Three weeks after its official introduction, Adobe this morning has released Creative Suite 5.5, with major upgrades for mobile, publishing, HTML5, video, audio, and Flash. The CS5.5 configurations are similar to CS5 and the product prices are the same. The new software is available immediately for Windows and Mac via full purchase or discounted upgrade (from as far back as CS2), with delivery via boxed shipment or instant download.

Adobe has simultaneously made CS5.5 free trials available for download (with the new Adobe Download Assistant app). These trials are fully-functional for 30 days and work side-by-side with any previous version(s) of the Creative Suite, including CS5. If you decide not to buy CS5.5 when the trial period is up, you can just uninstall it and your older software will continue to run – while buyers can easily convert their trial to permanent use without reinstalling the software. For upgrades, you can install a trial and then buy an upgrade to convert your trial into a purchased version. (For more informa­tion, refer to the complete Trial FAQ.)

If you have any difficulty with that process, you can instead use the direct download links to get the Adobe CS5.5 trials without the Download Assistant.

The CS5.5 Student & Teacher Editions are also now shipping. These offer up to 80% off the regular prices for education customers including students, teachers, and academic staff. Just be sure you know the key differences between Adobe’s academic versions vs. regular.

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Yes – Adobe CS5.5 has just been announced with all the details… Pretty much on the time­frame we forecast, you can learn about and order any of the new products or suite editions, or download a free CS5.5 trial. And while the version and software have changed, the boxes look much the same as before.

For this “mid-cycle release” coming one year after CS5 first arrived, Adobe is offer­ing similar configurations and prices, but with most of the individual products receiving additional features, enhanced functionality, updated technol­ogies, or nice performance boosts.

Overall we present some highlights here, but see our two companion “what’s new” articles for: (1) an overview of the key differences between CS5 and CS5.5, including what’s been added and what’s been taken away, and (2) a detailed product-by-product review of the significant new features and enhancements in CS5.5.

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Adobe has just unveiled Creative Suite 5.5 – and one of the upgrade questions people are asking is what’s new, what’s different, what’s changed in CS5.5 as compared to previous version(s)? So our job here is to give you a quick “cheat sheet,” or guide to the updates. Adobe calls it “the most compelling release yet” and these kinds of answers can help decide about upgrading…

You may be wondering, why a Creative Suite 5.5? What happened to CS6? See what Adobe’s CEO says about it, or read our launch overview… You might also be interested to know that a CS6 release won’t be out until a long time from now.

CS5.5 updates most of the individual products, but not all… The 11 upgraded applications are: InDesign, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Flash Pro, Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, Audition, Acrobat X Pro, Media Encoder, and Device Central.   Learn more about the new features added to these applications in detail, with our special coverage.

The CS5 tools not revisioned to CS5.5 are Photoshop (Extended), Illustrator, Fireworks, and Contribute.

While Photoshop officially remains at CS5, there is a new Photoshop Touch SDK (Software Development Kit) that allows developers to create companion apps for desktop and mobile use… Read about 3 of the coming tablet apps, or find out more and see a demo of the new Photoshop functions running on the Apple iPad and Motorola Xoom.

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Adobe today has launched Creative Suite 5.5 and we just took a high-level look at how CS5.5 is different from CS5 – and so now here we’ll step through the significant new features at an individual product level, product-by-product…

The upgraded applications and their key new functionalities are detailed below. If you’re coming from further back and would like to know the differences between older versions – like an upgrade from Adobe CS4 to CS5.5, or from CS3 to CS5.5 – the last section will also help.

Major Changes to the Creative Suite Products

• What’s New in Photoshop CS5.1?
• What’s New in InDesign CS5.5?
• What’s New in Dreamweaver CS5.5?
• What’s New in Flash Professional CS5.5?
• What’s New in Flash Catalyst CS5.5?
• What’s New in Flash Builder 4.5?
• What’s New in Premiere Pro CS5.5?
• What’s New in After Effects CS5.5?
• What’s New in Audition CS5.5?
• What’s New in Acrobat X Pro?
• And Illustrator, Fireworks, Contribute CS5?
• What’s New in the CS5.5 Suite Editions?
• Differences from Older Releases (CS3 & CS4)?

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Big question out there with Adobe’s unveiling of Creative Suite 5.5 yesterday – is there a new version of Photoshop for CS 5.5?

We’ve already taken a close look at this with our extensive release review of all CS 5.5 products. But Photoshop is the most popular product of the suite, so the new functions here deserve special focus:

Photoshop will in fact be getting a revision to CS5.1 while extending the creative process beyond the desktop by helping integrate tablet devices into creative workflows. The new Adobe Photoshop Touch SDK (Software Development Kit) allows developers to create companion apps that run on mobile platforms like the Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom, and RIM PlayBook… The SDK controls an internal scripting engine to perform directed actions within Photoshop CS5 – thus enabling cool new applications like color mixing and painting on tablet devices.

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[UPDATE (5/7/2012) – These still work to download the CS5.5 trials.
We also now have the new CS6 Direct Download Links!]

Some of the most visited resources on this site are the direct download links provided for most major Adobe products. So continuing in this tradition, here is a complete set of direct down­load links for all the new Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 software (Windows and Mac), for instant easy access and the ability to use your own download manager or download assistant if you have any difficulty with what Adobe normally employs and need to access the CS5.5 trials without it…

We have also linked the free CS5.5 Extra Content downloads (aka Additional or Functional Content) for all available products.

Below is a table for CS5.5 trial downloads in major languages. These links go to the auth­entic and original CS5.5 files residing on Adobe’s servers, are guaranteed genuine and will not change. For Windows, each program consists of up to two files, an .exe and a 7-Zip file (.7z). The .exe file will only work once the .7z file is fully downloaded and resides in the same location. For the Mac, it’s just a single .dmg file for each program.

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Last week Adobe unveiled Creative Suite 5.5 and held an expert session to address common questions and answers about the new release. We covered part of this session in our earlier piece on the free-upgrade grace period for CS 5.5…

And here, without further ado, is the rest of the shared knowledge from those Adobe Evangelists.

If you have any questions at all about the release that are not answered here or by our CS5.5 launch overview, or comparison to CS5, or new product feature articles, just leave them in the comments below and we’ll get answers!

Topics

• Upgrading to CS5.5
• With Multiple Versions
• CS5.5 Subscriptions
• General Questions
• Products – Acrobat
• Products – Audition
• Products – Dreamweaver
• Products – Fireworks
• Products – Flash
• Products – Illustrator
• Products – InDesign
• Products – Photoshop
• Products – Premiere & AE
• Products – Soundbooth
• Other Questions?

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Since Creative Suite 5.5 was launched three weeks ago, Adobe has held three “Ask a CS Pro” sessions to find out more about the new release and get top questions answered. The first one happened on Facebook and we covered it in its entirety. The most recent two included live demo walkthroughs of the new CS5.5 products and features, plus plenty of great Q&A. The replays run about an hour apiece and you can watch videos of them here (April 21st) and here (April 28th).

We have recorded the entire text of the questions and answers from both of these last two sessions and they are shared for you below. Adobe’s Creative Suite Evangelists are Terry White (Design), Rufus Deuchler (Design), Greg Rewis (Web), Paul Trani (Flash Platform) and Jason Levine (Digital Video & Audio).

If you have any questions at all about the release that are not answered here or by our CS5.5 launch review, or comparison to CS5, or what’s new product feature articles, just leave them in the comments below and we’ll get answers!

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[Now updated for CS 5.5...  Also find out more on the complete differences from CS5.]

One of the most common upgrade questions we see out there is asking what’s new, what’s different, what’s better, what’s changed between Adobe CS5.5 and CS5 or CS4? Or more fundamentally, what are the key new features in CS5.5, versus earlier versions, even CS3?

Creative Suite 5 contains hundreds of new or enhanced features and func­tions across the 13 point products that comprise it. So the easiest way to look at it is by major product… For example, Photoshop CS5 Extended con­tains 18 new features that CS4 didn’t have, plus a further 14 more that have been enhanced. The numbers are similar for other products and even greater over CS3 of course – although generally speaking CS5 has significantly more improvements and innovation compared to CS4 than CS4 had over CS3.

Creative Suite 4 was certainly a capable release (we used it here every day), but some folks have com­mented that CS5 is really the release they wanted when CS4 came out and that CS5 is a game-changer over both previous versions… On that account, we haven’t seen a bad review of CS5 yet.

Creative Suite 5.5 adds further to this with significant new features and enhancements in the areas of mobile, publishing, HTML5, video, audio, and Flash…  Read our full release guide for CS5.5, or find out even when CS6 is due.

So here they are, the breakouts by individual product – the CS5.5 vs. CS5 vs. CS4 vs. CS3 version comparisons:

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OK, so your old computer is running out of gas, you’re upgrading or changing systems, adding a new machine, or switching from a PC to a Mac, or vice versa — and you want to move over your purchased CS6 (or CS5.5 or CS5 or CS4 or CS3 or any other) Adobe software — what do you do, and how do you do it?

As we’ve covered previously here, you are generally allowed to install and activate most Adobe software on up to two computers, with the restriction that the software can not used on both systems at the same time. So right off the bat, you might be good to go with installing the software on a second computer, although you may wish to double-check the licensing agreement for your product to be sure.

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