Adobe Creative Suite 5 (CS5) announced
Focus of new CS5 creative & design tools is interactive content creation, collaboration, publishing and marketing.
The imminent release of Creative Suite 5 (Adobe CS5) has been announced by Adobe. The focus of the CS 5 updates is interactivity, especially with regard to marketing campaigns across different digital media. For example, Adobe have announced that, for the first time ever, CS5 applications will have access to Omniture technologies which can allow the capture and analysis of information generated by websites.
Adobe have also announced a brand new application called Flash Catalyst, which is designed at allowing the creation of interactive digital content, without the need to write code. The intention being to improve the collaboration process between creative designers and coders and technical developers.
The various tools and applications are available separately but, as with previous upgrades, Adobe's software programs have been bundled into various packages targeted at different creative industry sectors – design; web and interactive; and video production. As with previous releases of Creative Suite, there is also a Master Collection combining products from across the creative disciplines.
What's new in Adobe CS5?
With all the focus on the interactive and digital multimedia publishing features of the updates, it is worth noting that there are also some more basic additions and updates to the core design programs. Below are selections of some (but by no means all) new features which Adobe have added to some of their key tools for Creative Suite 5.
Adobe Flash Catalyst CS5
Brand new interactive design program to allow the transformation of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks designed artwork into interactive projects without the need to write code. According to Adobe, graphics from Photoshop and Illustrator can be transformed into interactive content for user interfaces and web pages, video portfolio websites can be created, and designers will be able to define behaviours and control interaction with menu-based commands.
New features in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended
Adobe's (and the creative industry's) core photographic image editor, Photoshop CS5, gets some new features, including;
* New painting effects are possible with the Mixer Brush, which offers on-canvas color blending.
* Bristle Tips, allows the creation of lifelike, textured brush strokes.
* The new Content-Aware Fill tool can remove image detail or objects and automatically fill in the space left behind.
* Other new image editing tools in Adobe Photoshop CS5 include new methods of selecting intricate image details and a tool called puppet warp, which can stretch and warp image elements.
* There are also some enhancements to workflow and media management, including a customisable Adobe Mini Bridge.
* Adobe CS5 provides 64-bit support across both Windows and Mac OS X platforms (assuming hardware and software supports it).
Adobe Illustrator CS5
Illustrator CS5 gets a number of new features, including;
* Perspective Drawing which allows the drawing of shapes and scenes in accurate one, two or three point linear perspective to create a realistic look of depth and distance.
* Enhancements to multiple artboards. It is now possible to work on up to one hundred artboards of different sizes within one Illustrator file.
* A Bristle Brush to allow painting with vectors resembling natural media brush strokes.
Adobe InDesign CS5
The theme of interactivity and multimedia continues with some of the new features for Indesign CS5;
* Ability to add interactivity, movement, sound and video to InDesign documents and presentations and export them into Flash SWF format.
* Multiple page sizes is probably a feature that print designers would have liked in desktop publishing packages years ago. Before Freehand was discontinued, it used to have this feature. Now Adobe have introduced multiple page sizes into InDesign CS5. Something which may be very useful for designing magazine split-covers and promotional flyers.
* The InDesign layers panel has also been redesigned so that it more resembles the palettes in Photoshop and Illustrator.
Adobe Flash Professional CS5
Flash Pro CS5 also has some new and enhanced features, such as;
* If the print design tools are getting more interactive tools, then Flash has acquired a feature which, until now, has been more the preserve of traditional desktop publishing tools. The Text Layout Framework allows more control over typography using a new text engine.
* A new Code Snippets panel, aims to reduce the learning curve required to learn ActionScript.
Adobe Dreamweaver CS5
Not to be left out, Adobe's CMYK web development tool, Dreamweaver CS5, has some new features also, for example;
* Integrated Content Management Systems (CMS) support enables developers to test support for content management system frameworks such as WordPress blogs and Joomla and Drupal content management systems.
* CSS inspection allows developers to visually display the CSS box model in detail and toggle CSS properties, without reading code or using a separate utility.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
Premiere Pro CS5 is a video production tool from Adobe, which has also received some new and updated features with this release, including;
* According to Adobe, Premier Pro will allow some increases in work speed, due to the native 64-bit, GPU-accelerated Mercury Playback Engine.
* There is now support for Digital SLR cameras, with the ability to edit native video without transcoding or rewrapping.
Adobe After Effects CS5
After Effects CS5 also benefits from some enhancements in Creative Suite CS5, such as;
* Native 64-bit support allows for potential efficiency increases, say Adobe, as users can make use of all their systems' RAM memory.
* Color LUT support enables consistent color workflows by using 3DL and CUBE lookup tables.
* Digieffects FreeForm 3D mesh warp plug-in, enables turing flat objects into 3D shapes.
According to Adobe, Creative Suite 5 is due to ship within 30 days.
