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Archive for April, 2011
Adobe Lightroom 3.4 and Camera Raw 6.4 – Final and Free Updates
April 27th, 2011 Leave a comment
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.
How Adobe CS5.5 Subscriptions Work – and Where They Don’t
April 26th, 2011 3 comments
With the release of CS5.5, Adobe is adding an additional option for purchasing the Creative Suite line of products… Presently, there exists Commercial, Education, and Volume choices, which continue as before – and now there are Subscriptions as well, for CS5.5 (only). The customer alignments are as follows:
- Commercial – For home and home office
- Education – For students, teachers and staff
- Volume – For more than one copy, and businesses
- Subscriptions – For time-limited licensing
The subscription editions are rather like renting the software for a set period. You download and install the CS5.5 software on your computer as normal (it’s not online or cloud-based), but instead of paying a single price up-front to use the product forever, you pay 5% to 7.5% of the regular cost per month to use it. While the subscription remains active, you have access to the latest version of the software as well as CS Live online services. Then if/when you cancel or stop paying, the product stops working on the installed computer(s), ceasing access to your Adobe project or data files.
Adobe CS5.5 FAQ – Customers’ Top Questions Answered
April 20th, 2011 80 comments
Last week Adobe unveiled Creative Suite 5.5 and held an expert session to address common questions and answers about the new release. We covered part of this session in our earlier piece on the free-upgrade grace period for CS 5.5…
And here, without further ado, is the rest of the shared knowledge from those Adobe Evangelists.
If you have any questions at all about the release that are not answered here or by our CS5.5 launch overview, or comparison to CS5, or new product feature articles, just leave them in the comments below and we’ll get answers!
Topics
Grace Period for Free Upgrade to New Adobe CS5.5
April 13th, 2011 46 comments
[UPDATE (March 2012) – Adobe’s grace period for free upgrades to CS6 is here!]
Adobe launched Creative Suite 5.5 this week and it is open for preorder but not shipping yet… The company says the release date will be in May, and in the meantime you can still buy Creative Suite 5 (or download the CS5 free trials) if you need something going today.
And, if you bought Adobe CS5 recently (a suite edition or an individual application like InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, After Effects, Premiere Pro) or if you purchase any CS5 product now, you may be entitled to a free upgrade to CS5.5 when it is released.
Historically, Adobe’s policy for major product releases has been that you may qualify for a free upgrade if you buy the previous version near or after the new product has been announced, but before it ships… The advantages are threefold: (1) you get software available for immediate download, (2) you get a more mature release if you prefer and can move up later at your leisure, and (3) you win a lower upgrade cost (e.g., from CS2, CS3, or CS4), because you’re buying fewer steps to go up. For Design Premium it’s $150 less to upgrade now from CS3 to CS5, than to upgrade from CS3 to CS5.5.
The good news is this post-announce free upgrade policy remains in effect, according to an Adobe Q&A Session earlier this week… So it looks like you can get the best of both worlds and buy or upgrade to CS5, and then later get a free update to CS 5.5 when you — and it — are ready. (Just look for “Can’t wait? Order the previous version today” on Adobe’s page…)
Is There a Photoshop CS5.5? No, But There’s a Photoshop CS5.1
April 12th, 2011 4 comments
Big question out there with Adobe’s unveiling of Creative Suite 5.5 yesterday – is there a new version of Photoshop for CS 5.5?
We’ve already taken a close look at this with our extensive release review of all CS 5.5 products. But Photoshop is the most popular product of the suite, so the new functions here deserve special focus:
Photoshop will in fact be getting a revision to CS5.1 while extending the creative process beyond the desktop by helping integrate tablet devices into creative workflows. The new Adobe Photoshop Touch SDK (Software Development Kit) allows developers to create companion apps that run on mobile platforms like the Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom, and RIM PlayBook… The SDK controls an internal scripting engine to perform directed actions within Photoshop CS5 – thus enabling cool new applications like color mixing and painting on tablet devices.
Adobe CS5.5 is Out!
April 11th, 2011 51 comments
[UPDATE (May 2012) – The all-new Creative Suite 6 is now shipping!]
Yes – Adobe CS5.5 has just been announced with all the details… Pretty much on the timeframe we forecast, you can learn about and order any of the new products or suite editions, or download a free CS5.5 trial. And while the version and software have changed, the boxes look much the same as before.
For this “mid-cycle release” coming one year after CS5 first arrived, Adobe is offering similar configurations and prices, but with most of the individual products receiving additional features, enhanced functionality, updated technologies, or nice performance boosts.
Overall we present some highlights here, but see our two companion “what’s new” articles for: (1) an overview of the key differences between CS5 and CS5.5, including what’s been added and what’s been taken away, and (2) a detailed product-by-product review of the significant new features and enhancements in CS5.5.
Adobe CS5.5 vs. CS5 Comparison – What’s the Difference Between?
April 11th, 2011 98 comments
Adobe has just unveiled Creative Suite 5.5 – and one of the upgrade questions people are asking is what’s new, what’s different, what’s changed in CS5.5 as compared to previous version(s)? So our job here is to give you a quick “cheat sheet,” or guide to the updates. Adobe calls it “the most compelling release yet” and these kinds of answers can help decide about upgrading…
You may be wondering, why a Creative Suite 5.5? What happened to CS6? See what Adobe’s CEO says about it, or read our launch overview… You might also be interested to know that a CS6 release won’t be out until a long time from now.
CS5.5 updates most of the individual products, but not all… The 11 upgraded applications are: InDesign, Dreamweaver, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Flash Pro, Flash Catalyst, Flash Builder, Audition, Acrobat X Pro, Media Encoder, and Device Central. Learn more about the new features added to these applications in detail, with our special coverage.
The CS5 tools not revisioned to CS5.5 are Photoshop (Extended), Illustrator, Fireworks, and Contribute.
While Photoshop officially remains at CS5, there is a new Photoshop Touch SDK (Software Development Kit) that allows developers to create companion apps for desktop and mobile use… Read about 3 of the coming tablet apps, or find out more and see a demo of the new Photoshop functions running on the Apple iPad and Motorola Xoom.
What’s New in Adobe CS5.5 Upgrade? A Product Feature Overview
April 11th, 2011 20 comments
Adobe today has launched Creative Suite 5.5 and we just took a high-level look at how CS5.5 is different from CS5 – and so now here we’ll step through the significant new features at an individual product level, product-by-product…
The upgraded applications and their key new functionalities are detailed below. If you’re coming from further back and would like to know the differences between older versions – like an upgrade from Adobe CS4 to CS5.5, or from CS3 to CS5.5 – the last section will also help.
Major Changes to the Creative Suite Products
- What’s New in Photoshop CS5.1?
- What’s New in InDesign CS5.5?
- What’s New in Dreamweaver CS5.5?
- What’s New in Flash Professional CS5.5?
- What’s New in Flash Catalyst CS5.5?
- What’s New in Flash Builder 4.5?
- What’s New in Premiere Pro CS5.5?
- What’s New in After Effects CS5.5?
- What’s New in Audition CS5.5?
- What’s New in Acrobat X Pro?
- And Illustrator, Fireworks, Contribute CS5?
- What’s New in the CS5.5 Suite Editions?
- Differences from Older Releases (CS3 & CS4)?
CS5.5 or CS6? New Adobe “Sneak Peek” Preview Videos Out
April 7th, 2011 7 comments
[UPDATE (Oct. 12th) – See also the new sneak videos out for Photoshop Image Deblurring and InDesign Liquid Layout from Adobe MAX 2011…]
Similar to how they did before the launch of CS5, Adobe has been quietly slipping out a bevy of “sneaks” (now numbering 16 videos) for new features that may be in a forthcoming release of the Creative Suite…
“Check out what new technologies, features and innovations the Adobe product teams are working on behind the scenes. Stay tuned to get an early glimpse of what could be next from Adobe.”
The products covered include: InDesign, Dreamweaver, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Audition, Adobe Story, Media Encoder, Flex, Flash Pro, Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst.
Given the recent news of a “mid-cycle release to CS5” (e.g., CS5.5), and a forecast for when CS6 could be out, one question might be in which future version might we see these new capabilities?
Well, Adobe tips their hand once again – because at the end of a couple of these videos they flash the graphic, “CS5 is Evolving: April 11th, 2011″……
Which says to us, you might expect some of these features soon, in fact you might expect more about them next week!
The company has scheduled a special session with Creative Suite Evangelists on Monday, and is tweeting: “CS5 is getting even better. Stay tuned to #Adobe.com on 4/11, and join this Q&A“
Download Free 95-Page eBook on Adobe Photoshop Elements 9
April 5th, 2011 29 comments
[UPDATE – Download the newer free Photoshop Elements 11 book!]
A special gift for our readers: For a limited time, we’re offering a download of the Adobe Photoshop Elements 9 Guide ebook, with 13 chapters and 95 pages of visual tutorials and feature how-to’s, completely free for personal use… And the vast majority of it will apply to the new Photoshop Elements 10 as well.
This e-book is a great overview and introduction to PSE 9, and covers a lot of helpful material for getting started with the product or learning more skills if you’re already familiar. You won’t find this book anywhere else.
The download is 4.7 MB in size, in PDF format (get the free and better Adobe Reader X, if you haven’t already).
If you don’t yet own Photoshop Elements 9, just download the fully-working trial from Adobe to run it for free for 30 days. Much of the training in the book will be relevant for older and newer versions of PSE as well.
See what’s new in Photoshop Elements 9 – including layer masks, photo style-matching, and even some content-aware fill functionality borrowed from Photoshop CS5…
If you currently have an older version of the software, you might be interested in a nice chart with the differences between Photoshop Elements 9 vs. 8 vs. 7 vs. 6.
Or, if you also like to learn by video training, check out these four hours of free video tutorials for Photoshop Elements 9, or alternatively for Photoshop Elements 8 or 7.
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