[UPDATE (April 29th) – Creative Suite 5 is now shipping!]

[UPDATE (April 16th) – We’ve put together new estimates on likely CS5 shipping timeframes, plus information on Adobe’s “free upgrade” grace period for CS4.]

When will Adobe Creative Suite 5 be released? That seems to be a big question of the season… Now that it’s March, let’s take another look. If you search the Adobe site for CS5, you’ll find some good tidbits, particularly about Flash Pro CS5 and Photoshop CS5, but little that’s concrete on timing.

But if you look to coverage of a financial conference the CEO spoke at last week, the Wall Street Journal writes: “CS5 is slated for release in April, though Narayen wouldn’t comment on a release time frame at the conference. Narayen said Adobe will ship its new version of Flash around the same time as CS5, in the first half of this year. ‘Data points and reviews point to a really solid release’ of CS5, he said.”

So it sounds like at this point there is still no official date from the company, but the financial community (whose jobs depend on researching this type of info) is expecting it to be available in the mid-spring. And if it were to come three years after the CS3 release, and eighteen months after CS4, then it would be in the second half of April – so with any luck, not too much longer to wait…

Read more…

“SAN JOSE, Calif.–Adobe Systems today announced Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 8 and Adobe Premiere® Elements 8, the highly anticipated new versions of the No. 1 selling consumer photo- and video-editing software. Available as standalone products or as a single retail package, the bundle offers the most complete photo and video solution by seamlessly integrating two powerful, yet easy-to-use, products. With this landmark release, Adobe has … [continues]”

OK, we’ve had a look inside these new products and there are a lot of cool new features, much inherited from their big brothers Photoshop and Premiere Pro CS4. In addition to many new automated options and smart editing tools for saving time and effort on your photos and videos, there is also much improved media management, tagging, and integration. Yet the Elements versions remain significantly easier to learn and use (not to mention less expensive) than their CS4 brethren…

So what exactly is in there, and what exactly is new? Fortunately Adobe has put together a great feature comparison page giving all the details.

Other points of note: In contrast to version 7, Adobe is issuing a brand new and fully-featured version for the Mac with Photoshop Elements 8. And PC World magazine just published a product review where they gave Elements 8 a Superior rating with a score of 94 out of 100.

Best of all: Both versions are available immediately for full download with 30-day free trials… And right now there’s a $30 rebate.