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Adobe Announces Creative Suite 5

Adobe has just announced the new Adobe Creative Suite 5 collection of publication, Web, and production tools, spanning the creative workflow across print, web, video, interactive and mobile (see previous post). These are due to ship within 30 days.

This release is another impressive piece of software engineering and project management by Adobe, following a year and a half after the release of CS4 -- CS5 includes upgrades to some 14 core applications from CS4, plus new Flash tools, plus additional components and services.

Adobe offers the CS5 applications as individual tools, or bundled in five different suites, including the full Master Collection with all the applications. There's also upgrade pricing to move up from older versions of the suites or from individual tools. The pricing of the individual tools is unchanged from CS4, while several of the suites have been adjusted up or down $100.

- The Design Standard suite is priced at $1299, including Adobe Photoshop for image editing, InDesign for page layout, and Illustrator for vector illustration. The Design Premium is $1899, and adds Photoshop Extended with 3D, plus the core Web tools (Flash Pro, Flash Catalyst, Dreamweaver, and Fireworks).

- The Web Premium suite is $1699, featuring Flash Professional for interactive authoring, Flash Catalyst for interactive design, and Flash Builder 4 for Web coding, plus Dreamweaver for website design, Fireworks for Web graphics, and Contribute for Web publishing. It also includes the core Design tools (Photoshop Extended and Illustrator).

- The Production Premium suite is $1799, featuring After Effects for motion graphics, Premiere Pro for video editing, and Soundbooth for audio editing, plus Encore for DVD and Blu-ray authoring, and OnLocation for shooting (both bundled with Premiere), plus Dynamic Link. It also includes the core Design tools (Photoshop Extended and Illustrator) and Web tools (Flash Professional, Flash Catalyst, and Flash Builder 4).

- The full Master Collection includes all the tools for $2599. All these suites also include Acrobat 9 Pro and access to the Adobe CS Live online services.

See my article, Summary: Adobe Creative Suite 5, for a breakdown of the tools and suites, and highlights of what's new with the CS5 applications.

Visit the Adobe CS5 Launch site for videos of the launch event and demos of the new tools.

See my DVD Authoring Software Gallery for more on Adobe Encore and other DVD authoring tools.

Find Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, Adobe CS5 Production Premium, and Adobe CS5 Master Collection on Amazon.com.

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