With our post last week for five hours of free tutorials for Elements 7 and 8, it begged the question – when will Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 and Premiere Elements 9 be available?

Adobe historically ships a new version of Elements every year, in the fall – but when exactly? Let’s do some digging and find the release schedules for recent versions:

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“Time is money.” Or maybe it’s, “money is time,” can never remember which… Regardless, something that saves you time is saving you money. And if a product saves you enough time to more than pay for itself, it could be called a smart purchase.

With that in mind, there are three new performance studies out for Adobe CS5 products from the independent technology research firm, Pfeiffer Consulting. The time savings are impressive – on average, CS5 is two to three times faster than CS4 for 21 features and 130 performance benchmarks tested in Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, and Premiere Pro.

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If you haven’t upgraded to Creative Suite 5, you’re missing out on new ways to reach customers, differentiate your brand, and save your company time and money in the process. Here are five good reasons to upgrade to CS5:

Productivity

CS5 brings quantifiable efficiency to users (see just-released benchmarks) through its optimi­zation for the latest hardware and operating systems and its focus on reducing common prod­uction tasks from days to hours and from hours to a few mouse clicks. For example, CS5 users can work up to 10X faster with large Photoshop images, get jaw-dropping video-editing speed, and perform numerous work­flow-specific production tasks in a fraction of the time.

Differentiation

CS5 introduces rich new creativity features for print, web, interactive, mobile, and video professionals to produce compelling content and stories that make brands stand out in a crowded marketplace. For example, companies can incorporate cutting-edge 3D objects and motion graphics into their creative thanks to new Repoussé technology in Adobe Photoshop CS5 Extended.

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Happy second birthday Acrobat 9!

Yes, it’s true – two years ago today Adobe officially released Acrobat 9:

Adobe Acrobat 9 Software Now Available

New Version Receives Accolades for PDF Portfolios, Real-time Capabilities and Support for Adobe Flash Technology

SAN JOSE, Calif. — June 25, 2008 — Adobe Systems today announced the immediate availability of Adobe® Acrobat® 9 software, a significant upgrade that transforms the process of creating and sharing electronic documents… [continues]

So considering Adobe usually runs on two-year product release schedules, give or take, what does this imply for when Acrobat 10 will be coming out?

In early May, we reported here that “Acrobat 10 is going to launch in the second half of this year” – but now we have more precise information…

On Tuesday, Adobe’s top dog gave a presentation and Q&A to financial analysts in which he talked about CS5, Acrobat, and business in general. He said some great things, and here are the highlights for when Acrobat 10 will be available and its new features:
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One of the most common upgrade questions we see out there is asking what’s new, what’s different, what’s better, what’s changed between Adobe CS5 and CS4? Or more fundamen­tally, what are the key new features in CS5, versus CS4, or even CS3?

Creative Suite 5 contains hundreds of new or enhanced features and func­tions across the 15 point products that comprise it. So the easiest way to look at it is by major product… For example, Photoshop CS5 Extended con­tains 18 new features that CS4 didn’t have, plus a further 14 more that have been enhanced. The numbers are similar for other products and even greater over CS3 of course – although generally speaking CS5 has significantly more improvements and innovation compared to CS4 than CS4 had over CS3.

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

So for the breakout by individual product, here are the CS5 vs. CS4 vs. CS3 comparisons:

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Yes – Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3.0 is just out and now shipping! Pretty much on the time­frame we forecast, you can download a free trial today… And the new product will work side-by-side with any previous releases of Lightroom you own. If you have an earlier version installed, Lightroom 3 will ask if you’d like to upgrade your catalog and move everything over.

The price remains US$299 for the full version, and $99 to upgrade from either LR1 or LR2. Students and teachers can grab the full education version for just $89, or 70% off. Languages available today include English, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, and Chinese.

Moments ago Adobe also refreshed their longstanding special offer where you can get 30% off Lightroom when you purchase it together with Photoshop – only now the versions are Lightroom 3 with Photoshop CS5 (or any suite containing Photoshop CS5). No coupon or promo code is required for the discount.

Lightroom 3 will run well on 32-bit or 64-bit systems, and is designed for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, or Mac OS (see full system requirements). It’s sold as multiplatform software, meaning it can be installed on either Mac OS X or Windows and will deliver the same features and functions on both. And similar to CS5, you may be able to install Lightroom on up to two computers, subject to the terms of the software license agreement.

What’s new in Lightroom 3?

With the benefit of nearly two years of product development since the previous version, plus two full beta periods under its belt, this third-generation digital darkroom is looking like a very smooth and polished final release.

Learn more, download the new LR3 datasheet, or watch Terry White’s new video, My Top Five Favorite Lightroom 3 Features. If you need the direct download links for Lightroom 3 to access the software without the Akamai Download Manager, we have posted them here.

With the official release of Lightroom 3.0 looking to be just around the corner here!, it’s time to launch our June contest… This month we’re giving away 3 free upgrades to Lightroom 3, and all you have to do for a shot to win is enter your email address in the “Adobe Special Offers” box in the sidebar to the right for our free occasional e-newsletter. That’s it.

It’s open worldwide with one subscription per person and submissions end at 11:59pm EDT on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010. Then on July 1st we’ll choose three new subscribers at random, and if you’re one of them we’ll ship you a shiny new shrinkwrapped upgrade to Lightroom 3 for free! (Or if you’ve already purchased your upgrade by that time, just send us the bill and we’ll reimburse 100% of your cost via PayPal.) We’ll contact you via email just to get your address for shipping, and then follow up back here announcing your first name and hometown. It’s that simple, no kidding!

If you like, you can find out more about our newsletter – it typically covers select Adobe-related news plus the latest specials and promo codes. And of course you can easily unsubscribe from the bottom of any issue. Natu­rally we’ll never spam you or share your email address with anyone else, ever. So enter your email today and spread the word – someone has to win and there’s nothing to lose…

See Terry White’s new video, My Top 5 Favorite Lightroom 3 Features.
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[UPDATE (June 8th) – Lightroom 3 is now shipping! Win a free upgrade.]

With May wrapping up it’s time to take another look at a question we first wrote about two months ago, “when is Lightroom 3 coming out?” Back then we concluded, “with luck we expect to see general availability of Adobe Lightroom 3.0 in June, 2010.” Since then, the evidence has grown that we could see the final LR3 quite soon, perhaps only a matter of weeks…

First, the current Lightroom 3 beta ver­sion will expire at the end of June, and remains free to download and use until then. But come June 30th this beta will stop working, and it seems unlikely that Adobe would ask its hungry Lightroom userbase to hold on for a third beta or a further extension before our beta work­flows are switched to the final release – even moreso considering it’s been nearly two years since Lightroom 2 first came out.

Second, this week there’s been a big publicity push surrounding the launch of Scott Kelby’s new Lightroom 3 book, which is now on preorder… The consensus around the web is this means the final product must be getting close.

Lastly, and perhaps most interestingly, is the upcoming expiration date of a longstanding Adobe special offer whereby you can save 30% on Lightroom 2 by buying it together with Photoshop… This popular deal has been in place since Lightroom 2 launched on July 29, 2008, and it’s now ending on June 7th. So after almost two years, perhaps one can speculate – why would such offer terms now be wrapping up? Could it be because Lightroom 2 may soon no longer be available for purchase, possibly, and replaced with something else? Nobody outside of Adobe can say for sure of course, but we’ll soon find out how meaningful this might be – and if the LR2 offer could be followed by a similar one for a future version.

So put it all together and we could be looking at only a question of weeks now until the final release and delivery of Adobe Lightroom 3… One can hope anyway, and with a bit of luck the upgrade price will stay at $99.

[UPDATE (June 6th) – A new user report in the forums could be confirming: "Lightroom 3 is going to be annouced this monday or tuesday (7th or 8th of June). heard it from the adobe spokesman from pma australia 2010. he confirmed it when demonstrating Lightroom 3 Public Beta 2."]

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.]

[UPDATE (April 30th) – As forecast below, all CS5 products are now shipping today!]

Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 could be released as soon as next week. What’s more, the free trial downloads and Student and Teacher Editions will be available on the same day. That’s the latest word from Terry White, Worldwide Design Evangelist for Adobe Systems, at an online Q&A session yesterday afternoon…

Here’s the dialogue:

Question: When will CS5 hit the shelves? When I called Adobe, they said the release date would be April 30th. Terry, can you confirm this?
Terry White: I can’t confirm or deny it, but if that’s what they told you…
Terry White: The official answer is mid-May. In any event, April 30th – if it’s April 30th – would be the time it would leave the doors of Adobe, not arrive.

Question: How about the official date for CS5 trial versions?
Terry White: Previously the release of the trials has lagged. However I’m pleased to announce that whatever the official release date is, the free trial downloads will be available the same day.

Question: And the Student (Education) Editions? Will they lag again as they did in CS4 or be out at the same time? Thank you.
Terry White: Everything should be available at the same time.

So this represents a much improved release calendar over CS4, which as we’ve previously noted wasn’t available until about four weeks after its announce­ment date, with the free trials and Education versions following a month after that… For CS5, the April 30th date above is con­firmed anecdotally by other reports here and here, and would mean everything potentially being available within eighteen days of the April 12th launch.

A ship date of next Friday also means there’s only one week left to buy/download CS4 from Adobe and get a free upgrade to CS5, as well as only one week left in our free Photoshop CS5 giveaway!

The “Ask a CS Pro” session above lasted for over an hour and there was plenty of other great information shared which we’ll be covering in a new post next week.