A Look at Adobe Creative Suite 5 and 5.5, Part 1

In 2010, Adobe (News - Alert) released the most recent major upgrade to its Creative Suite lineup, namely CS5. Then earlier this year, the company unveiled an interim update to the suite, dubbed CS5.5. Sporting the latest versions of Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, and other applications, the suite remains popular among web designers, graphic artists, and other professionals throughout a variety of industries. For those of you who use Adobe’s Creative Suite yourself or support users who rely on the product, what will you find in the latest editions of the popular suite?

In this three-part series of columns, Part 1 will look at the suite and some of the overall changes, Part 2 will move on to Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks, and Part 3 will finish with Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

First, let’s check out some of the new options in the suite itself.

Though the full updated suite is known collectively as CS5.5, only Dreamweaver, Flash, and InDesign have been enhanced enough to merit the 5.5 version number. Some of the other individual programs, such as Fireworks, Photoshop, and Illustrator, sport only a few changes from their version 5 editions.

In a change from the past, Adobe has said that it plans to roll out “milestone” upgrades every two years and then a mid-cycle update each year, which means we can expect to see Creative Suite 6 sometime early next spring.

Adobe’s Creative Suite has traditionally been a product that you pay for as you would any piece of software. You can find the prices for the various editions of the suite and the individual products at Adobe’s CS5.5 Buying Guide Web site. But now as an alternative to buying the software, you can subscribe to it. Almost like leasing a car instead of purchasing it, you can “rent” any of the Adobe CS5.5 suites and products on a month-to-month or yearly basis. Such an option may be a viable alternative for users who upgrade to each new version, especially since the full suites and even individual products can be pricey, particularly in today’s cost-conscious economy.

As for the common elements of the suite itself, Adobe has once again spruced up its Bridge application, which acts as a viewer, launcher, and manager for all your graphics, HTML pages, presentations, and other files created via different Creative Suite applications. Bridge itself comes with any of the specific CS5 suites and all of the individual applications.

Bridge can help you sort, filter and find specific files that may be scattered throughout your hard drive or network. It lets you set up certain folders and other locations to use as Favorites to store often-used files. It also allows you to easily move or copy files from one location to another. In CS5 Bridge will now let you export images into JPG files and send them directly to Flickr, Facebook (News - Alert), and Photoshop.com. Bridge’s Batch Rename feature has also been improved with more filters and the ability to save a specific set of filters as a template to use in the future.

A new version called Mini Bridge is accessible from within certain programs, notably Photoshop and InDesign. Through Mini Bridge you can view and access all the files you need without having to switch away from the application. This also gives you the ability to sort and filter files and even drag them directly into your document from the Mini Bridge window.

Adobe has beefed up yet another feature. CS4 kicked in the ability to generate a PDF or Web gallery of individual files. Now CS5 lets you save your PDF or Web Gallery settings so that you can apply them to future projects.

The company has also hit the mobile market with a bang this year.

iPhone (News - Alert) and iPad users will find an array of Adobe apps in the App Store. The free Adobe Photoshop Express is a mobile version of its larger desktop cousin, offering you basic editing features for your photos. You can crop and straighten your images, change the contrast and exposure, apply various filters and special effects, and set up different borders. For $9.99, you can download Adobe CreatePDF, which lets you convert any Adobe file or Microsoft Office file into a PDF. And Adobe now offers a free version of its Reader software for Apple (News - Alert) mobile device users.

That’s a look at some of the general changes in Creative Suite and in the world of Adobe. Check out Part 2 of this series for glimpses into the latest versions of Dreamweaver, Flash, and Fireworks.