Last week Adobe quietly revealed a first look at Photoshop CS6, which was received with hundreds of thousands of views…  And now we have a second look, a sneak peek which focuses on performance gains.

As images grow larger and larger in resolution and file size, even simple issues such as saving your files can slow down productivity – which has been a point of interest in Photoshop CS5. In this preview, a smooth and oft-requested Background Save capability is introduced allowing you to fully continue working while all file saving takes place in the background, regardless of size or compression.

Large images also slow down functions like Liquify… In the video, a 100MB photograph lags when loading and editing in Photoshop CS5. Now this new Photoshop (CS6 we presume) uses the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) to greater effect to bring real-time loading and editing responsiveness. See how much faster and crisper the Liquify filter works, enabling effectively unlimited brush sizes:

If you missed the first Photoshop CS6 sneak peek, it’s definitely worth two minutes of your full-screen time if you haven’t seen it yet – introducing the new user interface, rich cursor support, plus advancements in the Camera Raw processing engine that will power Photoshop CS6:

Check out what it does to this simple cellphone shot of the Eiffel Tower using just a few (new) sliders, restoring it more accurately to how it looked to the photographer’s eye at the time of capture…

Roll over the image with your mouse (or tap) for the before and after results:

What else do we know about Photoshop CS6? Well, there’s the chance we’ll see the much-discussed Photoshop Image Deblur tool that Adobe showcased at the annual MAX show last fall – and then later published more before-and-after images for demonstration. But from the sounds of what Photoshop Senior Product Manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes said afterwards, it could be too “early stage” to make the CS6 release.

So all in all, some cool and welcome enhancements to the Photoshop product but nothing too earth-shattering quite yet – we think Adobe could be saving the “big gun” new features (a la CS5′s Content-Aware Fill and Puppet Warp) for closer to the actual CS6 launch date.

Related Posts

• When is Adobe CS6 Being Released, including Photoshop CS6?
• Adobe Confirms Release Cycle for Creative Suite; CS6 Out Mid-2012
• Adobe CS6 Upgrade Policy Changes Postponed! CS3 & CS4 on Track
• Adobe Lightroom 4 Beta Release is Here! Now Available Free to Public
• Acrobat & Lightroom: Impact of Creative Cloud and Upgrade Changes

Late last week we received these two inquiries via our Contact page:

“Could you please provide a proposed release date for CS6 Design Premium software? I can’t see anywhere on your site where this is mentioned except for the U-turn regarding upgrade policy from earlier versions.”

“I have a budget meeting tomorrow and need to know the approximate release date and projected cost of the CS5 to CS6 Master Collection Suite upgrade.”

So, this is something people really want to know now.  And we have written about it before, giving clues in posts here as far back as March and July of last year…

But it’s clearly time for an update.

Even today, we wish we could give you exact dates and numbers for those questions, but Adobe hasn’t publicly disclosed that information – and likely won’t until CS6 is launched… However, we can make a best estimate of the possible timing for the Creative Suite 6 release window.

On Adobe’s site now there is a document referencing the new CS Release Schedule.  Here are a few of the key elements contained within this Message Summary:

New CS Release Schedule

To enable customers to successfully capitalize on these industry trends, Adobe is innovating quickly and we are introducing a new release schedule for Creative Suite:

• In order to keep customers ahead of these industry trends, we will issue midcycle releases in between our traditional milestone releases.
• We are extending the time between milestone releases to two years.
• There will be one midcycle release during each cycle. So, once every 12 months there will definitely be a substantial release for CS.
• Since features in the midcycle release are primarily focused on keeping users ahead of the industry trends at that time, not all point products will be revised in a given midcycle release.
• This new Release Schedule debuts … with CS5.5 as the first of these midcycle releases.

So reading between the lines here – if milestone (new major number) releases will be every two years, and if every 12 months there will be a new version of Creative Suite coming out, then taking the CS5.5 launch date of May 2011 and adding twelve months would give an expected CS6 shipping date in the May 2012 timeframe.

Of course, software development schedules are never exact, and your mileage may vary – but this is about the best estimate right now from public information.

What else do we know about CS6?

First and foremost, Creative Suite 6 will continue to be available in all the forms you’re used to today with CS5 – download or boxed, full or upgrade, individual or suite, perpetual (perma­nent) or subscription. And based on the Message Summary document, all major products are likely to receive substantial revisions and new features.

What about pricing? There have been no announcements in this regard – but since Adobe just postponed their change in upgrade policy, your best price estimate for modeling purposes has to be to use what’s in place now for CS5, for a similar product or upgrade.

Current CS3, CS4, and CS5 customers will be able to upgrade to their choice of CS6 products. CS2 customers can still upgrade to CS5.5 now, but will be too far back to receive discounted upgrade pricing to CS6. However, there may be a brief grace period where anybody (including CS2 users) could upgrade to CS5/CS5.5 and then receive a free further upgrade to CS6, if Adobe continues what they’ve done after past Creative Suite announcements. Stay tuned here as we’ll have quick news of that if it’s offered.

Adobe will also be offering a Creative Cloud alternative (where access to the software is rented monthly by paid membership) but — and there’s a lot of misunderstanding here — the cloud will be completely optional and not required by any customer (either existing or new) to buy or use it… In other words, it is an addition – not a replacement.

We also now know that Adobe’s two new products Edge and Muse will not be part of CS6, and will be available via separate subscription or cloud only. At the same time, we know that Adobe Acrobat, Lightroom, and Photoshop/Premiere Elements will not be affected by any cloud or upgrade changes.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 – a Sneak Peek?

Did you catch the little “sneak peek” video that Adobe slipped out on YouTube last week, presumably a first look at what’s to come in Photoshop CS6?

[UPDATE (February 1st) – A 2nd sneak peek of Photoshop CS6 has also just been released.]

There were some interesting details revealed – confirming longtime rumors, Photoshop is getting a darker and redesigned user interface that allows for a more immersive experience and consistency between other Adobe applications, plus rich cursor support that gives a floating heads-up of significant brush metrics right near the action. And as is customary, Photoshop CS6 will continue to use the same new Adobe Camera Raw 7 processing engine that’s also available now in the free Lightroom 4 beta release.  ACR 7 has been rewritten and can do some pretty amazing things very quickly, as shown in the video.

Check out what it does to this iPhone camera shot of Paris – how easily it brings up the foreground without blowing out the background, recovering highlights and boosting clarity for a more compelling image using just a few sliders…

Just roll over with your mouse (or tap) for the before and after results:

So the video is definitely worth two minutes of your full-screen time if you haven’t seen it yet – and we’re likely to get more previews in the coming months because it’s titled “#1″ in a new YouTube playlist Adobe created called “Sneak Peeks”:

What other features coming in CS6?

Well, of course we also have the possibility of the stunning Photoshop Image Deblurring feature that Adobe demoed at MAX last fall – but from what PS Senior Product Manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes said earlier, it sounds like a long shot for deblurring to make the CS6 release.

It seems more likely we could see some of the other MAX feature sneak peeks finding their way into CS6 products, including Liquid Layout for InDesign, plus 3D Video Meshes, Auto-Align New Dialogue Track, and Auto-Sync Crowd-Sourced Video for Premiere Pro & After Effects, as well as all the rest of the sneak peek demos.

Related Posts

• Adobe Confirms Release Cycle for Creative Suite; CS6 Out Mid-2012
• Adobe Photoshop CS6 – Another Look? More Sneak Peeks [VIDEO]
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• The New Adobe Creative Cloud: What It Is and Why You Should Care
• CS5.5 or CS6? New Adobe “Sneak Peek” Preview Videos Out

Content Aware Fill is one of the major features added in Adobe Photoshop CS5, and is said to be one of its greatest new timesavers. CAF allows you to move or delete parts of your image and Photoshop will automatically and intelligently fill in the space left behind. We’ve written about it before with the quote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguish­able from magic.” [Arthur C. Clarke]

And in our shop here we save hours every month from using Content Aware Fill as well as other CS5 advancements like Puppet Warp and the improved edge/masking tools.

Yet we still see some people claiming that Content Aware Fill “doesn’t work,” “doesn’t give results like in the demo video,” “doesn’t use the right back­ground,” or is just hype, smoke-and-mirrors, or a “gimmick.”

It’s true that it doesn’t always work and of course has its limitations. You can’t synthesize brand new material or hidden content that doesn’t exist in some related form elsewhere in the image. And often it will require some retouching afterwards to get the final result you want.

But usually it will get you most of the way there very quickly – if you know the most effective ways to use the feature. The best is when it “just works” without doing anything special, and this happens often enough too…

Here is a quick before-and-after example that required doing nothing more than an item selection and a content-aware delete… and one could say that for (literally) a two-minute job, it borders on magic…  Just roll over with your mouse (or tap) for the before and after results:

So what are the tips for ensuring Photoshop’s Content Aware Fill works the way you want? Here are two video walkthroughs to help learn how to make it do your heavy lifting.

The first features Russell Brown showing several before and after examples – with the key technique being to make a tight selection of what you want to fill or remove, and then expanding your selection by 5-10 pixels all around… (use the Select menu > Modify > Expand… Expand Selection by X Pixels) Setting things up that way gives the CAF algorithm just the right amount information on what it should remove and what it should use to fill in the space, without getting things you don’t want or mixing in too much.

The second tutorial is from Terry White and shows how to use Layer Masks to exclude the part(s) of the image you don’t want Content Aware Fill to draw data from at all. Alternatively, you can do the inverse and use the same method to include only the areas you do want the tool to use when composing the filled space. And as the video title indicates – “What to Do When Content Aware Fill or Content Aware Scale Doesn’t Work” – he gives tips for using Photoshop’s Content Aware Scaling feature as well.

And of course if you then combine both of these techniques your results will be better still… Sometimes it takes a little experimentation, and if the area to be filled is complex (or large), then do it in sections.

Here they are… and hopefully with the skills from these two videos in hand, you’ll get more satisfying – fast and timesaving – results from the latest version of Photoshop.

[Extra:  Watch Part 1 of Russell Brown's show.]

Download a free trial of Photoshop CS5 and try it out yourself!

Check out more of the best tutorials for Photoshop (any learning level or product version).

Watch other video demonstrations of more Content-Aware Fill tricks & techniques.

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NEWS FLASH – Adobe has just announced a free public beta release of the eagerly-anticipated Photoshop Lightroom 4, with new tools and advancements to enhance and share your digital photograph library:

“Available as a free public download from Adobe Labs for Windows and Mac, the Lightroom 4 beta is a preview of new features and capabilities that will be offered in the final release of LR4, expected in early 2012.

The beta features refined technology for superior shadow and highlight processing, expanded management capabilities including enhanced DSLR video support and the ability to create beautiful photo books from within Lightroom. Adobe encourages photographers to try the beta release and provide feedback to the product team.”

The news comes six years to the day from the very first beta release of Lightroom 1 on January 9, 2006, where it all started…  Lightroom is Adobe’s digital photography workflow solution helping amateur and professional photographers quickly import, manage, enhance and showcase their images.

And great news – some long-requested new features are here now in LR4…

New Features in Lightroom 4 Beta

• Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright highlights.
• Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.
• Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.
• White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.
• Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.
• Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.
• Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr.
• Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
• Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.

LR4 Beta Download Availability

The free Lightroom 4 beta program is open and available to the public. Anyone with an Internet connection can download and test it out in full. You do not need to own (or have tried) a previous version of Lightroom, and there is no serial number required. The Lightroom 4 beta will not overwrite or interfere with any existing installation of Lightroom 1, Lightroom 2, or Lightroom 3.

You can download the beta immediately and use it freely until the product expires at the end of March. Please see this detailed post for the minimum system requirements and installation instructions, as well as more information on the new features and known issues. One possible hiccup for some users is that Lightroom 4 is not supported on Windows XP systems.

Also be sure to give your feedback to the Adobe developers…

Introduction to Lightroom 4

And here’s a great video series on what’s new and to get you started…  Afterwards, explore more on the differences between Lightroom 4 vs. Lightroom 3.

For Lightroom 3, the Current Release

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“What’s the difference between the different Photoshops?”

We’ve seen this question sooo many times, we just had to write a complete article about it.  With four different members of the Adobe Photoshop family, it can be confusing what is what and which to get…  And now that Photoshop Elements 10 has just been released, it’s a good time to look at this.

If you ask Adobe, they’ll tell you:

Q:  How do Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Extended, Photoshop Elements, and Photoshop Lightroom software differ?

A:  Photoshop Elements 10 (US$99) is designed for people who are just getting started with digital photo editing, and delivers powerful yet easy-to-use options that help you organize, edit, create, share, and help protect your personal photos.

Photoshop CS5 (US$699, actually CS5.1) is the professional standard for creating and manipulating powerful images, and Photoshop CS5 Extended (US$999) delivers every­thing in Photoshop plus tools for creating and editing 3D and motion-based images.

Photoshop Lightroom 3 (US$299) addresses the workflow needs of professional and serious amateur photographers, enabling them to import, process, organize, and showcase large volumes of digital photographs quickly.

And indeed they do nicely summarize all the different versions on one page.

So that’s a good starting point, but let’s dig a little deeper. Here’s another way of looking at it, functionally:

• Photoshop CS5 – The latest-and-greatest “flagship” (or regular/standard) version of the breakthrough industry-standard tool – the world’s leading pixel manipulation program.
• Photoshop Elements 10 – A scaled-down, simpler version for hobbyists and home market, with fewer features, functions, and options – it offers “elements” of the full program.
• Photoshop Lightroom 3 – Not really “photoshop” or a pixel-level editor at all, but rather a non-destructive image workflow system for serious and pro photographers.
• Photoshop CS5 Extended – The “top of the line” with everything: it takes Photoshop CS5 and adds editing for both 3D and motion (video!) content, as well as image analysis.

That captures the essence, and we have in-depth comparisons below. But if just from reading that you’re unsure which one is right for you, Adobe offers free downloadable trial editions of all four editions which are fully-functional for 30 days. So you can get any one (or multiple, or all) for tryout to see which work(s) best.

But it’s not “either/or” – many folks actually end up buying two of these: Lightroom together with one of the CS5 editions (or Elements) – they are complementary and integrated to work well together, in fact Adobe offers a 30% discount when those products are purchased at the same time.

All four products are available for both Windows PC and Mac OS – and in fact all of them can be run on both platforms, with the ability to install on up to two computers for each tool. If you own a previous release of the same product, then you may qualify for the Upgrade version which costs less ($US79 for Elements, US$199 for Photoshop CS, and US$99 for Lightroom), otherwise you’d get the Full version.

Compare Photoshop CS5 vs. Photoshop CS5 Extended

OK, we’ve actually written a whole separate article on just that question – the differences between Photoshop vs. Photoshop Extended – so please see that related piece for more details there… 

Importantly, note that in almost all of Adobe’s suites, and in all of Adobe’s education versions for students & teachers, the edition of Photoshop is Extended.  That’s a good thing.

For the other three editions (Photoshop CS5 vs. Lightroom 3 vs. PSE 10):  What are some of the features in one version but not the other(s), or unique to each?

Compare Photoshop CS5 vs. Photoshop Elements 10

As mentioned earlier, most would say that Photoshop Elements 10 is a stripped-down version of the full Photoshop CS5 with significantly fewer features, options, and controls. On the other hand, PSE is targeted towards the consumer market and Adobe has designed it to be easier to get started with and learn to use.

There is a long list of features it does not contain as compared to the full Photoshop CS5. Here are a few that Photoshop CS has, but that Photoshop Elements does not have:

• Puppet Warp
• Pen Tool (vector drawing & selections)
• Content-Aware Fill
• 64-bit support (for performance)
• HDR Pro
• Paths Palette
• Vanishing Point Tool
• History Brush
• Curves
• Full 16-bit RGB
• Creating custom Actions
• Smart Objects, Smart Guides
• Color Balance and Match Color
• Channels Palette and Mixer
• Automatic lens correction
• Warp Transform Tool
• 3D objects & text
• Pixel Bender plug-in
• CMYK and Lab color models
• Truer Edge detection technology
• Adjustments & controls for everything

That said, because Photoshop Elements is meant for home use, there are some features it contains that Photoshop CS5 does not have – for example, templates for photo books, slideshows, greeting cards, email, print calendars, scrapbook pages, and online albums, as well as drop-in frames, backgrounds, and artwork, plus online sharing options for Facebook, Flickr, etc.  Elements also offers more user assistance through aspects like Guided Edits and shortcuts like Quick Fix mode, the Smart Brush tool, and Cookie Cutter tool.

For keeping track of images, Photoshop Elements includes the Organizer to manage photos and videos, which is considered to be simpler but slower than the Bridge media browser that comes with Photoshop CS5. However, most users feel that Lightroom’s smooth library and cataloging functions are superior to both, and especially better when you have a large number of images.

Note that for students and teachers, Adobe gives a much bigger discount on Photoshop Extended (80% off the regular price) than on Photoshop Elements (only 20% off).

Compare Photoshop CS5/Elements vs. Lightroom 3

So, how is Lightroom different from all of the above? Lightroom 3 an intuitive digital darkroom and efficient assistant designed for advanced amateur and professional photographers. LR3 lets you manage, edit, and showcase all your photographs – and do it quickly, powerfully, smoothly. It’s a complete photo and data management solution that was built from the ground up by Adobe to streamline workflow productivity for photographers.

Lightroom has the library and cataloging functions to work with a large collection of images easily and process them rapidly in groups or batches, with a sophisticated database for very fast search, keyword tagging, and previewing functions – even when your image files aren’t accessible on your computer. It has built-in RAW processing (also works with .JPEG, .TIFF, and .PSD images) and can make corrections based upon the camera and lenses you use.  LR has terrific tools for “developing” like correcting exposure, adjusting tone, lighting, white balance, contrast, color, saturation, sharpening, and noise reduction, which are state-of-the-art. There’s also a local adjustment brush for dodging and burning, graduated filters, and so on.

And all of it is nondestructive, meaning you can go back and simply undo or redo changes to any image at any time, even years later. This is much like film, where photographers can always return to their original negative – whereas in standard Photoshop, once you change and save an object, you permanently change the pixels.

Lightroom is not for performing detailed pixel-level editing, compositing multiple images, using layers, cloning & healing, adding text, drawing shapes, editing objects out of a photos, or many of the other capabilities Photoshop has. However, many thousands of serious photographers use Lightroom very efficiently every day for 90% of their needs, and then pop out to tightly-integrated Photoshop for the rest (retouching and post-processing).

Lightroom is an end-to-end digital photography solution so it also includes features to showcase your work in customized print layouts, slide shows, and web galleries, and on popular photo-sharing sites.

So if you want the photographer’s workflow to manage thousands of images with ease then you’re talking about Lightroom, but you want to perfect a single image with the “gold standard” professional editing & finishing tool then you’re talking about Photoshop. The two products complement each other and together comprise a complete image processing system.

Adobe has an excellent FAQ on Lightroom and more on the differences between other tools.

This short video answers the question “What is Lightroom?” for new users of the product. Lightroom unites your digital photography essentials in one fast and intuitive package and gets you there with the tools you need to create great images, manage all your photographs, and showcase them with style and impact.

Adobe Camera Raw (ACR)

Interestingly, all products in the Photoshop family share the same underlying image processing technology to ensure consistent and compatible results across applications that support raw processing. This is called the Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) plug-in and it’s packaged in with Photoshop CS, Photoshop Elements, and Lightroom. This is the interface where support for new camera models and lens profiles is added, so Adobe updates this plugin on a regular basis (about every 3-4 months).

You can get access down to the powerful ACR features from within Photoshop CS or Elements, while Lightroom essentially takes Camera Raw and centers a full-featured application around it with all the streamlined workflow and cataloging benefits described above.

Free Tutorials and Training

Learn how to use these tools!  As mentioned above, you can download a free trial of any or all of them to get started, and then:

• Best Free Photoshop Tips, Tricks, Techniques, Training & Tutorials
• 4 Hours of Free Video Tutorials for New Photoshop Elements 10 & 9
• Three Hours of Free Courses on Lightroom 3, plus Other Resources

Have any other questions about the differences between these Photoshop products?  Just ask them below and we’ll answer!

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Time-lapse photography videos are all the rage these days…  Here is one of our recent favorites from Norwegian landscape photographer Terje Sorgjerd – incredibly beautiful and perfect for the season (watch full-screen):

Photoshop isn’t normally known for its video capabilities, but it’s actually quite easy to take a series of still photographs (edited as desired) and then create your own timelapse video using Photoshop Extended… This will work in the CS5, CS4, or CS3 versions.

Photoshop guru Russell Brown gives the details below on how to make and export your own creation:

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Adobe Photoshop is a sophisticated tool with a 21-year history and a seemingly-endless array of powerful capabilities.  And after spending $549 for the product with discounts (or $199 for students), who wants to pay a lot more to learn how to use it all?

Fortunately there are a number of avenues to get great training and tutorials for free. The first stop is Adobe TV, which has nearly four hours and 37 chapters of 100% free tutorials for Photoshop CS5 alone. There is also a wealth of content for prior versions like Photoshop CS3 and CS4. It’s a good place to get started and orient yourself with the major functions, and all of it is gratis.

For learning how to use the best new features added in Photoshop CS5, take a look at our collection of articles with tours of:

• Content-Aware Fill
• Puppet Warp
• Top Masking Techniques
• Creating Time-Lapse Videos
• Impressionist Oil Painting

We also have a regular page here on the site with a rotating selection of tuts for all versions of Photoshop, stepping through various tips and tricks. And for a terrific set of little-known but very handy techniques, check out Adobe’s Photoshop “Hidden Gems” series with Product Manager Bryan O’Neil Hughes.

Lynda.com is the leading independent website providing online video training for Adobe products, with nearly 800(!) hours of coursework for Photoshop – covering all versions dating back to Photoshop 6 in 2002. Courses are extensive, often running several days – and there are always some chapters that are free for anybody to view, with full access starting at $25/month. But we have partnered with them for our readers to receive a free 7-day trial with unlimited access to the entire site, and get one week of all 1,036 courses in their Online Training Library for free.

If you’d like a free top-flight course to really get you going in Photoshop from the ground up, check out the three online skills clinics below from the experts at National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP)…  These exclusive web-based training sessions with the “Photoshop Guys” are a great opportunity to quickly get up to speed on the timesaving features and breakthrough tools in the latest version.

If you don’t already have Photoshop, just download the free trial so you can work side-by-side in these three classes, which were originally given live to customers but are now available free to all users via on-demand replay:

• Class 1: Photoshop CS5 – Up & Running in No Time
• Class 2: Cool Photoshop Skills – Effects and Retouching Anyone Can Do with Photoshop CS5
• Class 3: Photoshop CS5 Street Smarts – Shortcuts, Killer Tips, and Next-Level Skills

These excellent Photoshop tutorial videos run four hours in total and can be viewed here: Exclusive Adobe Photoshop Clinic Webcasts.

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Many people have been making guesses on what’s happening now that Flash Player for Mobile will not be further developed.  There’s a lot of talk and speculation out there, as folks try to figure out what it means…  So take two dozen common questions on the subject, and here are the official answers Adobe sent to us:

What is it that Adobe is announcing?

Adobe announced plans to increase its efforts on HTML5, and to focus Flash on mobile applications (packaged with AIR) and PC browsing with an emphasis on use cases not yet addressed by HTML5, including premium video and console-quality gaming. Adobe will no longer develop Flash Player for mobile web browsers. See the blog post for more details.

Does this mean that Adobe is no longer supporting content publishers focused on delivering content via a browser on a mobile device?

Adobe offers world-class tools and technologies including HTML5 tools like Adobe Edge that allow content publishers and developers to bring rich content and experiences across mobile web browsers using HTML5.

What does this mean for Flash Player support on desktops?

Adobe is fully committed to providing a great experience for use cases not yet well supported by HTML, including console-quality gaming and premium video. In fact, Flash Player 11 just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. We are already working on Flash Player 12 and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences.

Why is Adobe making this move now?

All the major platform providers (Android, iOS, Windows 8) are betting on HTML5 for browsing, some even to the point of excluding third party plug-ins such as Flash Player. Adobe sees this as the right time to increase our focus on accelerating the development of HTML for in browser experiences, especially on mobile (phones and tablets), and general purpose apps, while using Flash to drive what’s possible in advanced interactive entertainment areas like console-quality gaming and premium video so that it can continue to serve as a blueprint for further work on HTML. Flash developers get the greatest reach by targeting mobile devices with apps packaged with AIR, and that is where we are investing while helping the mobile browsers advance the state of the art of what can be done in a browser using HTML5. Our strategy allows us to maintain leadership in content published through the web and app stores and gives developers the best tools to create content across all platforms.

Will Adobe continue to support AIR? On Mobile? On TVs?

Adobe is fully committed to enabling Flash-based apps on mobile and digital home devices. These apps are packaged using AIR for mobile devices and can be packaged with AIR or web runtime technologies on TVs and other digital home devices that use the TV as a display.

Will the Flash Player continue to be available on the Android Market?

Yes. We will continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates to Flash Player 11.1 on Android Market for existing devices.

When will Adobe stop supporting Flash Player for browsing on mobile?

Adobe will release one more version of the Flash Player for mobile browsing, which will provide support for Android 4.0, and one more release of the Flash Linux Porting Kit – both expected to be released before the end of this year. After that time, Adobe will continue to provide critical bug fixes and security updates.

What will happen with Flash Player support on RIM’s BBX platform?

Adobe will continue to support RIM’s use of the Flash Player on the current PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates. RIM has done a great job optimizing the Flash Player for their platform and as a result the RIM playbook provides a great experience for consuming Flash content. RIM is expected to leverage their expertise with Flash to continue to support and ship the Flash Player on BBX devices for the foreseeable future.

Will the current version of Flash Player support smartphones and tablets that are coming to market over the coming weeks and months?

It depends on the version of the OS, silicon, and browser supported on the device. We are working with OEMs to determine the appropriate support and transition plan for their current and planned devices.

Will Adobe stop OEMs from shipping Flash Player on devices?

No, Adobe will not stop OEMs from pre-loading and shipping the Flash Player. We expect some of our OEM partners to opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations of the Flash Player. However, Adobe will be recommending mobile OEMs discontinue pre-loading new devices with Flash Player due to expected OS and browser compatibility issues. However, existing licensees can continue shipping Flash Player at the manufacturer’s discretion.

Will 3D support and any of the console-quality Flash games you demoed at MAX come to mobile devices?

Yes, game developers will be able to bring console-quality games with hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to mobile devices as Flash-based apps packaged with AIR. On the desktop 3D games can be delivered with Flash within the browser. However, 3D content will not be supported in Flash Player on mobile browsers.

What does this mean for Flex?

Flex SDK 4.5 supports the development of mobile applications that target, or are packaged with AIR. Mobile applications built with Flex SDK are installed on phone or tablet devices and do not rely upon the browser or Adobe Flash Player to run; as such, they are unaffected by this announcement.

How does this affect other Flash Platform tools?

This news has no impact on the Flash platform tooling offerings (e.g. Flash Builder) from Adobe. We continue to invest in Flash Pro and Flash Builder for developing Flash-based content for the PC web and mobile apps, especially games and premium video.

Is Flash getting more and more replaced by HTML5? How will Adobe advance Flash Player on desktops and stay relevant?

We are continuing to invest in Flash to deliver the most advanced web experiences on desktops, focusing on features that are not yet available in HTML5. Flash Player 11 just introduced dozens of new features, including hardware accelerated 3D graphics for console-quality gaming and premium HD video with content protection. Flash developers can take advantage of these features, and all that Flash has to offer, to reach more than a billion desktops through their browsers and repurpose their content to hundreds of millions of mobile devices through popular App Stores using Flash-based apps packaged/enabled with AIR. We are already working on the next future version of Flash Player and a new round of exciting features which we expect to again advance what is possible for delivering high definition entertainment experiences across the Web and devices. We will continue to leverage our experience with Flash to accelerate our work with the W3C and WebKit to bring similar capabilities to HTML5 as quickly as possible, just as we have done with CSS Shaders. And, we will design new features in Flash for a smooth transition to HTML5 as the standards evolve so developers can confidently invest knowing their skills will continue to be leveraged.

How many Flash-based apps are available on App Stores today?

There are thousands of Flash-based apps available on App Stores like iTunes App Store, Android Market, BlackBerry App World, and Amazon’s Appstore for Android. Popular and top rated examples include Machinarium, Politifact, Dr Stanley’s House, Facebook for BlackBerry PlayBook, WatchESPN etc.

How are Flash-based apps different from HTML5 apps?

Flash-based apps support features and capabilities not yet supported in HTML5 such as 3D graphics and content protection for premium video. Developers are able to deliver high-end entertainment experiences as Flash-based apps packaged via AIR on mobile platforms and within the browser on PCs.

What about Flash Player and support for web browsing on TV’s (Google TV, Samsung SmartTVs and other connected Digital Home devices)?

Adobe will continue to support existing licensees who are planning on supporting Flash Player for web browsing on digital home devices and are using the Flash Player Porting Kit to do so. However we believe the best approach to deliver Flash-based content on televisions is through applications, not a web browsing experience, and we will continue to encourage the device and content publishing community down that path.

What happens to Flash browsing support in the Google TV solution?

We recommend you talk with Google, but we believe Google has no immediate plans to remove the Flash Player from the Google TV browser.

Do you regret having waited so long after Steve Jobs predicted that Flash Player won’t work on mobile devices 1.5 years ago?

HTML5 has matured and is able to deliver a great web browsing experiences across mobile devices. At the same time users consume the richest content almost exclusively via apps on smartphones and tablets today. At Adobe we are focused on delivering the best tools and technologies for our developers and content publishers so they can offer the best possible experiences to their customers across platforms – from desktops to smartphones, from tablets to TVs. We are proud to lead the industry with HTML5 tools while offering new, cutting–edge features in Flash that are not yet supported in HTML5.

Is this expected to improve the relationship between Adobe and Apple?

Adobe and Apple have a longstanding relationship and Mac and iOS users are very important to Adobe. Like with any other company in the industry we work closely with Apple in specific areas like support for our Creative Suite products on Mac OS while we compete in other areas like video editing tools.

What platforms and browsers will Adobe continue to support with Flash Player for browsing?

Adobe plans to continue to support Apple Mac OS X and Safari; Google Chrome Browser for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows and Intel-based Chrome OS; Microsoft Intel-based Windows and desktop Internet Explorer; and cooperate with other third-party browser providers such as Mozilla and Opera.

How will content publishers serving premium video reach mobile devices?

Content publishers can continue to stream premium, Flash-based video content across platforms and devices including the iPhone and iPad using Flash Media Server 4.5. Additionally, content publishers can deliver premium video experiences as Flash-based applications packaged with AIR across platforms including mobile devices and connected TVs.

Does Adobe intend to bring HTML5′s capabilities to full parity with Flash Player? If yes, then why continue supporting Flash Player for desktop?

HTML5 today cannot replace the Flash Player as a platform for delivering console gaming or premium video experience on desktop computers. Adobe plans to leverage ongoing innovation in Flash to provide a blueprint for our work in HTML5. We believe there are opportunities for significant new innovation in both Flash and HTML5, and we are focused on enabling developers to create and publish the richest possible content, regardless of the underlying technology.

Will Adobe create Flash Player for Windows 8 on ARM and Windows 8 on X86?

Adobe’s plan is to support Flash Player with all of the popular browsers on Windows 8’s desktop interface (not the Metro interface) on x86.

Check out Flash Pro CS6 generating HTML5

Related Posts

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• Using Adobe CS5 to Create Websites and Apps for Mobile & Tablets
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• Adobe Photoshop CS6 – Another Look? More Sneak Peeks [VIDEO]
• When is Adobe CS6 Being Released, including Photoshop CS6?

Knowing how to make a good mask is one of the most important things you can learn to do in Photoshop. With accurate masks you can completely control the placement and movement of all the elements of your image. The techniques shared in these videos will help you get the most out of the new masking capabilities in Photoshop CS5… And when you combine them with the new content-aware fill feature to magically fill backgrounds of moved or deleted objects, well then you’ve really got something.

The first video is a two-part playlist, New Masking Basics: Get up-to-speed with the great new masking tools and techniques in Photoshop CS5, to quickly and easily create professional quality masks, including a photograph with challenging hair.

The second video, to the right, also plays in two parts – New Advanced Masking: Learn some of Photoshop guru Russell Brown’s favorite methods for masking out the background from a really difficult image.

The third and final video is Advanced Motion Blur Masking and Blending: This tutorial will get you through the toughest motion blur with flying colors… Also learn some advanced blending tips and techniques.

For full-screen viewing, click the expand icon and then 480p after pressing play on each thumbnail:

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• Advanced Magic with Photoshop CS5′s Content-Aware Fill

We’ve previously covered 17+ hours of free video tutorials for Creative Suite 5, plus three hours for Lightroom 3 – so here are some brand new training resources for the just-released Adobe Photoshop Elements 10… Most of these tutorials also apply to Photoshop Elements 9, which shares the same interface but just doesn’t have as many features.

In these three courses the experts share how to get started, the basics of the software, new features, how to use key tools and functions, plus their favorite tips and techniques. In sum, there is over four hours of free content, with 46 separate chapters.

If you need a copy of Photoshop Elements 10 to get going right away, just download the free trial and it will work fully for 30 calendar days, which should be plenty of time to get through the classes.

If you prefer learning in written form, we’ve got the Adobe Photoshop Elements Guide – a free 95-page e-book you can download as well.

This extensive series is presented by teaching gurus Tim Grey and Chad Chelius, and was produced by video2brain.

For affordable live, interactive training on Photoshop Elements, we recommend the excellent online workshops given at Everyday Elements.

See what’s new and improved in PSE 10 – or see what the industry reviews are saying.

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• New Adobe Photoshop Elements 10: Five Free Copies to Give Away!

Here is the latest news on Photoshop Image Deblurring:  In response to some of your questions here at ProDesignTools, we contacted Adobe and requested they help “bring into focus” the new Deblur feature that could be in a future Photoshop. We got in touch with Dr. Jue Wang, Adobe senior research scientist, and as a direct result his team has provided more examples of the technology using notable photographs. Most of these are well-known from history or come from independent sources, and thus began with natural camera blur.

For those just joining us on the story, here’s a quick review: Earlier this month we ran a feature article on this “sneak peek” of an amazing new capability revealed at Adobe MAX. Several blurry photographs were processed through a new Photoshop plug-in to give before-and-after results that wowed the crowd, even more than the other popular sneak demos at the show. [See the full video in HD]

Why did controversy later arise? For the last brief image of his demonstration, intending to be entertaining and relevant to the audience, Dr. Wang used a photo of Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch that had been synthetically blurred. Creation of synthetic inputs is common practice across the research in this field, but out of simplicity, Dr. Wang did not go into those origins at the time.

The original sharp version was found online, and even though the other images came from real-world blur due to camera shake, this opened the door for some to raise questions about the efficacy of the developing technology. After we contacted them, Adobe added an update to their Photoshop.com blog post explaining why synthetic blurring was used for that example, but some skepticism remained.

So we got in touch with Dr. Wang again and have been working with him over the weekend. In response, his team put together a group of independent photographs that began with natural camera blur and included the results from Photoshop’s Image Deblurring algorithm. Here is what he wrote to us yesterday:

This is still early-stage research and as it develops we will definitely be reaching out to the community for testing examples. But at the moment our researchers are still refining the technologies. In the meantime, we have put some real-world examples on our fun Deblur Famous Photos webpage, and there will be more. On the page you can also find a way to contribute to our research.

We hope you find these as helpful and interesting as we do. Just roll over each photo with your mouse (or tap) for the before and after results. And if you have an image of your own or a good-case historical photo, please see the invitation on how to propose it for deblurring at the end of this article.

Robert Capa’s D-Day Photo

This is perhaps the most famous blurry photograph in American history. It was taken by Robert Capa on June 6, 1944, during World War II. The picture captured an American soldier landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day in Normandy, France. As you can see, the technical quality of the original is challenging – there is an enormous degree of blur, noise, and artifacts. It’s an extreme test of the Photoshop deblurring algorithm, but check out the noteworthy result – particularly in the foreground, and the new detail revealed in the G.I.’s face.

Microsoft’s Sculpture Test

Here is an authentic photograph Microsoft used as a test for their own picture deblurring solution, which involved having hardware gyro sensors built into a special camera and then using the sensor data recorded at the time of image capture to automatically deblur each photo taken on it. As a challenge, the Adobe team fed the same original Microsoft image blurred from camera shake into the Photoshop prototype, which of course did not have the benefit of the recorded data to work backwards from. Yet the Photoshop output compares favorably with Microsoft’s result that had required the special apparatus.

Korean Pagoda

One last example we’ll cover is from the Hwanho Sunrise Park in Pohang, Korea. This photo­graph was an inspiration to the Korean team that originally created the Photoshop unblur technology, in that the image convolution was so bad that it seemed impossible to save. But the researchers didn’t give up working on their algorithms – and then finally late one night, it worked. Notice in particular the water, the trees, and the bench at the lower right.

More

Of course, the developing algorithm does not always work so well (which the researchers freely admit) – and you can see an example of that, plus more details and estimated blur kernels for all images at the Deblur Famous/Interesting Photos page, where visitor submissions of additional photos are also invited.

Read more about this sneak peek, or watch the original Photoshop Deblur demo in its entirety, now in full-screen High Definition video…  Also catch the cool sneaks for other Adobe products:

• InDesign Liquid Layout
• Three for Premiere Pro & After Effects
• All 11 sneak peeks presented at the show

See the best from Adobe MAX 2011 – including the keynote presentations plus over 160 hours of free tutorials and training sessions from the experts, on a wide range of topics covering all major Adobe applications.

Check out more Adobe Photoshop (CS5) magic with advanced demos and techniques for the new Content-Aware Fill feature as well as Puppet Warp.

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• Photoshop Sneak Peek: Image Deblurring from Adobe MAX 2011
• Adobe Sneaks New Video Features for Premiere Pro & After Effects
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• When is Adobe CS6 Being Released, including Photoshop CS6?

Can you imagine a new feature in Photoshop that could automatically deblur photographs to restore the originally-intended subject material to clarity and focus?  Adobe can…

This demonstration comes from last week’s Adobe MAX conference in Los Angeles, where the last major session showcases “sneaks” of what Adobe is working on but hasn’t revealed yet. There are no guarantees for what may or may not appear in a production release, or when. But, could this appear in a future version like Photoshop CS6?  Well, watch this video and make up your own mind:

Adobe Photo Deblur: How Does It Work?

From the video you see the key element in the unblurring feature is the program’s intensive computation of a “blur kernel” (or point spread function), a unique signature which describes the motion trajectory of the camera while the shutter was open during the creation of the flawed image… Then, once this path is determined, further computation applies it to the blurry picture to reverse and work back to what the photograph should have looked like originally – in other words, to remove the blur and restore a sharp image.

For the clearest example, check this high-resolution before-and-after still photo comparison. Or see brand new amazing photos of this capability that have been released since the show.

Watching it in action is pretty amazing – unreal even – as heard in the gasps and incredulity of the audience, which at this venue is a pretty sophisticated crowd. The show’s emcee calls it, “mind-blowing, cool Photoshop magic.”  And though this plug-in can’t correct a picture that’s just plain out of focus, with the rise of cellphone cameras everywhere and the iPhone now being the #1 camera on Flickr, the ability to fix camera shake and repair blurry or smeared images could be a very big deal.

So, back to the previous question – could this new feature be coming in Photoshop CS6?  Well, Creative Suite 6 (or whatever CS “Next” is called) could be about six months away or so – and picking up some of the cues from Adobe presenter Jue Wang, it’s unclear…  He says in various spots, “we have been working on this problem for a while and have built a prototype to solve it,” and, “you can see there are a lot of controls here because it’s still an early prototype,” so it’s hard to say how close something like this might actually be.

What do you think?

Let us know in the comments below.

See the best from Adobe MAX 2011 – including the keynote presentations plus over 160 hours of free tutorials and training sessions from the experts, on a wide range of topics covering all major Adobe products.  And we’ll have more MAX sneaks here for other Adobe products in the coming weeks… For instance, here are new sneaks for InDesign Liquid Layout and Premiere Pro Syncing.

Check out more Adobe Photoshop (CS5) magic with advanced demos and techniques for the new Content-Aware Fill feature as well as Puppet Warp.

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• Adobe Sneaks New Video Features for Premiere Pro & After Effects
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• When is Adobe CS6 Being Released, including Photoshop CS6?

Adobe Lightroom 3.5 and Adobe Camera Raw 6.5 are now available as final releases, and are free for all current Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 users…

These updates include bug fixes, performance and stability improvements (20 for Lightroom and 9 for Camera Raw), plus support for 27 new lens profiles and 24 new cameras, including the Nikon Coolpix P7100, Olympus E-PL3, and Sony SLT-A77 – and could be some of the last revisions before Lightroom 4 and CS6 come out.

 » Download the Final Adobe Lightroom 3.5 for Mac OS  (a free update to Lightroom 3)
 » Download the Final Adobe Lightroom 3.5 for Windows

 » Download the Final Adobe Camera Raw 6.5 for Mac  (a free update to Photoshop CS5)
 » Download the Final Adobe Camera Raw 6.5 for Windows

Read more details about the update including the 29 fixes that were made as well as the new cameras supported, or take a look at the complete list of all Lightroom-supported cameras.

Lightroom 3.5 is a recommended update and is available in 12 languages: English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Traditional and Simplified).   If you don’t yet own Lightroom 3, Adobe’s free trial download has also now been moved up to version 3.5.

To confirm that the updater has run successfully, launch Lightroom and verify that the version number on the splash screen shows current as 3.5.

Camera Raw 6.5 also works with Photoshop Elements 9 plus the new Photoshop Elements 10 just released – see the full compatibility chart. Note that Camera Raw 6 is not compatible with Photoshop CS4 or earlier. The last release of Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop CS4 was ACR 5.7 on 4/20/2010.

Save 30% when you buy Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 together, no coupon code needed.

Related Posts

• Adobe Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 – Final and Free Updates
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Adobe is continuing its special “Deal of the Day” program and the next big deal is a healthy 30% off their bestselling product, Photoshop CS5 – although it is not widely publicized…

This means – for one day only – you’d pay $489 instead of $699… and for the Extended (top-of-the-line) version, it’s now $699 instead of $999.

[ See: What's the Difference Between Photoshop CS5 and Extended? ]

This is the real deal – genuine, authentic, and you’re getting it direct from Adobe.

And it’s not an upgrade – it’s the full commercial version… You can receive it via instant download or shrinkwrapped box delivered by FedEx, for either Windows or Mac OS, in any language.

For even more savings, it appears this sale is stackable with another current Adobe special where you can save 30% off Lightroom when the two products are purchased at the same time…

The offer doesn’t apply for product upgrades from older versions of Photoshop, there’s no additional discount for those – they remain $199 every day, with no coupon or promotion code needed…  Meanwhile, students and teachers can continue to benefit from the 80%-off education pricing to buy Photoshop CS5 Extended for just $199.

However, if you already own an Adobe CS product, there’s a worldwide opportunity for even greater savings – for a very limited time, you can get the full Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium suite for half price – or $849 – and that includes Photoshop CS5 Extended, plus six other major Adobe applications (see what’s included).

These really are stunning offers, the lowest prices we’ve ever seen on any version of Photoshop or for any Premium Creative Suite. And Photoshop CS5 is a fantastic release:

• Read the reviews
• Watch some free tutorials
• See the hardware requirements
• Read a free chapter of the best book

For the Photoshop “One Day Deal,” the 30% off savings is available only on purchases made directly from Adobe by retail customers in North America by Tuesday, September 27th, 2011, at 11:59pm PDT. The discount will be reflected in the shopping cart just prior to checkout. Pricing is available only through the Adobe Store. Education, OEM, and licensing customers are not eligible. This offer is valid in US, Canada, and Mexico. One discount per customer.

So if you’ve been thinking about making the jump to this industry-gold-standard tool, here is a terrific entry! If you prefer to try before you buy, you can immediately download the fully-functional free trial, and then just convert it before midnight tonight to secure the lower price.

This savings will not be available anywhere else and is the best offer online at the lowest price Adobe has ever offered on an external promotion! Don’t miss out on this great opportunity.

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Adobe is dropping some hints about new and future creative tools coming on tablet devices and for HTML5 content creation. On a publicly-available conference call earlier this week, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen shared some guidance on the company’s upcoming product roadmap and what to expect…

With a shifting landscape that favors HTML5-based content and application delivery, we are doubling down in our investment in this area. CS5.5 delivered enhanced HTML5 capabilities. We recently previewed Adobe Edge, a new HTML5 web motion and interaction design tool, which allows web designers to create cutting-edge animations for their websites. Interest in this tool far exceeded our expectations.

We also just introduced the beta release of a new product code-named Muse, which allows designers to create and publish HTML-based websites without writing complex HTML code. And we are contributing new innovations to WebKit to allow for a more expressive Web. These initiatives show our commitment to help drive the evolution of browsers and be the leading tools provider for HTML5, and this is only the beginning.

So what does this mean in terms of the next release of Creative Suite? Will we see Adobe Muse and Edge – or other new HTML5 tools – as part of CS6?

So as we think about the evolution of Creative Suite moving forward, I think there are a couple of different things that we’re hearing from our customers in terms of what would be catalysts for Creative Suite. And HTML5 and support for HTML5, whether that’s browser-based content or creating standalone applications, is certainly one of them. So as you can expect, we will be taking the tools we’ve been delivering, like Adobe Edge and Muse, and you might see those in future versions of the Creative Suite.

So big picture, I would say as HTML5 is getting more prevalent, we’re clearly both embracing it from the point of view of tools and being the leader in tools but also contributing aggressively to the evolution of HTML as a standard.

On tablets, there’s some big news as well… Adobe will soon be introducing a broad new collec­tion of tablet applications centered on content creation. This has the potential to significantly deepen the company’s footprint from the handful of Photoshop-connected mobile device apps they have released to date.

The explosion of tablets is changing the paradigm for content authoring. We believe that content will be consumed and created on these devices. Similar to the desktop, we intend to be the leading provider of creative authoring applications on tablets.

We will soon be introducing a broad set of tablet-based and cloud-connected apps and services across iOS, Android and other mobile platforms that represent a new revenue stream. We intend to deliver a whole new set of tablet applications which will be augmenting the current desktop functionality for creative professionals. We believe there’s a large opportunity to attract new customers to the base with the new tablet applications we will create. We are excited about the recent introduction of Adobe Carousel, an innovative new cloud-connected imaging app for Mac OS and iOS devices.

On the tablet side specifically, I think we would all say it’s early. We do believe strongly that tablets will be used not just as consumption devices but as creation devices. You’re going to continue to see styluses added to tablet devices which make it an even more compelling offering. We will have a comprehensive set of products, and I think it’s early to say how rapidly that will grow, but we do think that’s a new product stream that will be meaningful for Adobe.

So this is very interesting, as up until now these devices have been used more for content consumption than creation… So we can only speculate what Adobe has in store here. One possibility, a Lightroom app for iPad?

When will we find out more?

At Adobe MAX in early October, we will unveil some of our newest innovations in the content authoring arena. And as we look forward, frankly, to the next version of Creative Suite, we think there are a lot of things that are going to drive the new release, and not least of which is a new version of our franchise imaging application [Photoshop CS6]. But in addition to that, the things that I mentioned earlier – video, expect to see a fair amount of HTML5 innovation coming in the next CS, and the combination of both the creative applications, the tablet applications, and what we provide as cloud services. So, a lot of excitement about what we’re going to deliver next year.

Listen to the entire conference call here, or read the transcript for more details.

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[UPDATE – Also see our new Lightroom 4 Giveaway!]

September’s here!  Labor Day, back to school, fall begins…  September also usually means the next release of Photoshop Elements – now version 10 – should be coming out soon…

Now, we can’t say yet what new features will be in PSE 10, but – true to form – we can start giving it away…

So as soon as it’s available, we’ll be shipping out five shiny new boxes for free – and one could easily be yours through the three ways to enter below.

Photoshop Elements is already the #1-selling consumer photo-editing software* out there, and this 10th edition is likely to inherit even more functionality from its big brother, Photoshop CS5 – which itself is slated to get a major upgrade to Photoshop CS6 next year.

If Adobe follows the same model of Elements 9, then PSE 10 would be available on both Windows and Mac (multi-platform) with the same capabilities – and work alongside any older release(s) of Elements you may have, with the ability to automatically import and convert your existing catalog.

This new giveaway is open to residents of North America, Europe, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa – and all you need to do for a chance to win is the following three steps:

1. Follow us on Twitter and/or Like our new Facebook page – this will allow us to contact you if you win…  (move to the next step if you already do)
2. Retweet this post by clicking on the green “retweet” button just above, and/or Share this post on Facebook by clicking the blue “Share” button next to that.
3. Done.

There’s a third way to enter too – just leave your email for our free occasional Adobe Special Offers newsletter in the sidebar to the right… and you’ll add another chance, plus receive future notification of new Adobe deals and coupon codes (once in a while, never spam).
                                                                                                      ———————————————»

Each of these actions counts as a single entry into the sweepstakes – so if you do all three, you’ll receive a total of 3 chances to win one of 5 copies of Photoshop Elements 10. Please, one entry per reader for each method, but feel free to tell your friends and colleagues who’d like to win as well.

[UPDATE (Sept. 20th) — Photoshop Elements 10 is now shipping!  Check the new features.]

Submissions are open until 11:59pm EDT on Friday, September 30th, 2011. The prizewinners will be drawn at random from all Facebook fans and Twitter followers who have shared or retweeted this post, plus new newsletter subscribers – and we’ll announce this lucky recipients right here within one week from the closing date.

If you’re the one, we’ll ship you the shiny new shrinkwrapped Photoshop Elements 10 for free! The box will be the full, upgrade, or education version of PSE 10 as appropriate. (Or if you’ve already purchased your copy by that time, just send us the receipt and we’ll reimburse 100% of your cost via PayPal.) We’ll contact you via Twitter or Facebook or email simply to get your address for shipping, and then announce here with just your first name and hometown. That’s all there is to it!

In the meantime check out our great free resources for Elements:

• Download the free 95-page e-book: Guide to Photoshop Elements 9.
• What are the differences between Photoshop Elements 9 vs. 8 vs. 7 vs. 6?
• Four hours of free online video tutorials for PSE 9, and the same for PSE 7/8.
• See Adobe’s current coupons and discounts running for Elements.
• Consult the free online documentation/manual and the keyboard shortcuts.
• Review the best books available for Photoshop Elements.
• Download a full and free trial of Photoshop and/or Premiere Elements 9.

Good luck and spread the word!  To make things more interesting, you can also leave a comment below with what you plan to do with it if you win…

Or, let us – or Adobe – know what you hope will be in Photoshop Elements 10, and how you would use it… What new features are you looking for or wishing to see? More content-aware fill, addition of puppet warp, 16-bit picture workflow, native 64-bit support, more effects, more artwork/templates, more sharing options, performance or interface improvements, or others? Of course, we’ll have the full scoop on PSE 10 right here the moment it’s out…

» Email this to a friend

* Source: NPD Group/Retail Tracking Service (January 2007 to March 2011) based on units sold.

Terms & Conditions

Contest is open to residents of North America, Europe, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, with up to three entries per person as outlined above. Participants whose names are drawn must respond to email notification within 72 hours. By entering, all entrants agree to release ProDesignTools.com (the Sponsor), and its employees from all liability and claims relating to participation in the contest. No substitutions or transfer of prize or cash redemptions permitted by winners. Sponsor reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to cancel, suspend or alter the rules and parameters of the sweepstakes. Sponsor also reserves the right to substitute a prize or prizes as Sponsor deems suitable in the event that prize becomes unavailable for any reason.

All federal, state and local taxes, as well as any customs duties, other taxes, fees and/or sur­charges will be the sole responsibility of the prize winners. Winners under the age of 18 (as of winner announcement date) must have their parents’ and/or legal guardians’ consent to accept prize. By acceptance of prize, the winners agree to release ProDesignTools.com from any and all liability claims or actions of any kind whatsoever for damages. Offer void where prohibited, regulated or restricted by law in a manner inconsistent with the purposes and rules hereof.

Winners

UPDATE – Announcing our PSE 10 giveaway winners!  Congratulations to all five:

Surprisingly, no international folks on the winner board this time – but in previous contests quite a few European readers have walked away with the prizes…

Thank you all for participating, and please stay tuned for our next giveaway coming soon!

Related Posts

• Win New Adobe Photoshop Elements 9, Free!
• Free: 4 Hours of Video Tutorials for New Photoshop Elements 10 & 9
• Win Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 or Elements 10 Bundle, Free!
• Download Free 95-Page eBook on Adobe Photoshop Elements 9
• Giveaway: Try Adobe CS5 for a Chance to Win It Free, or $10,000!

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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[UPDATE (Jan. 11th) – Adobe relents, says upgrade discounts to CS6 from CS4 & CS3 are back!]

Adobe has publicly confirmed what they’ve been hinting for a while now: a new annual release schedule for the Creative Suite – with milestone releases in even years, and mid-cycle releases in odd years.  The shift comes as the technology world turns faster from the previous cycles of 18-24 months historically.

Adobe didn’t actually say what future CS versions would be named or called – but for the sake of simplicity, let’s presume they continue with the established trend…

This means after CS5 in 2010, and CS5.5 in 2011, we could reasonably expect CS6 to be coming out in 2012, CS6.5 in 2013, CS7 in 2014, and so on.

They also gave guidance on “when” during each year, the expected timing for the launches… What’s more (and importantly), Adobe Photoshop will be getting a significant upgrade in CS6, after relatively minor updates for CS5.5.

Read on below for the specific details from the recent conference call and subsequent question and answer session… Or just read the full transcript.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen

… We successfully launched Creative Suite 5.5, an update to the CS5 product family. The release features enhancements for mobile content and application creation, new innovations for HTML5 and Flash authoring, and amazing new features and produc­tivity improvements in our video authoring solutions.

CS5.5 is the first release in our transition to an annual release cycle, enabling us to deliver content creation innovations to our customers more frequently in response to the rapidly evolving marketplace.

Looking forward, expect this type of innovation to continue. We intend to ship the next milestone release of Creative Suite in 2012, and it will include an updated version of Photoshop.

Okay – that’s very good to know, helps reduce on the guessing – but when exactly next year will CS6 (or whatever the next major version of Creative Suite is called) be planned?

Question

As far as the annual release cycles for CS, should we expect that the timing is going to be kind of consistent during one time of the year – like we’ll see CS every year in the April-May timeframe, or will it be kind of variable each year?

Adobe CEO

With annual releases, we’re still very focused right now on 5.5 and … continuing to drive through that cycle until we release the next version. But I think it is fair to say that when we go to an annual release, the cadence will be about the same quarter because that’s what really enables us even with enterprises to get to be far more of an annual release cycle and have maintenance be a more meaningful part of the business.

Question

As you move to more of an annual cycle, will we see a condensation of when the languages roll out?

Adobe CEO

Yes, so as we did with CS5 itself, we are moving to a more consistent release schedule where all major languages are released at the same time. The reality is, we’re in a global world and so the day we announced the product, the interest – whether it’s in North America, whether it’s in another part of the world – is consistent. So yes, expect to see us do simultaneous releases of all major languages moving forward.

So, since CS5 came out in spring 2010, and CS5.5 in spring 2011 – basically this signals we’re looking at CS6 being launched in the spring of 2012, in English and other major languages at once.

But what’s this about a new release of Photoshop, features for the next version – what’s going to be in Photoshop CS6?

Adobe CEO

And I think people are looking forward … to the next release as well, because there’s a significant anticipation that’s being built up for all the cool things that we can do in imaging with Photoshop – and there’s a lot of exciting stuff underway.

Bottom line, knowing the future release schedule takes a lot of uncertainty out of the process… There’s always another release coming at some point, but now we know when. Historically, there have been folks who have held off buying Adobe software because they weren’t sure if that next version was “right around the corner” – where they would feel sheepish if they purchased just before that event. But now, knowing the release windows, you know what to expect – and can make an educated and informed purchase. We commend Adobe for changing their policy and making this information more public.

Listen to the entire conference call here, or read the transcript for more details.

And if you’re still on an older version like CS2, CS3, or CS4 and have been waiting, you might want to upgrade now because those upgrade discounts will no longer be offered for CS6!

[Photo credit: Adam Hart-Davis, Atacama Desert, Chile, South America.]

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• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Is Now Shipping!

[UPDATE – Save 30% on Lightroom 3 when purchased with Photoshop or any CS5.5 suite.]

New coupon deals out from Adobe: Take $100 off Photoshop Lightroom 3 with offer code, for a limited time – plus get free shipping. You don’t have to buy anything else to get the discount and will receive Lightroom version 3.4, which was released on April 26th.

The $100 instant discount is valid for the full commercial version of Lightroom (not upgrades, which cost $99), and you must use promotion code 5LT100M to activate the savings. The offer is available only on purchases made directly from Adobe by customers in North America, and ends on Monday, May 30, 2010, at 11:59pm PDT – so if you’ve been thinking about making the jump to the well-liked Lightroom, this is a pretty good entry!

If you prefer to try before you buy, you can immediately download the fully-functional free trial, and then just convert it before expiration of the coupon code.

This promo is not available for the Lightroom 3 Student and Teacher Edition, which actually costs $89. However, if you buy this Lightroom 3 education version together with any Creative Suite 5.5 (CS5.5) Student and Teacher Edition, you get an instant 15% off instead, plus the free shipping. This offer is valid until May 22nd for all academic customers in the Adobe North America Education Store with no coupon code necessary, and the discount will be taken just prior to checkout.

There are two more new offers. The first is for Adobe Photoshop Elements since Elements and Lightroom are often bought together, and the second is for education customers in Europe and the U.K. for Photoshop CS5.1.

Get an instant $10 savings on Photoshop Elements 9 or the Photoshop Elements 9 & Premiere Elements 9 bundle with offer code. Plus save an additional $20-$30 with mail-in rebate for up to $40 savings in total. You must use coupon code ELEMENT11, and this offer available only in the Adobe North America Store until May 31st.

You can also save in the Europe by taking an additional €30 or £25 off the Photoshop CS5 Extended Student and Teacher Edition with offer code PSHOPEDU15, plus ship free. This is on top of the 80% discount normally offered, and applies only in the Europe Education Stores through June 9th, 2011.

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Adobe Lightroom 3.4 and Adobe Camera Raw 6.4 are now available as final releases, and are free for all current Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 owners… These updates include bug fixes, performance and stability improvements (27 for Lightroom and 9 for Camera Raw), plus support for 30 new lens profiles and 13 new cameras, including the Nikon D5100, Canon EOS 600D, and Olympus XZ-1:

 » Download the Final Adobe Lightroom 3.4.1 for Mac (a free update to Lightroom 3)
 » Download the Final Adobe Lightroom 3.4.1 for Windows

 » Download the Final Adobe Camera Raw 6.4.1 for Mac (a free update to Photoshop CS5)
 » Download the Final Adobe Camera Raw 6.4.1 for Windows

Read more details about the update including the 36 fixes that were made as well as the new cameras supported, or take a look at the complete list of all Lightroom-supported cameras.

Lightroom 3.4 is a recommended update and is available in 12 languages: English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Traditional and Simplified).   If you don’t yet own Lightroom 3, Adobe’s free trial download has also now been moved up to version 3.4.

To confirm that the updater has run successfully, launch Lightroom and verify that the version number on the splash screen shows current as 3.4.

Camera Raw 6.4 also works with Photoshop Elements 9 – see the full compatibility chart. Note that Camera Raw 6 is not compatible with Photoshop CS4 or earlier. The last release of Adobe Camera Raw for Photoshop CS4 was ACR 5.7 on 4/20/2010.

Save 30% when you buy Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5 together, no coupon code needed.

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