What's Coming in Adobe's Creative Suite 5

By Marisa Peacock (@marisacp51) Apr 21, 2010

When Adobe released its Creativity Suite 4, it was designed to make it easier to design websites that combine different types of media. With the recent launch of Adobe’s Creativity Suite 5, the aim is to improve creative editorial workflows and analytics; while offering some cool new design, video and photography tools.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Flash vs. HTML5

Right before Adobe released CS5, Apple upstaged them by announcing that it changed the licensing language for its iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) in such a way that developers may not submit programs to Apple that use cross-platform compilers. Adobe CS5 includes one of those compilers. Ouch!

CS5 offers introduces the Flash Catalyst, a design tool that enables designers to rapidly create expressive interfaces and interactive content without writing code.

You can use the new Flash Catalyst to create prototypes and user interfaces from images, using transitions and Flash components. (photo courtesy Zdnet.co.uk)

Yet, CS5 also includes a very viable improvement that aims to make it easy to import Flash animations into HTML5 Canvas code.

The canvas element, as you may recall, is part of HTML5 and allows for dynamic, scriptable rendering of 2D shapes and bitmap images. As well, once IE9 is released, it will be accessible from all major browsers.

Once there is browser support for HTML 5, it means that anyone can view a Flash creation without having to download the Flash plugin. This is a huge for devices, like the iPhone and iPad that can’t accept the plugin. Though they don’t support flash, they will still be able to run the animations built on it.

Photography

A feature that has a lot of people talking is Photoshop’s new Content Aware Fill Brush, which gives users the ability to remove an object or a person from an image and automatically fill in the background behind them. No more magic wand and awkward cloning!

Content Aware Fill Brush can remove an object or a person from an image and automatically fill in the background behind them. (photo courtesy Zdnet.co.uk)

Other improvements include Photoshop's Merge to High Dynamic Range (HDR) tool, which helps create HDR images, giving photographers the ability to record a greater range of tonal detail than a given camera could capture in a single photo. The new HDR tool now has 14 HDR presets, which can save considerable effort when hand-toning an image.

Other additions include:

MiniBridge: Bridge can now be embedded in a palette within Photoshop (known as Mini Bridge). Users can navigate through images using the familiar Bridge interface without needing to leave Photoshop.
Puppet Warp tools: Users can make path-like selections and bend, warp, shorten, lengthen and twist an object.
Lens Correction tool: Fixes distortion and other lens artifacts using profiles tailored to correct specific camera lenses (the lens type is determined by embedded EXIF data, so Photoshop can determine that automatically).
Camera Raw 6: Photoshop's Camera Raw plug-in, now in version 6, supports more than 275 camera models. The new version of the plug-in allows for better quality sharpening and noise removal, and lets users edit TIFF and JPEG files in addition to images shot in the RAW format.

Indeed, most if not all of these features save designers and photographers lots of time. Actions that may have taken hours to perfect can be done in just minutes, not only enhancing the outcome, but improving creative workflows.