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

With a barrage of Photoshop sneak peeks plus many for other CS6 products, you knew that finally Adobe Illustrator was bound to get more love of its own… Adobe has now slipped out two cool looks at the new Illustrator CS6.

Similar to Photoshop, it’s been two years now since a major new version was released – and similar to Photoshop CS6, the new edition of Illustrator will also have a redesigned user interface that is both darker and more modern. The idea here is by making the background darker and the controls more streamlined, the content itself will more readily shine through and stand out.

Here below AI Product Manager Brenda Sutherland shares two quick peeks into a bit of what’s new for Illustrator CS6 as part of the upcoming Creative Suite 6 – a terrific new Gradients on Strokes feature that lets you create artwork that looks complex but is easy to edit, plus an exciting new way to create seamless, repeating vector patterns… check them out:

Notice there are three different ways to use this new capability: “Apply gradient within stroke,” “Apply gradient along stroke,” and “Apply gradient across stroke” – to apply gradients along the length, across the width, or within the stroke itself. This has to be one of the most requested features for Illustrator for quite some time – and means no longer trying to to use a gradient brush as a workaround.

Here’s the second AI CS6 sneak on patterns:

As Adobe’s Terry Hemphill says:

On-artboard controls let you create and edit patterns interactively. One-click tiling arrangements let you experiment quickly so you can spend more time being creative and less on planning.

If you’ve ever struggled with creating seamless patterns in Illustrator (and I know I have) , you’re going to love this new way of working.

One big question customers are now asking: Will there be 64-bit and/or multiprocessor support in Illustrator CS6, with the improved performance that would bring? No indication has been given in the videos or anywhere else, but with all the time since the last release and the way other products are going, it would make good sense for Illustrator CS6 to have native 64-bit support, don’t you think?

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

As a side note – and in the hard-to-believe category – Adobe Illustrator celebrates its 25th anniversary this year… Ever wonder (or remember!) what the earliest versions of this flagship vector drawing tool looked like?

Well, if you’re up for a blast from the past, here are some nostalgic old and original demo reels of versions 1 (featuring Adobe co-founder John Warnock) and 2 (a.k.a. Illustrator 88)!

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Adobe has just put out an excellent resource updated for CS5 / CS5.5 – a free printing guide in the form of a 140-page downloadable e-book. Earlier versions of this have been out for previous releases (see the older CS4 and CS3 links below), but now this is fully refreshed and upgraded for the latest versions of the products.

This very handy tome will tell you everything you ever need or wanted to know about getting great print results with your projects in Photoshop CS5 (including Extended), Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5/CS5.5, and Acrobat X Pro. All the different tools, setups, settings, options, functions, and formats – what they mean and how to best use them to achieve your goals.

Adobe describes it as, “learn the best ways of handling and preparing CS5 and CS5.5 files for print with this in-depth technical reference, designed especially for printers and production artists” – but anybody who would like a tutorial on how to print and generate the most optimal output from their designs can gain something here…

Because some technologies and concepts – such as PDF creation, transparency, and the Graphics Model – are common across all Adobe products used for print design and production, the first chapter of a dozen pages is devoted solely to explaining common terminology and back­ground resources. And with the groundwork laid, the rest goes into comprehensive detail on things you probably have wanted to know at some point but were afraid to ask or didn’t know where.

So now, whether you print from Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, or Acrobat, this ebook explains all you need to know about successful printing and output generation.

And luckily, the price is right!

• Read/download the Adobe CS5/CS5.5 Printing Guide (PDF, 140 pages, 20MB)
• Read/download the Adobe CS4 Printing Guide (PDF, 139 pages, 5MB)
• Read/download the Adobe CS3 Printing Guide (PDF, 120 pages, 7MB)

You may also be interested in another free e-book, the 172-page “Learn CS5: Step-by-Step and On-Demand” for training on Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator, and Flash…

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The fine folks over at Que Publishing, who have over thirty years of experience writing good books about software and technology, have put out a free sampler edition of their new series of books on learning Adobe Creative Suite 5… This “CS5 on Demand” e-book runs 172 pages (11.3 MB to download, in PDF format) and includes five full chapters on Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator, and Flash Professional.

This collection has been designed to teach CS5 through step-by-step tutorials with easy-to-follow instructions, to be rich in illustrations for those who want to learn visually, and to be complete and in-depth references for those seeking a trusted desk resource to quickly provide the answers you need.

Topics covered in the free downloadable ebook include Using the Paint, Shape Drawing, & Eraser Tools in Photoshop CS5, Creating an Interactive Document in InDesign CS5, Viewing the HTML Behind the Page in Dreamweaver CS5, Working with Objects in Illustrator CS5, and Developing iPhone Apps with Flash Pro CS5.

So if you’ve been meaning to learn more about Creative Suite 5, here’s a good opportunity…
If you don’t have the software itself yet, you can just download and run Adobe’s free fully-working trial (any or all products) for 30 days, and then follow along with that. If you then decide to purchase it, you might save some money with their currently running specials.

These Que books are well-reviewed and highly rated – each of them receiving up to 4½ stars on Amazon.com (“Excellent and easy-to-follow,” “Useful for veterans and novices alike,” “Great CS5 reference books”) – so if you want to find out more, click for the details of each individual volume:

» See also: Over 17 Hours of Free New Online Video Tutorials for Adobe CS5

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Back about six months ago (before CS5 was released), there was a lot of buzz surrounding sneak-peek videos about multiscreen authoring with HTML5 and CSS3, plus a new “Smart Paste” capability between Illustrator and Dreamweaver. These features are now becoming realized with some pretty cool tools to create and place inter­active vector-based content in live web pages across multiple devices and screen sizes, without the use of Flash or Silverlight. All that’s needed is HTML5 canvas support along with JavaScript.

The best thing you can do to get a sense of the new capabilities is watch the 17-minute video tutorial below. Then, here is a collection of helpful resources for getting started, with more to read below the video:

• Download the Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack (with installation instructions & user guide)
• The Official Adobe Press Release
• The User Community Discussion Forum

So put it all together and the implications here are several. First, Illustrator has now effectively become a HTML5 authoring tool for rich web content, bringing designers and developers closer together. Second, this continues the ongoing trend of integration and convergence amongst different products within the Creative Suite 5 toolset. Third, Adobe is serious about these open standards when they said, “We’re going to make the best tools in the world for HTML5″… Lastly, regardless of where things go with the “Flash Wars,” Adobe looks intent on staying on top of the design & development tool world for the future, placing and maintaining bets on all comers and participants.

The company itself has written:

Adobe makes money selling tools, not distributing viewing soft­ware. Those tools must address customer needs. If Flash Player is the right choice for some projects and HTML/CANVAS for others, no problem: we get paid to help you solve problems, not to force one implementation vs. another.

The HTML5 Pack for Dreamweaver that came out in May was officially incorporated into the Dreamweaver CS5 11.0.3 Update released two weeks ago. Expect the same thing to happen with this new Illustrator CS5 HTML5 Pack, after some evolution and incorporation of feedback. Note that you need to be running at least Illustrator CS5 version 15.0.1 to successfully install the add-on pack. Or if you don’t own the product yet, you can just download the full and free trial of the latest version of Illustrator (or Dreamweaver) CS5.

Note: Although the HTML5 and CSS3 specs are still being finalized, HTML5 and CSS3 can be used with any browser that currently supports them. Most recent versions of the leading browsers (Safari, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer, Chrome), support at least some (a few support many) HTML5 and CSS3 features.

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The presentations are 90-minute live “deep dives” with Adobe product experts where you can get firsthand detailed information on the new features of these releases, see demonstrations, and get direct answers to your questions. All sessions are from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM ET on upcoming Tuesdays, and will be presented in English:

Deep Dive: Adobe Illustrator CS5
Tuesday, July 13, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe InDesign CS5
Tuesday, July 27, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe Flash Professional CS5
Tuesday, August 10, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

Deep Dive: Adobe Premiere Pro CS5
Tuesday, August 24, 11:30am – 1:00pm US/Eastern
Complimentary Registration

The only requirements to participate are a web browser with an Internet connection and Adobe Flash Player.

If you’re also interested in Photoshop or Lightroom, this additional free webinar is a bonus:

  Professional Photographer Workflow — Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Lightroom
  Thursday, July 15, 2010, 1:00pm – 2:00pm US/Eastern — Watch On-Demand

Adobe Digital Imaging Evangelist Julieanne Kost will demonstrate how you can leverage the tight integration between Adobe Photoshop CS5 and Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software to create a completely fluid workflow to manage and edit images. Learn how to easily select multiple photos in Lightroom and automatically open them in Photoshop CS5 to merge them into a panorama, an HDR image, or a multilayered Photoshop document. Discover the ease of “Edit in” the power of presets for exporting files as well as how to hand off images from Lightroom to Photoshop CS5 to automat­ically run actions for speed and efficiency.

[Photo credit: javiy]

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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.]

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Over the past three days Adobe has quietly released several “preview” videos of future technology in Dreamweaver… Now just as with the sneak-peek Photoshop videos posted last week, there are no assurances on exactly which version of Dreamweaver or when – but considering that CS5 could be coming out fairly soon, we could be seeing some of these new technologies in CS5. But even if not, they are rather impressive…

The first video below covers a very cool new “Smart Paste” command that makes it a snap to bring vector designs (such as artwork from Illustrator) directly into HTML – as simple as copy and paste.

The second one delves into support for multiscreen authoring with HTML5 and CSS3, and so might be considered more in the “emerging” department… This one is a big challenge for designers especially as varied mobile devices become increasingly more prevalent on the web.

The last video comes from the new “CSbuzz” hub site that launched last week, and is a little tease on significant improvements when working in Dreamweaver with dynamic material such as PHP, which historically hasn’t been as handy.

For best viewing, click the expand icon after pressing play on each thumbnail for full-screen HD:

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