In recent days and weeks Adobe has been slipping out little preview videos of some of the features that could be coming in Photoshop CS5 (well OK not necessarily “CS5” but rather “a future version of Photoshop,” is the official word… ;)

They cover new technologies for painting, coloring, selection, alignment, edge detection and masking, among others, to help save time and effort.

Here we’ve put together the entire collection thus far, in case you’ve missed any or haven’t seen them yet… Each one is bite-sized at about two minutes apiece, and for best viewing, click the expand icon after pressing play on each thumbnail for full-screen HD:

It looks like Adobe is hiring:

Work for Adobe building Great Experiences out of California!

MARCH 5, 2010

As we build out our capability to deliver innovative, customer-centric experiences with our platform technologies upon our enterprise technologies, we’re creating a Solution Center in our San Jose office. The solution center is a fantastic innovation-space, where a team of designers, developers and quality engineers will work together to create incredible experiences alongside Adobe partners, on behalf of some of our most strategic customers.

If you’re a developer, designer or quality engineer who thinks you could be a pivotal part of this initiative, then please check out Peter Martin’s blog post and drop him a note.

Have you heard of other tech companies hiring right now? Feel free to let other readers know with a comment below.

Adobe has a new voucher code: Use adobe10 to save 10% on all products in the Commercial Store in Europe, from now until March 17th 10th… (Update – Adobe has just notified us this offer was so overly successful that they had to expire it early – our apologies!) The code should be entered at time of checkout to receive the discount in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and elsewhere in the EU.

Another new offer, valid worldwide, is save $20 (£13/€17) instantly when you purchase Photoshop Elements with Acrobat. This discount is in addition to the existing $20 Mail-in Rebate for Photoshop Elements products. See our quick take on Elements 8 here.

Lastly, Adobe has extended the deal for purchasing multiple copies of Adobe Acrobat – buy four, get one free – until April 23, 2010. So that translates into savings of up to US$449 when you sign up for the easy new online Volume Licensing Program with Adobe Acrobat software. Note that Adobe has just rechristened their volume licensing store to be called the Adobe Business Store, and this offer also works in both North America and Europe.

Following up to our popular post Tuesday on CS5 release timing, an alert reader discovered a new site launched yesterday morning called the Adobe Creative Suite Buzz Hub… It’s a ‘Twitteresque’ destination where you can follow and see official tweets for the products or evangelists you’re interested in. Facebook connections are there too, as well as an initial set of videos.

Thus far there are presentations on getting started with the design tool Flash Catalyst, which is new for CS5, plus Introducing BrowserLab, which allows you to easily preview and test your web pages on multiple browsers and operating systems on demand, and new script development app Adobe Story, both of which are in limited free preview. There’s also a humorous performance from Photoshop guru Russell Brown.

Adobe expects the buzz site will be a focal point for Creative Suite updates and videos going forward…

When will Adobe Creative Suite 5 be released? That seems to be a big question of the season… Now that it’s March, let’s take another look. If you search the Adobe site for CS5, you’ll find some good tidbits, particularly about Flash Pro CS5 and Photoshop CS5, but little that’s concrete on timing.

But if you look to coverage of a financial conference the CEO spoke at last week, the Wall Street Journal writes: “CS5 is slated for release in April, though Narayen wouldn’t comment on a release time frame at the conference. Narayen said Adobe will ship its new version of Flash around the same time as CS5, in the first half of this year. ‘Data points and reviews point to a really solid release’ of CS5, he said.”

So it sounds like at this point there is still no official date from the company, but the financial community (whose jobs depend on researching this type of info) is expecting it to be available in the mid-spring. And if it were to come three years after the CS3 release, and eighteen months after CS4, then it would be in the second half of April – so with any luck, not too much longer to wait…

What’s more, Adobe has historically offered a “grace period” of sorts with major product releases, wherein if you buy the current version within a certain window of the new release, you can get the current software now plus a free upgrade to the new version when it comes out. Meaning quite possibly, you could buy a CS4 product and then get CS5 later at no additional cost…

We’ll have more specifics on that program here as the CS5 release date approaches, plus full coverage of launch details, so stay tuned.

Hard to believe, but on Friday Adobe Photoshop officially celebrated its 20th anniversary (or birthday, depending on how you look at it)… The New York Times writes:

“It’s remarkable when a product stays on top of its game for 20 years, and Adobe Photoshop had done just that. The first version of Photoshop shipped on Feb. 19, 1990, at a price of $895. Today it’s the go-to tool for professional photographers and graphic designers, and it is used by 10 million people around the world, according to Adobe.”

Indeed, the software has traveled a long way. When it first came out, Adobe predicted it would sell 500 copies per month. Yet now, over 90 percent of creative professionals worldwide have Photoshop on their desktops. The original authors say they knew they had a groundbreaking technology on their hands, but never anticipated how much it would impact the images we see all around us.

The current CS4 version of Photoshop is actually release 11.0 – so there have been ten major versions of the tool over the past two decades. And the flagship product is less expensive now than when it originally came out, even more so (less than half the price) when adjusting to 1990 dollars. Photoshop together with Acrobat and Dreamweaver remain Adobe’s top three selling individual desktop products.

In honor of the celebration, Adobe is offering a couple new specials for the week… The first is free shipping on all Photoshop-family products in the North American commercial store. The second is free shipping on all Adobe products for the Europe and Australia commercial stores, with the promotion code adobeeu. All shipping offers are valid through Sunday, February 28th, and might be stackable with the 10%-off coupon code posted last week.

Limited-time offer: Receive a savings of 10% on your Adobe Store order of a full or upgrade version of Creative Suite 4 suites, or individual CS4 point products – with coupon code 10offAdobe101.

New creative features. Enhanced workflows. Incredible results. You’ve seen what Adobe Creative Suite 4 can do. Now see what you can do with the industry-standard software used by top creative professionals worldwide.

With 10% off on Adobe Creative Suite 4 suite and individual CS4 product purchases (either full or upgrade versions), this is the time to make the move. Don’t wait too long, though — this special offer ends Friday, February 26, 2010.

Note: In order to redeem the 10% savings, you must enter promotion code 10offAdobe101 (or 10offAdobe102) when checking out your shopping cart at the online store, and have a shipping address in the U.S. or Canada.

You know all the usual reasons software makers give to register your software – to receive tech support, news, updates, offers, bugfixes, etc. Now Adobe is adding another reason – to get free gifts. They’re called “complimentary benefits.”

For example, if you register your CS4 product, you can choose from one of these bonuses: 30 days of free training at Lynda.com, free or discounted books or magazines, or access to download 16 free fonts.

Doing the same for Acrobat gets you similar choices, or a 5% discount coupon for anything at the Adobe store. CS3 users can qualify for benefits as well.

Note that to get these gifts you need to use “in-product” registration (the easiest)… Typically this is offered at the time of installation of the application, when a screen prompts you to register by completing just a few fields. Or, if your software is already installed, you can register at any time by selecting Help > Registration from your application’s menu toolbar.

Also BTW, with any product registration, you also get on the list to receive invitations to Adobe events. Just another reasonable benefit.

(It should be noted that complimentary benefits do vary by region and product and are subject to availability.)

Just a quick post because I thought you might be interested in this, on the making of Avatar:

– Watch a full-screen video from the movie’s producer on how Adobe software was used throughout.

– Download the free interactive Avatar app.

(The first link comes from the new AdobeTV site where you can check out dozens of free online training videos for all of Adobe’s products, covering everything from “getting started” tutorials to advanced “how-to” guides with tips and tricks, etc.)

Adobe is offering free Fedex shipping on all Education products at select Adobe Education Stores. Offer valid until February 22, 2010. Plus, students, teachers, and faculty can still save up to 80% off regular prices at the Adobe Education Store.

Offer good for the following Adobe Education Stores:

• North America
• United Kingdom
• France
• Germany
• Other European Countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland)

Also there’s another promotion where if you’re a teacher or K-12 student in North America, you can save $50 instantly on the already-reduced price of a “Premium” version of CS4… This one is valid through February 28, 2010.