of the five Creative Suite editions. The complete Creative Suite 5 lineup includes 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. “By coupling sophisticated online business analytics with dazzling creative tools, we’re ensuring that publishers, designers and marketers can create, deliver and optimize beautiful, high-impact digital experiences across media and devices.”

Adobe Creative Suite 5

Design Without Boundaries

More than 250 new features have been integrated into the Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection. 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 allow Adobe Illustrator CS5 users to create strokes of variable widths and precisely adjust the width at any point along the stroke.

Work Faster with Greater Precision

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®, allowing users to work more fluidly when working on high-resolution projects. The highly anticipated 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 revolutionary time-saving 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.

Accelerate and Optimize Creative Workflows

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. CS Live online services are complimentary for a limited time and currently 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 an indispensable 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.

Create and Deliver to More Mobile Platforms

Using Flash Professional CS5, designers and developers can create, test and deliver Web content across a wide 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, users can now build AIR applications using the new Packager for iPhone tool preview, a component of Flash Professional CS5, which can be deployed on the iPhone and iPad (subject to Apple’s requirements and approval) with future device support planned for Android, BlackBerry and Palm webOS.

Pricing and Availability

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 US$2599 for Master Collection CS5, US$1899 for CS5 Design Premium, US$1799 for CS5 Web Premium, US$1699 for CS5 Production Premium and US$1299 for CS5 Design Standard. Upgrade pricing and volume licensing are available. Adobe CS5 products integrate with Adobe CS Live Services, which are complimentary for a limited time. For more detailed information about features, OS support, upgrade policies, pricing and international versions please visit: www.adobe.com/go/creativesuitemaster.

Compare Adobe Creative Suite 5 editions

Design Premium Design Standard Web Premium Production Premium Master Collection
US$1,899 US$1,299 US$1,799 US$1,699 US$2,599
Total value Total value Total value Total value Total value
US$4,542 US$2,446 US$4,291 US$4,693 US$6,987
Components
Adobe Photoshop® CS5 Extended yes no yes yes yes US$999
Adobe Photoshop CS5 no yes no no no US$699
Adobe Illustrator® CS5 yes yes yes yes yes US$599
Adobe® InDesign® CS5 yes yes no no yes US$699
Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro yes yes yes no yes US$449
Adobe Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 yes no yes yes yes US$399
Adobe Flash Professional CS5 yes no yes yes yes US$699
Adobe Flash Builder™ 4 Standard no no yes no yes US$249
Adobe Dreamweaver® CS5 yes no yes no yes US$399
Adobe Fireworks® CS5 yes no yes no yes US$299
Adobe Contribute® CS5 no no yes no yes US$199
Adobe Premiere® Pro CS5* no no no yes yes US$799
Adobe After Effects® CS5 no no no yes yes US$999
Adobe Soundbootd® CS5 no no no yes yes US$199
Adobe OnLocation™ CS5* no no no yes yes
Adobe Encore® CS5* no no no yes yes
ADDITIONAL COMPONENTS
Adobe Bridge CS5 yes yes yes yes yes
Adobe Device Central CS5 yes yes yes yes yes
Adobe Dynamic Link no no no yes yes
Adobe Version Cue® CS5 yes yes yes no yes
Integrates witd Adobe CS Live online services
yes yes yes yes yes

Source: Adobe