Adobe announces Creative Suite 6 and Creative Cloud

Brian Ambrozy 23 Apr, 2012 at 2:49am ET Article published in Tech

Today marks the landmark announcement of the latest version of Adobe’s comprehensive suite of tools for design professionals: Creative Suite 6.

Along with Creative Suite 6, and perhaps more importantly, they are also releasing Creative Cloud, a suite of services that aims to solve a great number of difficulties in sharing and delivering professional design content. Both the Creative Suite and Creative Cloud launch on May 7th.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the somewhat confusing number of releases. Let’s break it down.

There are four editions of Creative Suite, each with different product lineups that are catered to specific industries or disciplines. There are 14 products in Creative Suite 6 family. The editions break down as follows:

Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard—$1299

Photoshop® CS6
Illustrator® CS6
InDesign® CS6
Acrobat® X Pro
Bridge CS6
Media Encoder CS6

Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium—$1899

Photoshop CS6 Extended
Illustrator CS6
InDesign CS6
Dreamweaver CS6
Flash® Professional CS6
Fireworks® CS6
Acrobat® X Pro
Bridge CS6
Media Encoder CS6

Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium—$1899

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
Bridge CS6

Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection—$2599

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
Media Encoder CS6

All CS6 apps are 64-bit only, which means they will not work in 32-bit versions of Windows or Mac OS X.

One of the more exciting aspects is the upgraded Mercury Playback Engine, which we have covered in detail in the past. The new version of MPE uses OpenCL in addition to CUDA, but before AMD Radeon and FirePro owners get excited, there are some caveats.

The new Mercury Playback Engine, and why no AMD?

On Adobe’s new MPE page, the list of GPUs is almost exclusively NVIDIA, with the exception of two AMD Radeon GPUs—and those are only supported on Macbook Pros. Why?

As we saw in our article “A new world of GPU-accelerated content apps“, you could only experience the benefit of MPE with NVIDIA GPUs… none of which were available on Macbook Pro laptops. This left a large portion of Adobe’s customer base out in the cold with regards to having access to the extremely poignant performance benefit that MPE confers (especially with Premiere Pro, which is used by a great many Mac-based filmmakers). The new MPE runs on OpenCL, the GPU compute language that AMD Radeon products “speaks”. This pacifies the entire Macbook Pro customer base that was essentially up the creek with the CS4, CS5, and CS5.5 releases, all of which were CUDA (NVIDIA’s proprietary GPU compute language) exclusive.

The lack of Windows-based AMD products on CS6’s supported GPU list is probably nothing to get worried about: the fact that CS6 is brand-spanking new means that certification will take time. If our experience with CS5 and CS5.5 taught us anything, it was that GPU support was only a simple edit of a system text file away. Case in point: to enable Mercury Playback Engine for the NVIDIA Quadro 5000M when I was doing my review of the HP EliteBook 8740W, I couldn’t wait for official support from Adobe (which came in an update much later)… I simply edited a text file and like magic, the 5000M was supported. Once we get our hands on the CS6 review copies, we’ll see if we can get OpenCL support for MPE working on Windows. In the meantime, we can only go with what Adobe tells us, and that’s this: Radeon and FirePro users on Windows are sadly still stuck with no MPE support. This will disappoint many.

The other new aspect of MPE is support for a new direct access API for certified hardware vendors including AJA, Blackmagic Design, Bluefish444, Matrox, and MOTU. This means that certified cards will be able to utilize the MPE for real-time effects in advanced workstation setups.

Adobe Creative Cloud

The future may say that today’s really big announcement was not Creative Suite 6, but rather the Creative Cloud. I can tell you right now, that as a former graphic arts professional with ten years in the pre-press industry, Creative Cloud is a total game-changer.

Since the advent of digital publishing, the single biggest challenge was moving files from one step of the creative process to the next. Issues with cross-platform compatibility, font craziness, print drivers, mismatched color profiles, the list goes on and on. To this day I have actual nightmares about pre-press incidents that occurred 15 years ago when I worked in the newspaper industry. Obviously as time has gone on, bandwidth has increased, and technology has become more accessible, the problems have lessened, but Creative Cloud will most likely be the nail in the coffin of pre-press headaches.

Let’s get the first big thing out of the way: Creative Cloud is a monthly subscription service that gives subscribers (at $49.99 a month with an annual contract) access to the entire Creative Suite. If you break that down, that means you would have to subscribe for over 50 months to make an outright purchase of Creative Suite Master Collection a better value. It’s a stretch to think about why anyone would actually purchase the suites outright at this price—especially when you consider Adobe’s short release cycle. Really what this indicates is that Adobe Creative Suite 6 is probably the last time we’ll see the old model of “buy an expensive piece of software and install it for keeps”. I suspect that Adobe Creative Suite 7 will be subscription-only.

This will probably open up Creative Suite to a whole new audience; $50 isn’t that much of a burden when you consider the level of this software. That price point now makes Adobe Creative Suite one of the most affordable professional-grade content creation packages out there. Adobe’s software has always been highly pirated; perhaps this is Adobe’s attempt to combat piracy in the way that has been proved to work: give your customers value and make your software accessible; they’ll pay for it. The biggest hurdle to becoming an Adobe customer has always been the massive initial capital investment. I have seen countless design students and small business owners struggle with the need to pay so much for software they desperately need. This model solves the problem for all of them and makes the software much more accessible.

Besides the software rental model, Adobe is releasing a slew of new products to Creative Cloud subscribers, including Adobe Edge preview and Adobe Muse, both products that help with CSS and other standards-compliant web technologies. Adobe Muse is a brand new product that is yet another attempt at “no coding required”-WYSIWYG web site creation.

The Creative Cloud also links the Adobe Touch apps (Photoshop Touch and Adobe Ideas) to the desktop applications. Android users will also get access to three new Adobe touch tools: Adobe Collage, Adobe Debut and Adobe Proto (iOS versions will be ‘coming soon’). All of these tools store files in the Creative Cloud for easy access to your work on the desktop counterparts. Take your tablet to a design or prototyping meeting, sketch ideas with clients on the spot, then go back to your desk to refine them.

Creative Cloud comes with 20gb of storage; that’s a somewhat paltry amount, but when you consider again what you’re getting for your fee ($2600 worth of software, duh!) it really doesn’t hurt too much. 20gb will only feel stifling to video pros, most likely. Additional storage tiers will be available for those who simply cannot work within such confines.

But wait, there’s more!

This is starting to sound more and more like an infomercial. Adobe has gone crazy, crazy, crazy! Act now and you’ll receive Adobe Typekit (a $700 value) with your Creative Cloud membership!

No, but really, Adobe Typekit comes with it. This is yet another immensely valuable product—Adobe is one of the companies that sets the standard for excellent typography.

The list of what comes with Creative Cloud is really just too long for a single article. The value is tremendous; the full press release is available here.

Adobe has made a bold and loud statement today: They aim to revolutionize not only content creation software (again), but also the way big iron software is valued and delivered in an increasingly mobile and cloud-savvy world. The days of big expensive software boxes on your shelf are coming to a close, and Adobe is leading that charge.

The Creative Cloud and Creative Suite 6 will be released May 7th, 2012. There is a launch event happening today at 10am PST (1pm EST) if you want to follow along.

Comments

23 Apr 2012 ~ 3:31am primesuspect Event Lightroom comes with Creative Cloud. It's an insane package.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 5:56am Snarkasm I'm intrigued.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 6:29am mertesn Something to consider: If you are eligible for upgrade pricing on any of the Adobe Creative Suite packages, the upgrade pricing is slightly less than the $600 for an annual subscription. Case in point: Master Suite CS6 costs $549, $51 less than a one year subscription.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 12:28pm ardichoke While things moving to the cloud is great for me professionally (because it means more jobs in my field), I still don't like it. Time to flog the deceased equus here... Internet connectivity is still not a given. Home ISPs are traffic shaping, bandwidth limiting and never seem to provide the speed or reliability they advertise. Internet connections at things like conferences are notoriously bogged down or flaky and sometimes you're just plain not near an Internet connection. Until connections become vastly more reliable and completely ubiquitous, moving all your critical software into "The Cloud" will not be a good idea in practice. Not that it matters to me, of course, I have no need for Adobe's products anyway.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 12:37pm boasist
While things moving to the cloud is great for me professionally (because it means more jobs in my field), I still don't like it. Time to flog the deceased equus here... Internet connectivity is still not a given. Home ISPs are traffic shaping, bandwidth limiting and never seem to provide the speed or reliability they advertise. Internet connections at things like conferences are notoriously bogged down or flaky and sometimes you're just plain not near an Internet connection. Until connections become vastly more reliable and completely ubiquitous, moving all your critical software into "The Cloud" will not be a good idea in practice. Not that it matters to me, of course, I have no need for Adobe's products anyway.
As with Steam and some other DD platforms, you're only required to have an internet connection at download and activation. Then it phones home (internet required) for once every 30 days thereafter. So not that bad.

The bandwidth cap argument, well, that's another thread.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 12:45pm ardichoke Ah... guess I misinterpreted what Creative Cloud was. Sounded to me like it was a sort of over the net edition of Creative Suite, where the actual software was running on Adobe's servers and you had to be connected to use it. This is what I get for skimming.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 12:50pm Thrax Yeah, it's the buzzword usage of "cloud" vs. the correct usage.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 1:03pm ardichoke Adobe: Now Buzzwords 3.0 compatible.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 2:53pm boasist Yeah, initially I thought I'd have the option to use these program via web browser on my tablet/mac/desktop/laptop with syncronized files, etc. But....no.

The subscription does net you both the Windows/Mac versions and you can have it on a primary and backup machine as long as they aren't used at the same time.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 3:12pm JBoogaloo As a 5.5 user (3 and 4 previous), I may jump on the pricing for the creative cloud membership. But, purchasing CS6 software packages, even at student pricing I don't think is really worth it, yet. I have a bit more reading to do from the full article and adobe's website, but I'm really thinking that these "upgrade" will offer just about as much as 5.5 did upgrading from 4, not a whole ton of difference. Thanks for the info. Time to get reading!
23 Apr 2012 ~ 3:42pm BobbyDigi Pardon my defense of Adobe but the "cloud" they might argue is in the storage. Like saving all of your output to Drop Box. In fact, Drop box uses the same model sans the software having a monthly charge. IMO it's not a bad model. I'm sure the upgrade being right around the 1 year cost was no accident either. I say good for Adobe. Like Prime mentioned this will be a savior for small businesses that can't shell out the money up front. Like leasing a car, sure you don't own it in the end, but you still get the results during the lease.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 4:12pm GHoosdum It looks like the Creative Cloud pricing for both Students/Teachers as well as existing customers will be $29.99 per month with an annual subscription.
23 Apr 2012 ~ 9:36pm Sp00nman I'm excited and can't wait for the 7th to begin downloading the apps. I like the idea of having access to the software on my various workstations. The cloud is going to offer syncing of my files, which is nice as well. But I get that with SkyDrive no anyway.

I wouldn't be very excited if these were typical browser-based apps. You can't get the same value/experience in a browser. Could you imagine if these were truly streamed apps!? That'd be like editing a video through your remote desktop connection, no thanks.

Anyone else pre-order?
7 May 2012 ~ 1:21am primesuspect Now available.
11 May 2012 ~ 1:18am primesuspect Creative Cloud is now available.