[UPDATE (April 23rd) – Creative Suite 6 is out!]

On Thursday Adobe surprised everyone with an “early reveal” of the new CS6 video products just in time for the NAB 2012 show in Las Vegas kicking off today…

If you missed it, we have coverage of the new features in Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Audition, with a CS6 vs. CS5.5 version comparison – as well as the same for the CS6 Production Premium suite, taking a look at what’s new and improved.

These video tools are loaded with new features and performance improvements, and are already getting solid reviews. Lynda.com writes, “Workflow, speed, and efficiency make for a strong CS6 update to veteran production applications Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.”

And PC Pro Magazine gives its verdict on Premiere Pro CS6: “A significant interface overhaul, both in appearance and day-to-day operation, makes this sophisticated, powerful editor more tempting than ever… Adobe’s video-editing flagship completes its transformation from a clunky and unresponsive behemoth to a smooth, efficient professional tool.”

Here now are some Frequently Asked Questions (and answers) on the products, and a bit further down are some helpful video demos for each of the three.

[UPDATE – CS6 Grace Period Savings: Buy CS5.5 Now + Get CS6 Free!]

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[UPDATE (April 23rd) – Creative Suite 6 is out!]

Wondering what’s coming soon in Adobe’s world-class video suite CS6 Production Premium, before it comes out next month? Read below for the latest details on what’s new and improved in CS6, and what’s different compared to CS5.5…

This information is being revealed in advance of the 2012 NAB Show in Las Vegas next week, where the company is planning to make a really big splash with these new tools.

Adobe CS6 Production Premium introduces a sleek, fresh editing environment in Premiere Pro – the hub of your post-production workflow. Freely iterate creative ideas with the new Content-Aware family of technologies in Photoshop Extended and with new 3D advancements in After Effects, where the Global Performance Cache lets you work as fast as you can think. New components – Adobe Prelude, a logging and ingest tool, and Adobe SpeedGrade, for color grading and finishing (originally published by Iridas) – offer superior solutions to common production challenges. Adobe Audition adds dozens of enhanced editing features and support for control surfaces so you can produce audio more efficiently. From planning to playback, CS6 Production Premium gives you tools that help your workflow.

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[UPDATE (May 7th) – CS6 is here!]

We’ve got the scoop on the new video features and software coming soon in Creative Suite 6 — and the go-ahead from Adobe to reveal them!

In particular, we can sneak peek and show you everything that’s going to be in the CS6 Production Premium video suite: Premiere Pro CS6, After Effects CS6, Audition CS6, Story CS6, Adobe Media Encoder CS6, Encore CS6 – plus two new applications, Prelude CS6 and SpeedGrade CS6!

The company is planning to make a really big splash with these new tools at the 2012 NAB Show in Las Vegas next week.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 delivers a sleek, professional user interface; a powerful playback engine; and a host of fantastic creative features. Quickly stabilize shaky shots with Warp Stabilizer. Natively edit anything from low-resolution to RED EPIC 5K and ARRIRAW footage, finesse your work with dynamic timeline trimming, handle more multicam angles, and correct rolling shutter artifacts. Get flexible audio tracks, powerful color workflows, Adobe Prelude software integration, and more.

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Last week Adobe revealed 11 sneak peek videos of technology they are working on but haven’t released yet, and while Photoshop Image Deblurring and InDesign Liquid Layout got much of the attention, there were still some amazing developments in the video realm as well – and all three of those are covered below.

Naturally, Adobe says there are never any guarantees for what may or may not appear in a production release, or when… (maybe CS6?) But nevertheless, major new product features very often appear in these previews before they make the real tools (case in point, Content-Aware Fill).

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Even though Creative Suite 5 has been out for over a year, and CS 5.5 since the spring, some components of Creative Suite 4 remain surprisingly popular… In particular, the two applications After Effects CS4 and Premiere Pro CS4, which were released in the fall of 2008, are still sought by many. At first this might seem odd, but there’s good reason… Why does this duo of earlier tools remain in demand?

It’s no doubt owing to the 64-bit-only requirement for those two products (and only those two products) in Creative Suite 5… Adobe explains the reason for this is because developing in native 64-bit gives the best optimized performance benefits with the demanding technical requirements of working with high definition video. But these won’t run on many older computers.

Note this is more of a Windows factor and does not affect the majority of Mac systems using Intel proces­sors… But with no 32-bit Windows versions of After Effects CS5.5 or Premiere Pro CS5.5 offered, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising the CS4 releases continue to be needed. After all, statistics show that 43% of the broad Internet community still runs on Windows XP – making it still the most widely-used Microsoft Windows platform – but which isn’t supported for those CS5 apps.

The question then becomes, what to do about it? If you’re still on 32-bit or XP, but need one of these products after the free trial has run out, would your best choice be to buy the previous generation version of CS4? Doubtless your next computer will be 64-bit – so wouldn’t it be better to invest and get both – CS4 (for current use) and CS5.5 (for future growth) – two for the price of one? Especially since these two latest releases have been getting stellar reviews from many sources…

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[UPDATE (April 11th) – Adobe CS5.5 is out!]

We just got confirmation from Adobe that a “mid-cycle release” of Creative Suite 5 will be out later this year, perhaps in the coming months.

The definitive word came from a conference call on Tuesday afternoon with financial analysts, where the Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen stated:

We will continue to expand our content authoring offerings by providing a mid-cycle release to CS5.

[ Read the full transcript here ]

We’ve known for some time now (see our October piece) that a “dot release” of Creative Suite 5 would be coming and due to incorporate the new version of Acrobat X Pro – similarly to how CS2 and CS3 had mid-cycle upgrades for that exact reason…

But here Adobe has been working quite a bit harder and longer, with no “CS5.3″ at the November ship date of Acrobat X… So instead, we have clear indications of a larger upgrade in store – and here’s what’s going to be in it:

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There’s a fantastic new resource available for After Effects users – a free three-hour in-depth tutorial on After Effects CS5. This introductory course covers a broad range of topics: learning the basics of compositing and animation, how to use keyframes as well as spatial and temporal interpolation, using parenting to group animated elements together, how to use masks and layers, introduction to effects, importing Photoshop documents into AE, syncing transitions to music, creating a master composition, how to render out your finished video to a standalone file, and more. The program is hands-on and includes downloadable sample files to follow along with for creating a motion graphic title sequence.

Read more…

Yes, CS5 is out! It looks like a phenomenal release, and we have full coverage – including new products, pricing, configurations, system reqs, videos, “what’s new” feature lists, and more:

• Creative Suite 5 Product Overview  
• CS5 Full Product Configuration Matrix
• CS5 Complete System Requirements
• CS5 Pricing for Commercial and Education
• What’s New in Photoshop CS5  
• What’s New in Dreamweaver CS5  
• What’s New in Illustrator CS5  
• What’s New in InDesign CS5  
• What’s New in Flash Pro CS5  
• All About New Flash Catalyst CS5  
• What’s New in Contribute CS5
• What’s New in Premiere Pro CS5  
• What’s New in After Effects CS5  

ALL CS5 products are immediately available for purchase and instant download, with free shipping on all Adobe orders over €500/£350 in Europe and the U.K. (no coupon or promo code is required)…

On Adobe’s site: If you’re considering upgrading from your current software, here’s a helpful upgrade guide. Also new is an excellent FAQ covering purchasing policies and key product changes… The online documentation for all CS5 products also just went up.

Lastly and importantly, the CS5 free trial downloads and Student and Teacher Editions
(up to 80% off) are also now available!

[UPDATE (May 13th) – Adobe CS5 is now shipping and downloadable in 16 languages: English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Korean.]