Attended Adobe Creative Suite 6 launch yesterday at The Luxe Art Museum. Adobe has joined in the “more focus” bandwagon by only having 4 suites instead of 5 (for CS5) and 6 (for CS4). Creative Suite 6 will consists of 4 suites ranging from 14 different products.

Theme For CS 6 Is: Create Now

What’s New In CS6?

If I have to pick my favourite thing in CS6, it got to be the Mercury Engine. It speeds everything up so much faster. Whenever you press “Save”, it does a background save, allowing you to continuing working on your PSD file.

For Mac, Adobe has dropped 32bit support for lots of product. Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Dreamweaver, Adobe Premiere Pro and SpeedGrade are now available only on 64bit for Mac. For Windows, because most government agencies has a 5-8 years timeframe before they change their computers, Adobe still has support for 32bit version of their products on the Windows platform.

4 Suites, 14 Products

2 new products to the CS6 suite and they are SpeedGrade and Prelude. Technically SpeedGrade is not a new product, it was used to be sold separately for USD$30,000, but now it is being bundled as part of CS6.

Adobe SpeedGrade CS6 color grading software brings the Lumetri Deep Color Engine to your production workflow. Open the full dynamic range of your footage through a sleek new interface. A new component of Adobe Creative Suite software, SpeedGrade gives you the power to push your stories further.

Adobe Prelude CS6 software streamlines your production tasks. Ingest nearly any file-based format and begin logging immediately, creating searchable markers and other temporal metadata that flow through post-production, so you can work faster and stay organized.

4 Main Pillars Of CS6

Prices (Excluding Taxes)

• CS6 Master Collection: SGD$3,924
  • Photoshop CS6 Extended
  • Illustrator CS6
  • InDesign CS6
  • Acrobat X Pro
  • Flash Professional CS6
  • Flash Builder 4.6 Premium Edition
  • Dreamweaver CS6
  • Fireworks CS6
  • Adobe Premiere Pro CS6
  • After Effects CS6
  • Adobe Audition CS6
  • SpeedGrade CS6
  • Prelude CS6
  • Encore CS6
  • Bridge CS6
  • Story CS6
  • Media Encoder CS6
• CS6 Design & Web Premium: SGD$2,868
  • Photoshop CS6 Extended
  • Illustrator CS6
  • InDesign CS6
  • Dreamweaver CS6
  • Flash Professional CS6
  • Fireworks CS6
  • Acrobat X Pro
  • Bridge CS6
  • Media Encoder CS6
• CS6 Design Standard: SGD$1,962
  • Photoshop CS6
  • Illustrator CS6
  • InDesign CS6
  • Acrobat X Pro
  • Bridge CS6
  • Media Encoder CS6
• CS6 Production Premium: SGD$2,868
  • Adobe Premiere Pro CS6
  • After Effects CS6
  • Photoshop CS6 Extended
  • Adobe Audition CS6
  • SpeedGrade CS6
  • Prelude CS6
  • Illustrator CS6
  • Encore CS6
  • Flash Professional CS6
  • Media Encoder CS6
  • Story CS6
  • Bridge CS6

If you are confused with all the text and products in each suite, check out the more visually pleasant, Buying guide – Product comparison from Adobe.

As you might heard in the US and some other parts of the world, CS6 was launched with Adobe Creative Cloud, but unfortunately, Adobe Creative Cloud will not be available in Singapore yet as Adobe is still trying to figure out the business model.

Adobe Creative Cloud is the digital hub that lets you download and install every Adobe Creative Suite 6 application; access online services for file sharing, collaboration, and publishing; and benefit from new apps and features as soon as they’re released – giving you the freedom to create anything you can imagine.

Press Release

Major CS Upgrades and All-New Muse Anchor Landmark Launch for Designers
The performance and workflow enhancements in Adobe Photoshop CS6, InDesign CS6 and Illustrator CS6 will result in significant time savings for print, web and mobile projects.

• In Photoshop CS6, designers will experience incredible performance, powered by the Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine, enabling near instant results from essential editing tools, including Liquify, Puppet Warp, Transform and Lighting Effects.
• Adobe has built on Photoshop’s breakthrough Content-Aware capabilities with advanced new Content-Aware Patch and Content-Aware Move features.
• Illustrator CS6 debuts a revamped modern interface and features include a new Image Tracing Engine, Pattern Creation and Gradient Strokes. The Mercury performance system delivers speed and stability, including 64-bit support for Mac OS and Windows.
• InDesign CS6 continues to blaze a trail in publishing, streamlining the creation of multiple layouts from a single set of content with new Adaptive Design Tools – Alternate Layout, Liquid Layout, Content Collector Tools and Linked Content.
• A brand new application, Adobe Muse, a radical new tool that enables designers to create and publish HTML5 web sites without writing code, was also announced today.

Adobe Doubles-Down on HTML5 Tooling for Web Professionals
Innovative new workflows and capabilities across Adobe tools simplify the creative process for today’s web designers, developers and interactive professionals.

• Web pros can conveniently integrate HTML5 animations, created with Adobe Edge Preview, into their Dreamweaver projects, driving home Adobe’s leadership in tooling for the HTML5 web standard.
• Dreamweaver CS6 addresses the challenge of responsive web designs with the ability to build fluid grid layouts replacing the tedious manual process of creating and configuring separate CSS-based interfaces for phone, tablet and desktop.
• Through direct integration with Adobe’s recently announced PhoneGap Build service, Dreamweaver CS6 helps round out a Web professional’s skillset and enables them to produce native mobile applications for multiple platforms.
• Flash Professional CS6 users can easily translate and transition their skills to HTML5 using the Flash Professional Toolkit for CreateJS. Flash Professional CS6 also helps designers to create exciting and impactful gaming experiences and advancements include the ability to generate sprite sheets that improve workflows and performance.
• Pre-built native extensions and new packaging options, leveraging the latest Adobe Flash Player and AIR runtimes, help expand and ease app delivery to Android and iOS devices.

Production Premium CS6 Pushes Boundaries of Video Creativity
Redesigned by and for video editors, with major performance enhancements, the tools included in Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium set a new standard in professional video.

• With dozens of new features, Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 is the hub of any professional video workflow, featuring a sleek new editing environment. The powerful Adobe Mercury Playback Engine now supports OpenCL on MacBook Pros.
• The most significant After Effects release in a decade, After Effects CS6 is faster and more responsive than ever. With Global Performance Cache, previews are saved and ready to go— cutting the time spent bouncing between projects.
• New to Production Premium are Adobe Prelude CS6, which streamlines logging and ingest workflows in post-production, and Adobe SpeedGrade, which contains powerful finishing tools for film finishing and colour grading.
• Adobe Audition CS6 accelerates audio post-production: real-time clip stretching makes it simple to stretch clips to fit an edit; and Automatic Speech Alignment introduces a powerful new engine for automated dialogue analysis.
• A new 3rd party API for hardware integration – Adobe Mercury Transmit – allows broadcast video monitoring to connect directly into the Mercury Playback Engine via third-party cards from AJA, Blackmagic Design, and Matrox.

Official Site: Adobe Creative Suite 6
Adobe Online Shop: South East Asia

Finally! Their Content Aware Fill is amazing!

BTW, Adobe Creative Suite 4 was announced on the 23rd September 2008.

SAN JOSE, Calif., — April 12, 2010 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe Creative Suite 5, a breakthrough release of the industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow. Focusing on interactivity, performance and maximizing the impact of digital content and marketing campaigns across media and devices, the Creative Suite 5 product line brings exciting full version upgrades of flagship creative tools while delivering significant workflow enhancements to designers and developers. Featuring integration with online content and digital marketing measurement and optimization capabilities for the first time, Creative Suite 5 products include access to signature Omniture technologies, to capture, store and analyze information generated by Web sites and other sources. Additionally, a brand new component, Adobe Flash Catalyst, joins the Creative Suite, ushering in the ability to design interactive content without writing code and improve the collaborative process between designer and developer.

The Adobe CS5 product family also enables the creation of content and applications for the much anticipated releases of Flash Player 10.1 and Adobe AIR 2, which are optimized for high performance on mobile screens and designed to take advantage of native device capabilities for a richer, more immersive user experience.

The new lineup is headlined by Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, which includes, in a single package, all of Adobe’s renowned Creative Suite tools, such as Photoshop CS5 (see separate release), Illustrator CS5, InDesign CS5 (see separate release), Flash Catalyst CS5 (see separate release), Flash Professional CS5, Dreamweaver CS5, Adobe Premiere Pro CS5 (see separate release) and After Effects CS5. These tools are also available separately or in one of the five Creative Suite editions. The complete Creative Suite 5 lineup includes Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, Creative Suite 5 Design Premium, Creative Suite 5 Web Premium, Creative Suite 5 Production Premium and Creative Suite 5 Design Standard, as well as 15 point products, associated technologies and integration with new Adobe CS Live Services (CS Live Services are complimentary for a limited time).

“While Creative Suite 5 continues Adobe’s storied history of delivering astonishing new creative features, this release first and foremost addresses the challenges facing publishers and creatives worldwide—how to build profitable businesses around digital content,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer at Adobe. “By coupling sophisticated online business analytics with dazzling creative tools, we’re ensuring that publishers, designers and marketers can create, deliver and optimize beautiful, high-impact digital experiences across media and devices.”

Recommended Retail Price:

• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection: USD$2599
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium: USD$1899
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Standard: USD$1299
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium: USD$1799
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium: US$1699

Press Release:

Right after Adobe Flash Player 10 is released, Adobe announced that Creative Suite 4 has begun shipping. Woot!

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Oct. 15, 2008 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family, the highly-anticipated release of industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow. Delivering radical breakthroughs in workflow efficiency – and packed with hundreds of innovative, time saving features – the new Creative Suite 4 product line advances the creative process across print, Web, interactive, film, video and mobile.

Customers can choose from six new versions: Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium, Design Standard, Web Premium, Web Standard, Production Premium and Master Collection. The combination of Creative Suite and the new capabilities of Adobe Flash Player 10, also available today (see separate press release) deliver new levels of creativity and expressiveness across media channels. Designers using the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family will gain unprecedented creative control using the new expressive features and visual performance improvements in Adobe Flash Player 10 to deliver breakthrough Web experiences across multiple browsers and operating systems.

Press Release (PDF): Adobe Creative Suite 4 Now Shipping
Website: Adobe Creative Suite

Adobe Creative Suite 4 has been announced officially:

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Sept. 23, 2008 – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product family, a milestone release of the industry-leading design and development software for virtually every creative workflow. Delivering radical workflow breakthroughs that bring down the walls between designers and developers – and packed with hundreds of feature innovations – the new Creative Suite 4 product line advances the creative process across print, Web, mobile, interactive, film and video production. With new levels of integration and expressiveness for Flash technology across the entire product line, Adobe’s biggest software release to date includes Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design editions, Creative Suite 4 Web editions, Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, Creative Suite 4 Master Collection, as well as 13 point products, 14 integrated technologies and seven services.

Press Release: : Adobe Introduces Creative Suite 4 Product Family

Similar to Adobe Creative Suite 3, there are a total of 6 favors to it.

1. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Standard
   1. InDesign CS4
   2. Photoshop CS4
   3. Illustrator CS4
   4. Acrobat 9 Pro
   5. Adobe Bridge CS4
   6. Adobe Device Central CS4
   7. Version Cue CS4
2. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium
   1. InDesign CS4
   2. Photoshop CS4 Extended
   3. Illustrator CS4
   4. Flash CS4 Professional
   5. Dreamweaver CS4
   6. Fireworks CS4
   7. Acrobat 9 Pro
   8. Adobe Bridge CS4
   9. Adobe Device Central CS4
   10. Version Cue CS4
3. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Standard
   1. Dreamweaver CS4
   2. Flash CS4 Professional
   3. Fireworks CS4
   4. Contribute CS4
   5. Adobe Bridge CS4
   6. Adobe Device Central CS4
   7. Version Cue CS4
4. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium
   1. Dreamweaver CS4
   2. Flash CS4 Professional
   3. Photoshop CS4 Extended
   4. Illustrator CS4
   5. Fireworks CS4
   6. Acrobat 9 Pro
   7. Soundbooth CS4
   8. Contribute CS4
   9. Adobe Bridge CS4
   10. Adobe Device Central CS4
   11. Version Cue CS4
5. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium
   1. After Effects CS4
   2. Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
   3. Photoshop CS4 Extended
   4. Flash CS4 Professional
   5. Illustrator CS4
   6. Soundbooth CS4
   7. Adobe OnLocation CS4
   8. Encore CS4
   9. Adobe Bridge CS4
   10. Adobe Device Central CS4
   11. Adobe Adobe Dynamic Link
6. Adobe Creative Suite 4 Master Collection
   1. InDesign CS4
   2. Photoshop CS4 Extended
   3. Illustrator CS4
   4. Acrobat 9 Pro
   5. Flash CS4 Professional
   6. Dreamweaver CS4
   7. Fireworks CS4
   8. Contribute CS4
   9. After Effects CS4
   10. Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
   11. Soundbooth CS4
   12. Adobe OnLocation CS4
   13. Encore CS4
   14. Adobe Bridge CS4
   15. Adobe Device Central CS4
   16. Adobe Dynamic Link
   17. Version Cue CS4

Adobe Creative Suite 4 should hit shelves before end October 2008.

By the way, Adobe CS 3 was launched last year on 24th April 2007.

Adobe Creative Suite 4 will support 64bit OSes running Windows, whereas for Mac, it will still be 32bit only. When Adobe Creative Suite 5 comes, it will support both 64bit OSes in Windows and Mac.

What’s Adobe doing with Photoshop? In the interest of giving customers guidance as early as possible, we have some news to share on this point: in addition to offering 32-bit-native versions for Mac OS X and 32-bit Windows, just as we do today, we plan to ship the next version of Photoshop as 64-bit-native for Windows 64-bit OSes only.

The development is frankly bittersweet for us: On the one hand we’re delighted to be breaking new ground with Photoshop, and when processing very large files on a suitably equipped machine, Photoshop x64 realizes some big performance gains. (For example, opening a 3.75 gigapixel image on a 4-core machine with 32GB RAM is about 10x faster.) On the other hand, we work very hard at maintaining parity across platforms, and it’s a drag that the Mac x64 revision will take longer to deliver. We will get there, but not in CS4. (Our goal is to ship a 64-bit Mac version with Photoshop CS5, but well be better able to assess that goal as we get farther along in the development process.)

Source: John Nack on Adobe: Photoshop, Lightroom, and Adobe’s 64-bit roadmap