Introducing Adobe Creative Suite 5.5!

Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the release of Creative Suite 5.5 in April 2011. Part of a new release strategy, this mid-cycle release will allow both designers and developers to keep up and ahead with new technology changes and mould their work according to how content is consumed and created.

As part of a new release strategy, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 is not an expensive service update as many have assumed, but a replacement of its previous two-year product cycle into a mid-cycle one. So what's new and noteworthy in the Creative Suite 5.5, particularly in Photoshop and Indesign?

Adobe Design Standard: Photoshop CS 5.5

The release of 5.5 software represents Adobe's impressive effort to keep up with changing technologies, particularly

A feature of notable interest in Adobe's Photoshop 5.5 is its new Touch Software Development Kit (SDK), which allows users to interact with Photoshop on their desktop computer over a Wi-Fi connection with Android, Blackberry Playbook, and other touch-based mobile applications.

Three applications released by Adobe, which allow the utilisation of Photoshop with the iPad demonstrates Adobe's commitment to keep up with changing technologies. The three applications: Colour Lava (for colour mixing), Eazel (for finger painting) and Nav (for selection of images and tools) allow users to do simple tasks and editing with Photoshop beyond their desktop. More amazing applications are bound to keep coming, as third party developers set to work on them.

This is a very interesting release by Adobe, allowing users to take their creative processes and work beyond the desktop.

Adobe Design Standard: InDesign CS 5.5

Similar to Adobe Photoshop, InDesign CS 5.5 also takes into consideration the handheld mobile device for the publishing software.

InDesign 5.5 takes electronic publication (ePub) through smartphones and eBook readers further with a number of features. For example, an Articles panel allows users to control an article's order simply through dragging and dropping.

This allows users to have folios delivered automatically to their chosen devices and publishers will have to sign up with Adobe's Digital Publishing platform to ensure that folios are smoothly delivered. Though the platform is subscription based and costs a hefty $495 per month, publishers are most likely to still react positively because of its potential.

The idea of creating interactive docments from InDesign using different forms of devices seems quite convenient and well suited for the modern publisher.

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Product Family

Not forgetting Adobe's other products, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 also packs a punch in its web, video, audio software. Here is a brief introduction to their upgrades.

Web: There are huge updates to HTML5 and Flash authoring tools, enabling designers and developers to create rich browser-based content and deliver mobile applications on Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS, iOS and other platforms. Now hundreds of millions of mobile devices can be targeted with content and apps, created through our web tools.

Video and audio: Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium suite delivers awesome performance, workflow improvements, creative innovations, and powerful new audio editing capabilities. Broadcasters, filmmakers and video professionals can work faster, better and more efficiently than before. The powerful Adobe Mercury Playback Engine, introduced in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, broadens its graphics processing unit hardware support to include laptops and more supported cards, allowing users to open projects faster, get real-time feedback and work more smoothly at higher resolutions.

Conclusion
Adobe's decision to change their release strategy to a mid-cycle one is wise and shows their commendable effort in keeping up with changing times and technologies. It will be well embraced by designers, audio engineers, broadcasters and publishers worldwide.