Adobe Photoshop CS6 is out

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Photoshop® CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended software, major releases of the undisputed standard for professional digital imaging. Packed with new features and enhancements, the software includes groundbreaking innovations and unparalleled performance breakthroughs that expand the frontiers of imaging science, and deliver new levels of creativity and increased efficiency. Photoshop CS6 Extended integrates the state-of-the-art editing, compositing, and graphic design capabilities of Photoshop CS6, as well as advanced tools for 3D design*, image and video editing, and quantitative analysis which address the unique needs of the graphic design, video, Web, architecture, medical, manufacturing and engineering industries.

“Creativity is at the very center of our efforts – both in developing exceptional tools, and enabling our users to create beautiful imagery that stands out from the visual clutter around us,” said Winston Hendrickson, vice president products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe. “Photoshop CS6 is unrivaled in capabilities and power and – as we have seen from the astonishing reception of our recent public beta – has once again captured the imagination of the worldwide creative community. ‘Photoshop magic’ is alive and well with CS6.”

Since Photoshop CS6 was released as a public beta on March 22 for Mac OS and Microsoft® Windows® platforms, there have been nearly one million downloads of the software worldwide – surpassing any public beta in Adobe’s history. With this launch, Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended can be purchased as stand-alone applications, key components of the Adobe Creative Suite 6 family (see separate press release), and now as part of Adobe’s revolutionary Creative Cloud™ offering, also announced today (see separate release).

Create with Imaging Innovation and Peak Performance
Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended deliver unparalleled speed and power combined with the creative tools necessary to perform advanced image manipulation, design, motion‐based content editing, and compositing. The software helps users to patch images with control for exceptional results; edit with real-time interactions and a fluid feel powered by the new Mercury Graphics Engine; easily edit video; perform automatic tone mapping and sharpening; and use improved design tools for better results with fewer steps. Creative customers will be able to take advantage of an efficient, modern UI that puts all focus on images, and sync settings and preferences for consistent workflows across multiple devices via Adobe Creative Cloud.

“Adobe Photoshop CS6 gives Trek powerful design tools to help bring our creative vision to a reality faster and with greater control than ever before. The responsiveness of the new Mercury Graphics Engine is simply breathtaking and being able to see the results instantaneously helps us keep to our extremely tight timelines," said Eric Lynn, creative director, Trek Bicycle. "We often work with large files that include more than 500 layers and being able to search them all – and continue working while saving a large document – is invaluable to our workflow and a huge time saver for us.”

Photoshop CS6 features include:

Content-Aware Patch – Allows greater control by letting users choose the sample area used to create a patch.

Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine – Takes advantage of the graphics processing unit in modern hardware to speed up imaging and editing tasks, and process large images faster.

New and Re-engineered Design Tools – Type styles enable consistent formatting; vector layers apply strokes and add gradients to vector objects; custom strokes and dashed lines are easily created; quick layers search and more.

Intuitive Video Creation – The full range of familiar Photoshop tools and an intuitive set of new video tools to create and enhance any video clip.

Blur Gallery – A simple new interface with on-image and in-context controls allows users to quickly create photographic blur effects including tilt-shift effects, blur everything with one focal point, or vary the blurriness between multiple focal points.

Photoshop CS6 Extended includes all Photoshop CS6 features and:

Mercury Graphics Engine for 3D – Increased power and speed via engine optimized for 3D imaging.

New 3D Controls – UI improvements for more efficient 3D workflows.

New 3D Effects – Reflections and “drag-able” shadows to enhance images.

Adobe Creative Cloud and Digital Imaging
Adobe Creative Cloud gives creative customers a new option for purchasing and experiencing Adobe software innovation, including Adobe Photoshop CS6:

Creative Cloud membership provides designers with access to download and install every new Adobe CS6 application announced today and two new HTML5 products, Adobe Muse™ and Adobe Edge preview.

Creative Cloud powers the integration of creative tablet applications, such as Photoshop Touch, into everyday work – seamlessly synchronizing and storing files in the cloud, for sharing and access on any device.

Creative Cloud members will be able to easily deliver mobile apps to iOS and Android marketplaces and publish, manage and host websites.

Adobe Creative Cloud members will receive access to application upgrades, including new Photoshop features – before they are launched as part of a major update, as well as inventive new products and services, as they emerge. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom® 4 will be offered as part of Creative Cloud membership in the future.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended, Adobe Creative Suite 6 editions and Adobe Creative Cloud are scheduled to be available within 30 days and can be pre-ordered now. Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended will also be available through Adobe Authorized Resellers, the Adobe Store and Adobe Direct Sales; estimated street price for Photoshop CS6 is US$699 and US$999 for Photoshop CS6 Extended. Upgrade pricing is also available to eligible customers. Subscription pricing for Photoshop CS6 is US$19.99 per month for an annual contract and US$29.99 for a month-to-month contract. For more detailed information about features, OS support, system requirements, upgrade policies and pricing, please visit www.adobe.com/photoshop.

Adobe Creative Cloud membership for individuals is US$49.99 per month based on annual membership and US$74.99 per month based on month-to-month membership and includes access to Photoshop CS6 Extended. A special introductory offer of US$29.99 per month for CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5 individual customers is also available. Learn more at www.adobe.com/go/creativecloud.

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the ultimate toolkit for design, Web and video professionals with the unveiling of the Adobe® Creative Suite® 6 product line and Adobe Creative Cloud™ (see separate release). Powerful new releases of 14 CS6 applications and four Creative Suites – Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium, and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection – drive home Adobe’s continued innovation across creative markets. A new subscription-based offering, Adobe Creative Cloud, will provide users with the ability to download and install every Adobe CS6 application* announced today. Creative Cloud also integrates Adobe Touch Apps† into everyday work, introduces cloud-based sync and store capabilities, and powers the publishing of apps and high-impact Web experiences.

“Creatives get a ton of innovation across CS6, with milestone releases of all our flagship products,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president, Digital Media Business, Adobe. “With CS6 and Creative Cloud, we’re also introducing new products, new mobile workflows and advanced publishing capabilities that show we are laser-focused on ensuring design, Web and video pros have everything they need for the delivery of high-impact content and apps.”

Major CS Upgrades and All-New Muse Anchor Landmark Launch for Designers The performance and workflow enhancements in Adobe Photoshop® CS6 (see separate release), Adobe Illustrator® CS6 and Adobe InDesign® 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, easy pattern creation and ability to apply gradients to 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 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.

Adobe 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 Web professionals’ skillsets and enables them to produce native mobile applications for multiple platforms.

Adobe 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 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, Adobe 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 color 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 third 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.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Creative Suite 6 products and Adobe Creative Cloud are scheduled to be available within 30 days and can be pre-ordered now. Adobe continues to offer 14 CS6 point-products as well as Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium (US$1,899), Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard (US$1,299), Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium (US$1,899) and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection (US$2,599) for purchase. Upgrade pricing is also available to eligible customers. Customers can purchase CS6 products via Adobe.com and through select retail, resellers and online stores. More information on product pricing is available at www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite.html.

Adobe Creative Cloud membership for individuals is US$49.99 per month based on annual membership and US$74.99 per month based on month-to-month membership. A special introductory offer of US$29.99 per month for CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5 individual customers is also available. Learn more at www.adobe.com/go/creativecloud.