Adobe has announced the availability of the Adobe Creative Suite 5 product family, which the company says has more than 250 new product features.

The Adobe CS5 product family is powering the creation of content and applications for the upcoming 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, according to John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions at Adobe. 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.

Adobe Creative Suite 5 products also integrate with Adobe CS Live, a set of five innovative online services that accelerate key aspects of the creative workflow and enable designers to focus on creating their best work. CS Live services are complimentary for a limited time.

The Creative Suite 5 line-up includes five new versions: Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Creative Suite 5 Web Premium, Creative Suite 5 Production Premium, Creative Suite 5 Design Standard, as well as 15 point products and associated technologies. Creative Suite now includes a brand-new component, Adobe Flash Catalyst, a professional interaction design tool that allows designers to create expressive web application interfaces and design interaction without writing code.

Also available as part of the Creative Suite 5 product family, sold separately or in one of the five Creative Suite editions, are new versions of the Adobe Creative Suite tools, including Photoshop CS5, Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5, Flash Catalyst CS5, Flash CS5 Professional, Dreamweaver CS5, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, After Effects CS5 and more.

InDesign CS5 powers the transition to digital publishing with new interactive documents and enhanced electronic reader device support. Image creation and editing get a boost with Truer Edge technology in Photoshop CS5, which offers better edge detecting technology and masking results in less time, says Loiacono. 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. 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. In addition, Dreamweaver CS5 now supports popular content management systems Drupal, Joomla! and WordPress.

Performance improvements abound in the Creative Suite 5 product line with engineering breakthroughs, including native 64-bit support on both Mac and Windows in Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, that allows users to work more fluidly on high-resolution projects, says Loiacono. 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, he adds. And the Roto Brush tool in After Effects helps users isolate moving foreground elements in a fraction of the normal time.


Adobe Creative Suite 5 products integrate with Adobe CS Live, a set of five online services that accelerate key aspects of the creative workflow. CS Live online services currently include: Adobe BrowserLab, Adobe CS Review, Acrobat.com, Adobe Story and SiteCatalyst NetAverages from Omniture. Adobe CS Review enables online design reviews from directly in 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, says Loiacono. 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.

Adobe Creative Suite 5 products and its associated point products will be available through Adobe Authorized Resellers, Adobe Direct Sales and the Adobe Store at http://www.adobe.com/store. Estimated street price for the suites is US$1899 for CS5 Design Premium, $1,799 for CS5 Web Premium, $1,699 for CS5 Production Premium, $1,299 for CS5 Design Standard and $2,599 for Master Collection CS5. Upgrade pricing, volume licensing and education discounts are available. Adobe CS5 products integrate with Adobe CS Live online services which are complimentary for a limited time. For more detailed information about features, OS support, upgrade policies, pricing and international versions please visit http://www.adobe.com/go/creativesuite .