Adobe CS5 Launch

Today was Adobe’s official launch of the new Creative Suite 5, otherwise known as CS5.  The product has been out in beta for awhile now and was officially launched in an online webcast(first 37 minutes).  Having been briefed last month, where we were given a sneak peak into some of the new features, I can say that I’m impressed with the new features.  My favorite new photography improvements are Content Aware Fill, Puppet Warp, improved RAW processing and Black and White conversion.  Despite all of this marketing, a few questions remain;

When will the product be available?   Right now, they say the expected ship date will be mid-May.
Should this have been simply an upgrade to CS4?
When should we expect the new version of Lightroom 3 which is now currently in beta?

These and more detailed specific questions shall be answered in a detailed review of the product.  In the meantime, here are some of today’s highlights;

Overall Key Improvements/Enhancements

• Time savings workflows and features
• Collaborative features
• GPU Acceleration Optimization
• 64-Bit Native Processing
• New Mercury Playback and Rendering Engine
• Content Aware Fill

After Effects

• Roto Scoping – New Roto Brush saves a lot of time and effort by allowing you to move foreground objects from their backgrounds automatically creating transparency around the foreground object.

Dreamweaver

• Discover within Dreamweaver can take a page from a website and determine/show all other pages necessary to render the page, in Live View within Dreamweaver.  Helps you work with different CMS’ such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla.

Flash Catalyst

• Create flash content using native Photoshop and Illustrator files without coding

Flash Professional

• Integration with Flash Builder and packager for iPhone which will package product as a native iPhone application ready for the iApp Store.

Illustrator

• Variable Width Stroke allows you to modify line width for some cool effects

InDesign

• Create flash content from within InDesign without coding
• Can preview and change flash content from within InDesign

Photoshop

• Natural and customizable paintbrushes – Can change a photo into a painting or add artistic effects using the new Mixer Brush.  This brush allows for color blending and different bristle tips which produce lifelike  brush strokes.
• Repousse – Create 3D logos and objects from any layer, selection, path or layer mask.  You can twist
• Mini Bridge – Navigate and access files within Photoshop
• HDR Pro – new version allows for more creative changes with new controls, save presets and remove ghosting and pull replacement content from whichever exposure you’d like.
• De-mosaic and sharpening and noise reduction improvements
  post crop vignetting – ability to darken or lighten image as if you were dodging or burning in traditional darkroom processing.
• Automate lense correction based on camera model – corrects distortion, aberration and vignetting.
• Content Aware Fill – AMAZING – can remove objects from photo and Photoshop will intelligently fill in space automatically to make it look like it was never there.
• Natural Media Bristle Tips – allow you to make paintings from photo or scratch.  Bristle quality, length, stiffness of brush are all controllable
• Mixer brush tool allows to realistically blend colors.
• Puppet Warp – ULTRA COOL – Drop pins on object in photo then can make natural distortions
• Camera RAW 6 – Inoise reduction, better sharpening, more vignetting options and the ability to add grain to a photo are some of the highlighted features.
• Refine Edge feature – The new Smart Radius option will automatically detect the type of edge being outlined and can also detect and remove color fringing.
• Automatic lense correction – PS5 will read the Exif data and make corrections based on camera body and lense combinations.  Corrections include chromatic aberration, vignetting and geometric distortion.  You will also be able to create your own profiles and share them online.

Script to Screen workflow

• Adobe Story – On Location – Premier Pro – Allows for full control over the process from editing of scripts from multiple sources to passing/using meta data throughout the lifecycle.

CS Live

• BrowserLab – Determine how something will look in many different browser/platform combinations and compare.  Has  onion skin view which helps user determine minute differences between browser looks.
• Site Catalyst Net Averages – Give user device and operating system data early on in creative process to help optimize design decisions for largest audience.
• Adobe Story – Bring in scripts from a number of sources where you can edit and carry metadata through out the production process.
• CS Review – works with Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.  Allow user to share work to get feedback from others online, even if they don’t have CS products.
• Using Acrobat.com a shared screen and collaborate in real-time.
• Complementary use for a limited time.

Flash Player 10.1

• New version will allow flash content to work on wider range of devices – netbooks, smartbooks, smartphones, tablets and televisions.

Business Catalyst Online Business Platform for Web Designers

• Set of solutions for designers to build online businesses without coding.

There is so much more to cover depending on which angle you’re coming from.  Adobe.com and tv.adobe.com both have numerous resources explaining all of the new features and enhancements.  Check it out…I’d be interested to hear from you to see what you think of the product.