I couldn’t be happier in saying that Photoshop CS5 has been announced, along with the entire Creative Suite 5 family of products!
Check out what’s new in Photoshop (images & quick videos) as well as the 3D functionality added to Photoshop Extended. I’m especially happy to say that Photoshop is now a fully native 64-bit application for both Mac and Windows (as are After Effects and Premiere Pro), letting you tap into all your computer’s memory.
Man, where to begin… I already have two dozen blog posts in draft form (!), running the gamut from big new stuff to the many, many little tweaks we’ve made that I think you’ll really enjoy. I’ve started a CS5 category here that you can use to view all related info quickly; much more to come shortly.
In no particular order, here are good resources you might want to check out:
- The NAPP Learning Center will likely be chock full of good content by the time you read this, as should the Photoshop Cafe CS5 Superguide.
- Computer Arts covers 40 new features across the Suite.
- My fellow PM Bryan O’Neil Hughes talks photography features (lens correction, Refine Edge, totally revamped HDR, Camera Raw 6.0, Mini Bridge, Content-Aware Fill, and more) with DP Review.
- Showing how CS5 makes painting accessible to photographers, Thomas Hawk writes, “I’ve been using Photoshop for many years now but this version has blown me away like none that I’ve ever seen.”
- The team at Lynda.com has posted 12 preview courses that span the range of CS5 apps.
- The TipSquirrel guys have a bunch of Photoshop overviews planned for the next couple of weeks.
I’ll keep adding good ones as they appear (suggestions most welcome via comments or email).
Congrats to the whole team, John 🙂
John. You should take a look at this UI, does not look especially good: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/features/include/media-management/modal.jpg
[Weird–I haven’t seen that behavior on my system. I wonder whether someone moved the menus around using Photoshop to try to make a better visual composition. –J.]
Congratulations for yet another fantastic release!
I can’t believe that even with yet another major rewrite for the Apple platform (After Os9>OsX, PPC>Intel, Codewarrior>Xcode… so much for the Apple/Adobe war, this is commitment for a platform!), there are still JDIs, killer features, and faster performance around!
We are also tracking the CS5 announcements/reviews and features on http://www.photoshoptechniques.com.
whoops, forgot to hyperlink!
http://www.photoshoptechniques.com
I’ve read lots about new features in CS5 this morning. Wish I’d seen a single sentence about increased stability.
Congratulations on the announcement. It looks like a solid release.
So far, I haven’t found a mention of new developer features: changes to the scripting interface and easier of plugin development (PixelBender?). If I interpreted some of the prerelease comments correctly, both were in the works. Could you shed some light on this?
[I’ll work on sharing more info soon. We have a new Eclipse-based IDE (Extension Builder) for creating scripts and panels, and Suite extensibility is now based on AIR (meaning it features WebKit, etc.). –J.]
Adobe has a very awful engine for import FreeHand files.
They bought the Application, but they do not know to use the technology inside FreeHand.
And there are zillions of FreeHand files all over the world. Now we have to start from zero for nearly 90% of the files made in FreeHand.
Think for one momente that some company buys Photoshop and that new app can not open Phososhop files.
This is a complete chaos. Thanks for all, Adobe.
In spanish:
Illustrator CS4 no abre correctamente el 90% de los archivos de FreeHand. Muchas gracias Adobe. Tendremos que realizar miles y miles de documentos desde cero. Productividad ejemplar. Sí, señor.
Isn’t this post early? The event is in like 3hrs?!
I’m especially happy to say that Photoshop is now a fully native 64-bit application for both Mac and Windows (as are After Effects and Premiere Pro)
So… what about the rest of the Creative Suite Mac apps, then? At the least, is Carbon completely gone?
[No & no. It’s important to ask yourself what you think the removal of Carbon will yield. Note that the Cocoa-based Finder in Snow Leopard is almost indistinguishable from the Cocoa-based version in Leopard and earlier. It’s *much* better to ask for specific things you want to see (e.g. better performance, UI changes, etc.) than to try to prescribe the implementation path. –J.]
I’d like the requirements page to be clearer about which Macs are supported and which are not. In particular, is the Mini with Core 2 duo and GMA 950 supported? What does “qualified” mean?
Why would you *require* OpenGL instead of falling back to using the CPUs? Is this related to Adobe once again rolling their own annoying widgets instead of using Apple’s standard ones?
[If you actually survey Apple apps (as I have), idea of Apple “standard” widgets is kind of a stretch. I may or may not get into sharing the details, as there’s more to life than talking about Apple. Anyway, no, OpenGL requirements have nothing to do with custom widgets, and the apps do fall back to using software in many cases. In other cases it’s a matter of bang for the buck: do you want us optimizing to take advantage of current graphics hardware, or do you want us doing a bunch of additional effort for a shrinking set of systems? That is, do you want us to build for the future or for the past? –J.]
Several bizarre thing in menus of CS4:
http://www.macuarium.com/foro/index.php?showtopic=317332&view=findpost&p=1052447828
John,
Any idea why the upgrade price ex local taxes for CS5 Master Collection download is 40% higher in Australia than the US?
Same software, same download location, same support (via India)??? What gives?
I can’t believe you’ve did it again, Adobe:
US: CS5 Design Standard $ 1299,-
Germany: CS5 Design Standard € 1699,-
Have you looked at the exchange rates for dollars and euros lately? The €1699,- translate to $2,306.85!!!!! You are chargeing me almost double just because I live in Europe!
Weren’t you supposed to be the “more ethical” company?
You know what? Fuck it! I’m done with you. I held out with CS3 and skipped CS4 because of this and now you’re doing it again.
Same here. Resistant bugs in CS3 (since years!), inexplicableratings for Europe/Germany – I will stay on CS3 too.
No need for another expensive major upgrade, packed with a lot of old and new bugs.
[Given that the software isn’t even shipping yet, I’m quite impressed that you’ve found so many bugs. –J.]
Hey when is CS5 shippin’
I looked through the “What’s New” link you posted — but what about Adjustment Layers? Do we now have the option to use the single Adjustment Panel OR launch a Hue and Saturation modal box that can be moved here and there? (Your Curves extension for this is still a huge time-saver, but it’s only for Curves.)
[No, there’s no option in the box to revert to old-school behavior. We have, however, made a number of improvements to the behavior of the Adjustments panel, such that you shouldn’t have a reason to miss the dialog. As for the panel I made, you can use Configurator to add equivalent buttons for launching whatever dialogs you’d like. Give me a shout if you get stuck. –J.]
well john nack cares a shit about you or me.. he only cares about his own bank acount.
[And a pleasant good morning to you as well. –J.]
so don´t waste your time here with these raubritter.
[Thanks for teaching me a new word. –J.]
adobe has never and will never change. it is a fucked up company if you ask me.
Hey John,
any idea if Illustrator CS5 will finally stop telling us “not enough RAM” when trying to export a few simple vectors????
🙂
Flash CS5 is DOA (Dead on Arrival).
[How so? Did you look at the feature set? Or do you perhaps like to view the world in simple, zero-sum terms, where good-hearted champions of openness & taste stick it to the sniveling adherents of Yesterday’s Technology Today? –J.]
Congrats to the entire team, John! It’s been a wild ride to this point, and I’m excited to finally have a chance to open my mouth publicly about the awesomeness.
To the folks who are taking this moment to piss on everything, I truly am sorry for your experiences. In 15 years of dealing with Adobe (including writing a book and beta testing), I’ve never come close to the frustration you feel.
If you have specific complaints about software, contact support, the wish list, or find the product manager and write them directly. If you have general complaints about the company at large, buy stock or spend your money elsewhere. That’s not so difficult, is it?
Congrats John,
I can’t imagine the amount of work that goes into a single release and although I may not use everything I can appreciate it all the same.
Also, for whatever it is worth, thank you for your openness. This blog, twitter, visits to the Deke lounge have all been great highways of information.
So I hope you are able to kick your shoes off and enjoy it for a bit before you get back to it.
[Thanks, Ryan! –J.]
sure you must have a very low IQ to not feel pissed when you have to pay double the price as we in europe have to… or maybe you are simply payed by adobe.
otherwise your brabbling make no sense….
Congratulations to everyone at Adobe on getting CS5 ready to rock and roll. It’ll be great to finally have 64-bit support on the Mac, and I can’t wait to get my hands on some of the new features.
Selections come immediately to mind—I thought the Quick Selection Tool was pretty cool stuff when it was added, but the new selection tools look absolutely amazing.
And if lens corrections work well, it may finally be enough (combined with the new ACR engine) to tear me away from Canon DPP.
Klaas – no need for personal insults. John is not in charge of pricing, and I have a degree in physics. So it would seem that your assumptions and anger are completely out of place. All I said was that I don’t share your experiences so I can’t feel your frustration, and I offered a possible solution.
You sound like a person who would rather be bitter than try to find a solution. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a shill, paid by someone, or otherwise blind. You just like being angry.
i care a shit about your degree. do you have some problesm with low self esteem that you have to mention your degree in physics and your book?
i know a few doctors who are dumb as a nut outside their small working field…
not to mention that they are socialy retarded.
adobe is robbing it´s european customers… and the EU should have an eye on adobe… as it has on microsoft in the past.
Just finished watching the launch for CS5, also had quick peek on terry whites podcast of some the new features..
I have to say I am very impressed with the new additions. I dont use Indesign perhaps as much as I should,but now i think i will change all that. Illustrators perspective tool is a winner too. Loving the whole “no need to write code” idea..Flash catalyst is a welcome member to CS5..gives us all tools we need and leaves it down to ideas we have etc.
One thing im growing tired of is all the idiots that come out to spread their negative,silly comments.. the Live launch sidebar had alot of village idiots posting drivvle. Also these days the internet has become a place not just to be heard but also vent off ..eg. numbnut euro nerd Klass lol;) he has a point with the pricing and exchange rate.. but expresses himself like a little girl.
Anyway congrats to adobe and long live the creative suite;O) things are heading in an exciting direction.
Congrats on the release, John!
Amusingly, it seems the complainers haven’t taken a day off to sit back and check out the new stuff…but I hope you guys’ll ignore it all until we’ve had a chance to see what the new line can do.
I just want to echo the sentiments of others, that I’m extremely impressed with how you guys have pulled together some game-changing new “eye-popping” features, while still doing some serious work under the hood (native 64-bit, new rendering engine, native php in Dw, Flash 10.1, etc). It’s like you guys rewrote your apps from the ground up…and then went way beyond all in one cycle (ok, some stuff has been in development longer, but still)
And I love how you handled Apple today, too, with class and tact. Just let them know how many others are embracing the open screen initiative, and how serious content providers are going with Flash…and putting the ball in Apple’s court. Honestly, that team is too good to Apple, spending the time to make an iPhone App exporter (I understand, your bottom line suffers too without Apple, but *they* could offer an olive branch every once in a while..)
Most satisfying feature to me? Repoussé. I didn’t know that was coming, and I love you for it. I grow tired of telling folks that even though Photoshop now manipulates 3D, they still have to go to Illustrator just to extrude text. Thanks a ton for that little feature add!!!
Congrats to you and your team!
One copy of Ps CS5 (for Mac) has been pre-ordered. Just counting down the days for that brown truck to arrive! 🙂
Maybe I completely missed it but I didn’t see a release date. Any idea when it’ll actually ship?
Mid-May is what Adobe’s stating on their site and in the Adobe Store, but people preordering downloads are apparently being told April 29th.
Congrats on the release, it looks like there’s a lot of impressive features being rolled out in this one.
I’m a little more interested in the not-so-impressive ones though. I’ve looked through the website, but haven’t been able to find any information about any text updates in Photoshop. Any idea if there’s character / paragraph styles?
[Sorry, Jesse, I’m afraid not. I don’t know whether this makes it better or worse, but we had to cut character & paragraph styles from CS5 at the 11th hour. I know they’re something people (esp. Web designers) really want, and making the decision to hold off support until a later release was a real bummer. I think everyone would agree, however, that it’s preferable to do fewer things better than to ship buggy stuff that’s not ready for prime time. –J.]
Well, you insult my IQ so I provide proof to the contrary. You implied I am paid by Adobe, which I stated is incorrect. I pointed out you are angry and frustrated and admitted I had different experiences, and expressed my sympathy.
You also apparently cared enough to go look at my profile, and I have an email address, yet you hide behind anonymity.
I think readers of this blog will recognize who is to be listened to and who is to be ignored. Care to guess which group you fall in to? Care to take this up personally in a more appropriate forum?
Klaas, what this really comes down to is you are someone who loves to feel superiour and bitch and moan, and the only way you can do that is to insult others. I’m not trying to change your mind, but I would ask that you behave in a respectful, professional way. Otherwise, you are not worth reading and you’ll get exactly nothing from your childish rants.
Hi. Congratulations on CS5. It looks pretty impressive.
I have Prod Premium CS3 and am wondering: does it make sense or is it possible to upgrade to CS4 now to save the $200 price bump for CS2/CS3-to-CS5 upgrades? Thanks.
Sorry John that you have to deal with so much negativity. Don’t let it get you down. I for one am super excited about what CS5 has to offer, everything looks great. Awesome job, and props to all the Adobe people that made this happen. I am super bummed I got left out of the beta this time, but what can you do.
When will Adobe fix the BASIC features that suck and have been broken for the last 15 years? Illustrator’s gradient panel is the one that stands out to me. Try picking a color on that thing. Are the product managers all on crack over there?
Douglas, watch this blog, as there are often requests for suggestions or improvements coming straight from the developping teams. Also, you can find some feature requests forms on the Adobe site. Please contact the PMs and state politely then enhancements that you wish, rather than complain…
I’ve been reading up on the CS5 news for some hours, and it all sounds great! I’m certainly upgrading my Design Premium! So all I can say is: “When are the trial versions avaialble??” I’ve seen no info about that yet.
[Trial versions should be available when the products ship. As far as I know the only official word on that subject is “Within 30 days.” –J.]
CS5 looks awesome! Just curious why Acrobat wasn’t updated?
Acrobat is on its own release cycle. Can’t say anything more than that 🙂
John, as a beta tester for CS5 I am not only honored but very impressed by the entire Adobe organization and all of the people I have been in contact with. Thank you and I hope CS6 and 7 will be as much of a challenge. The new additions have begun the blur between reality and fiction.
Jens, remember the governments control the exchange rates- not adobe. Please show respect and criticism where and when due.
[I do personally control the weather, however. –J.]
I have been using the Adobe Creative Suite for 12 years now. Adobe is one of the slowest companies to innovate their products. I have rarely (if ever) in the past 12 years seen a new Adobe release and said to myself I HAVE to have the new version, it’s so much better.
They have millions of people that use their products everyday, and yet not one of them would tell you that they find Adobe an exciting company to watch and see how they improve their software. Because the truth is, they only make minor improvements. They think they can add on a couple Photoshop filters in 2 years, and wow the world with their new release. It’s pretty upsetting, because its 2010 and they can do so much more to innovate in this space.
I still use CS3, and it works OK. I just can’t believe its been two releases CS4, and now CS5 and I still don’t see any significant changes for me to want to upgrade.
When I view the what’s new tab for CS5 products, it seems more like maintenance changes. Something that I would except to see every 6 months from adobe.
Some of the ‘new features’ are existing features that have simply been retought to be easier. Come on, a little more focus on the core apps would be nice.
Thoroughly disappointed with this new release. It just doesn’t FEEL worth the upgrade.
Fact remains… Adobe is extorting it’s customer in most markets out side of the US.
I won’t make comments about bugs in CS4 (and believe I ran into plenty) but to think that I now need pay a premium simply because I don’t have an american credit card and address is ludicrous.
As I stated before: same software, same software download, same support (via India)… 40% premium in price. WTF?
I ordered my upgrade to Design Premium this morning. IF the content aware function is viable, that alone will justify the cost to me.
That said John, that your Marketing folks pushed the pricing in this current environment speaks volumes about management and their need to feed the beast (Mr. Market).
Well let’s see, it’s that time again to hit Adobe’s online stores and see how much piss they want to extract from their non-US customers…
First we have to watch 2 different types of progress bar and wait 10 seconds for the dog’s breakfast of technologies used in Adobe’s store to get themselves started up… then we discover that the proprietary scrollbar that’s appeared at the side of my browser window doesn’t support the scroll wheel… nice… it IS 2010, isn’t it? It IS possible to serve this stuff in about 0.05 seconds with PHP and MySQL, isn’t it? Anyway…
Exchange rate: £1 = $1.543 as of 12/4/2010
CS5 Design Standard US English price before tax: $1299
CS5 Design Standard UK English price before tax: $1591
so that’s a $300 (or 23%) price hike for the exact same product…
but wait! I know what you’re thinking; they’re not exactly the same, what about localisation costs? Those U’s won’t add themselves to the word ‘color’… so let’s look at Spanish:
CS5 Design Standard Spanish (US store) price before tax: $1299
CS5 Design Standard Spanish (UK store) price before tax: $2081
that’s $782 yes, $782! (or 60%) price hike for the exact same product…
I’m assuming Adobe isn’t going to tell me there’s some new mythical “European Spanish” that has to be catered for, right?
Hilariously, in the UK store if I compare the price for shipping a boxed copy to me, with the price of downloading it, Adobe actually want me to pay $55 MORE for the electronic delivery… that price change doesn’t show up in the US store… gotta love that shameless instinct to price gouge!
I remember this exact same issue blowing up when CS4 was released, and I also remember John promising to get someone from the department responsible to post an explanation (John’s just a product manager, you know?) but shockingly, that explanation never materialised.
I won’t hold my breath this time around.
All this might be a little more palatable if the Creative Suite components were well looked-after throughout their lifecycle, and received lots of timely bugfixes, but it’s worth pointing out that Illustrator CS4, for exanple, didn’t receive a single update throughout it’s life – not even so much as a point-oh-one maintenance release… strange, because I’m sure the guys over at Adobe Gripes could have identified one or two things that needed fixing.
@Jessica
So the new Content Aware Fill/ Delete (that one alone) is just a maintenance upgrade?
And check out the other new features of CS5.
Get your head out of the sand please.
adobe is a POS company…
never will i pay 50% more then the US customers for the same product… NEVER!!!
John,
Congratulations to the team. I think CS5 has one of the highest “wow factors” of any release. I echo Scott that it is great to be able to talk about it. I was delighted to have a chance to assist as one of the late-season beta testers invited via NAPP.
I find the content aware fill (and the similar function on the healing brush) mind blowing. To the folks out there watching Russell Brown’s video – that’s just the way it works. Hack a hole in your image, push the button, and zip — it’s filled in with everything it would take you all day to do with the clone brush. But I’m just an English major and what do I know of mathematics? Maybe it’s simpler than it looks.
And as the spring brings warmer weather, I suppose it is inevitable that a new release brings warmer words. I’m not surprised PS costs more in Europe. Have you ever tried to buy an egg salad sandwich and a bottle of water over there? It cost me $22, although I got the cellophane sandwich wrapper free. The only thing I found that was cheaper there than here was the beer – which I suppose is not all bad news.
Kudos.
I must come to the defense of Adobe here totally outside of my own feelings. The import and export of any, any product to a forign entity has very little to do with the companies involved. In a eastern country which I can not name MS signed a deal allowing them control of their product. Adobe did not and in this country you may buy Adobe very low. However they may not export it to the country next door which did sign an agreement– well this goes on and on into political overload so please let’s all take a breath and realize how little control we really have. Adobe is staying alive in a difficult market. Look at Apple? In Japan the iphone is extremely low in price, and on and on and on. Enough. Peace is what should be the conversation. Love the word. Alive tomorrow the dream. Together as one the religon.
PS CS5 looks interesting, but I’ll withhold judgment until I can work with a demo version. At this point, new features, while important, concern me less than changes in the user interface. In CS4, Adobe diddled the keyboard shortcuts, prompting such a backlash that a “restore old keyboard shortcuts” plug-in was released. Only after that plug-in was released did I upgrade to Photoshop CS4 extended. That experience still haunts me, so until I can evaluate a demo, my approach to CS5 amounts to curbing my enthusiasm.
[It’s really hard to make progress vis-a-vis things like shortcuts. Earlier in this comment thread, a guy links to site where someone is beating us up for longstanding inconsistencies in shortcuts for things like hiding the app. Make one group happy & awaken another’s ire. Anyway, I think you’ll like what we’ve done around shortcuts in CS5. –J.]
Doesn’t Britain have a value added tax of about 20% that shows as included in the price?
And in the US sales tax is maybe 5-9% and is added on at sale (does not show in the price).
Besides, I teach ESL (English) and localization for Britain could be a nightmare 🙂 this is of course a joke.
So it finally got released and all that… now why do I need to wait another 3 weeks to be able to download it? I could understand if I was buying it in a box… but I’m not…
[But it *hasn’t* been released yet, just announced. We GM’d Photoshop only on Thursday, and after that the Suite installers need time to bake, the boxes and discs need to get printed, etc. As far as I know you’ll be able to download the trial version just as soon as the app is shipping–though I suppose I should confirm that. –J.]
System requirements state Intel processors only?? What a bunch of bullshit. My current Mac is less than 4 years old. Now I have to spend $3000 for a new machine just to run these? Thanks for nothing Adobe.
[Hey, at least that new machine will run Snow Leopard. (Sorry to be flippant, but we’re following Apple’s lead, and we did announce this last summer.) You can either build for the future or build for the past; it’s hard to do both at once. –J.]
Hi Jack,
Thanks for that. My main concern is, that as someone who has to provide this for myself out of my own pocket, that it will have some longevity for running on future releases of the Mac OS – and that Carbon is surely for the chop sometime in the next couple of years.
cheers
True enough, and I’ve asked Apple folks to be clearer about that. Just say, “Look, X years from now this stuff is simply dead to us. You can convert today, or you can wait until the 11th hour, but here’s the unambiguous plan.” Surprises aren’t good for developers or our mutual customers. Honestly, though, I don’t get the sense that they have a clear plan on the subject, being focused elsewhere right now. –J.]
Eh, I’m mildly disappointed but I can wait. Just as a sidenote, you may want to make sure the pre-order confirmation email doesn’t say “You purchased a download version of our product. Follow the instructions below to start using it today”…
To those people asking… no, the price in Australia we are using to compare are ex sales tax … same as stated on Adobe US web site. Also, there is no import duty on software… that’s what the sales tax is for.
I can’t imagine that anyone who makes their living using Adobe software could possibly object to the content or the price of this release. Compare the cost of the CS5 upgrade to any other business expense-rent, hardware, a year of broadband. To pay less than $1000 CDN every 18 months to keep your core software suite current seems like a good deal to me.
I have always looked forward to each new version of the Creative Suites and value the time and effort required to bring them to market.
I can’t imagine that anyone who makes their living using Adobe software could possibly object to the content or the price of this release.
Some of us actually do need it for work, but can’t recover the cost directly (and as a Mac and CS user, I’m doubly on the hook in my own particular case). YMMV.
If you are editing a film shot with the RED camera, you’d be crazy to use anything other than CS5. Straight from the camera to the timeline – no rendering required to preview – incredibly fast load and export. We are beta testing with our feature film, DELIVERED. Shot on RED. Trailer at: http://www.facebook.com/DeliveredMovie?v=app_4949752878 Great job Adobe!
[Super cool, Linda; thanks for the info. –J.]
I have a question about an issue that we covered today in talking about our CS5 upgrade strategy. We have a number of PowerPC Macs using CS3. They would have CS4 by this point, but because of budget cuts in the recession we held off. On top of that, even as budgets recover it could be some time before we replace our PowerPC Macs. Is there a chance that CS4 will continue to be on sale for the PowerPC crowd?
[I’m afraid I haven’t heard any plans along those lines. I can’t definitively rule it out, and I can ask around for info, but as far as I know it’s not planned. –J.]
Many service bureaus and large installations can’t upgrade all their machines at once. And the G5 Macs are still quite useful. Because of the Intel transition, has Adobe considered maintaining the CS4 upgrade for a while longer than they might normally do otherwise?
Me? I’m not waiting for work to upgrade me. As soon as I get my $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit in a few months, I’m upgrading CS5 for me! Escrow comes first right now. (Drat.)
In my opinion, Photoshop CS4 should have been Intel only. CS3 is much smoother on G5 machines than CS4.
I’m not impressed – especially not by the upgrade options. Adobe forces me to upgrade if I want to switch the OS for my CS3 Production Premium. Last week this was 600$ as I had to update to CS4 this week it’s 800$ as it’s now CS5. Thanks for the support.
I was hoping for some news on scripting and panels.
Will Extension Builder be free? It looks like it may be a specialized version of Flash Builder, geared towards making… extensions for CS5.
Almost everything about PS CS5 released today had already been ‘leaked’. I’m ready for some info on less flashy stuff 🙂
[I do personally control the weather, however. –J.]
Cheers, John – was a corker of a Sunday here in Sydney taking a talk along Manly Beach 🙂
Agonising wait for the 29th (which is when my order is meant to ship). I want to play now!
[Heh–so glad to hear it, Matthew. Thanks for your support. (And thanks to everyone who has expressed similar sentiments; sorry that I can’t respond to each post individually.) –J.]
System requirements states Windows XP SP3 but no words about 32 bit or 64.
It would be quite a hassle installing everything again especially if one don’t need 64 bit.
I know about the benefits of 64 bit – but if you have a fast quad core and you only work with standard and low resolution pictures you simply don’t need 64 bit. Not to mention if you use programs which require or work with less crashes in 32 bit.
The same with windows xp SP3. I hope a workaround will appear for installing Photoshop CS5 in SP2.
George – both the Win and the Mac version give you both 32 and 64 bit versions, so you can choose how you want to run.
With XP SP3 x86 (32 bit) it will just install the 32 bit version. If you had XP x64 (64 bit) it would default to installing both (you can only run one at a time).
I don’t know about running in SP2.
Does this mean that this time around I can skip installing PS CS5 32-bit on Windows and install only the 64-bit version?
Also, a thought on Acrobat 9: will we get the current updated version in the CS5 installer, or the old plain 9.0?
Alex, it’s Adobe that controls the prices of their apps, not the goverment. Are you telling me that Adobe set the price for CS5 in December 2002? Because that was the last time that 1 USD was worth more than 1 EUR.
Even back then I would have considered a markup of $400 to be excessive. Now it’s just outrageous.
You can elect to just install the 64 bit version for Windows, but some plugins (3rd party etc) still don’t offer 64 bit so unless you’re really struggling for disk space, installing both is worthwhile.
I should add that the installation time is waaaaay LESS than CS4 – it’s really snappy so you won’t be too worried about installing 32 and 64 bit from that point of view.
Good news (especially the faster installer), thank you for answering
Adobe’s foreign offices set the local prices, based on export taxes, licensing US software to foreign countries, local excise taxes and local market demand.
I realize it doesn’t sound fair, and in many ways it isn’t. But Adobe’s not the only company to do this, and it is only one example of the market disparity around the globe. There’s a lot more wrapped up in the pricing structure than simple currency conversion.
Jessica – not sure it’s fair to characterize the changes as too slow, or not innovative. But it does come down to your individual use. Upgrades are not for everyone, so if you don’t see anything you like, don’t pay. But you have spent several lines saying you don’t see any increased value, and yet I haven’t seen any suggestions from you…
As a retoucher and compositor, I can tell you the 3D and content-aware tools are game-changers for me. What kind of work do you do that there’s nothing new for you? What improvements do you want to see?
head over to photoshoptechniques.com and air your concerns – there are a few folks there who get Adobe’s ear and you just might have the next killer feature.
One more comment on the non-US pricing… as mentioned above, the pricing is not set by Adobe directly here in the US. The local offices set the prices based on a number of factors, not just VAT or currency conversion. Included in the price are local overhead, market demand, export licensing, etc. The export costs can be staggering in some cases, because of the legal obligations involved. Add to that a lower percentage of sales in a given region, so the cost is driven up in what appears to be disproportionate amounts.
Not every company faces the same cross-section of costs, and some compensate by offering different licenses or versions (or just exploiting some legal loopholes). Still others simply refuse to play ball where the price would be higher than people are willing to pay.
Put away your little currency calculators and pencils – it’s a complex structure, and it sucks. But it’s not malicious, and certainly not arrogant. It’s business. Put it in context of other costs, your tax-to-income ratio, local living expenses, government control, etc.
Scott, please name some other major software/hardware companies who put up a markup of almost 80% (before taxes) onto their products in foreign markets. Apple doesn’t, Microsoft doesn’t, Dell doesn’t, I doubt anybody does this to this extent.
Look, I realize that localisation cost and the cost of operating in a different market have to be added to the retail price of a product. Nobody debates that. But 80% markup is simply insane. It’s completely unjustified and for a company that is taking the moral high ground these days (right, John Dowdell?) it’s a particulary poor showing.
The final irony is that Adobe sells Lightroom for a reasonable €249 (without taxes) in Germany ($299 in the US). So don’t give me that BS of “market disparity” and “local excise taxes”. They simply do it because they can.
Sheesh … are you a shareholder or something?
Seriously Scott, you argument doesn’t hold water. Nothing you wrote here explains or justifies an 80% markup, especially not when Adobe sells Lightroom at a reasonable price (€249 before taxes) that is comparable to its US price ($299). So you see, it can be done.
And why is a fair price possible with Lightroom but not with CS5? Easy. Unlike the Creative Suite, Lightroom has a direct competitor in Apple’s Aperture. Whoops!
Jessica, looking at the What’s New list will often not be satisfactory. View them as the lowest common denominator of marketable features because all of the heterogenous users have to find their morcel in the marketing materials. Each individual user will definitely find many more favorite new features once they start using the software.
John has been pretty good in the past at pointing out the smaller enhancements that really make your day.
Have you ever tried going back two or even just one product version? I’m always amazed at how much I’m missing and how much more time I need to get the same things done. So, there’s progress but we’re not always aware of its full extent.
Congratulation’s on creating the worlds worst website! If this is the standard of things to come when using the latest and greatest design tools we should ask Tim to switch off the internet to save us all.
This should be a show case of great design and functionality. The phase “all the gear and no idea” Springs to mind.
As for the software I’ll reserve judgement until I can get my hands on it. It can’t be as bad as CS4. Although the terrible UI seems to remain.
[What terrible UI, specifically? –J.]
Congratulations to the Photoshop team! Photoshop CS5 looks amazing! The designer in me can’t wait to try it out. The journalist in me — I work for a newspaper wire service — fears how the unscrupulous will abuse its powers. That’s not on you or the Photoshop team — your job is create the best product possible, which on first glance PSCS5 looks to be — it’s up to us users to be mindful of our ethical boundaries. I can’t imagine what you all could possibly do to top this (but I felt the same about Photoshop 7 *smile*). I hope my company will upgrade us from CS3; I can’t to see this on my Mac Pro. Congratulations, once again!
Try not to get so smug, Jens. You are presuming a lot by anecdotal evidence. Everything I said was accurate and based on information I’ve gotten from Adobe as a user group manager when I have been faced with similar questions in the past.
In short, I’m relaying information that was provided to me. One must presume there is at least some truth in it.
You also have to reconsider your comprehension of “fair”. If there is no competitor, a business will do what it can to make money. That’s not difficult to understand. You’ll note I explicitly said it sucks, and that it’s business.
Since you clearly know, please let me know what the euro/dollar conversion is in terms of cost of living and typical income for your local market segment? What are the export controls on Photoshop versus Lightroom? Is your local Adobe business office actually in your tax-base, or is there another export control that stacks things up?
So my ‘argument’ does indeed hold water. I explained where the pricing generally comes from and why it’s so different across the board. I didn’t attempt to explain any specific discrepancy, much less justify any decisions made by Adobe.
But here’s the short answer: vote with your dollars. If you can do your job with other tools, please do. If you can’t, and you need CS, adjust your business to cover the charges.
This will always be an emotional discussion because people ‘feel’ they are not being treated properly, and that may be totally true. The fact is that regardless of the actual reason, justified or not, people will piss and moan. But John doesn’t set the price, Adobe US doesn’t set the price, and local markets DO INDEED PLAY INTO IT. It’s not a conversion, it’s not a simple tax. You want specifics, write to Adobe HQ in your region and demand disclosure.
FWIW, I don’t buy products that I feel are inappropriately priced – I look for a competitor. If there is none, I adjust my prices. I have yet to encounter a problem with this strategy – ymmv.
Not to be pointed, but you neglected to answer Frank’s primary question: what does “qualified” mean with regards to graphics cards? I cannot find any details on Adobe’s web site. I run a Lab that has Design Premium installed on all stations and we need to know whether we can install CS5 based on the assortment of hardware we have. It seems odd that Adobe would come up with very specific terminology and then not define it.
[I didn’t answer because I don’t know offhand, esp. as the answer concerns multiple apps across the Suite. I’m looking for more details. –J.]
John’s note is encouraging. Nevertheless, I’m still concerned. I’m an outlier in the Photoshop world. I’ve been using the application since version 2.5, but as a single practitioner, not as a member of a workgroup. My habits are established, and I’m no more interested in gaining a second or two by learning new shortcuts than I am in typing a couple of words a minute faster by learning the Dvorak keyboard.
But Adobe isn’t developing Photoshop or the rest of the Creative Suite for me. It’s developing for, and selling to, the corporate world and big workgroups, the places where the big money is found. And in that environment, it helps if the salesman can say, “CS90 has new keyboard shortcuts and workflow paradigms that increase productivity by 3.7 percent, according to the independent testing lab that evaluated the changes. That adds up to a lot of money in an organization as big as yours. And we’ve implemented the changes in a way that cannot be reversed. Will some people resist? Of course. But, most will get over it. And you can fire the rest.”
That reasoning, or something similar to it, is what I suspect led to the keyboard changes in CS4. Otherwise, the application(s) could have been designed to let users choose any keyboard shortcuts they wanted, and/or the old shortcuts could have been offered as an alternative workspace. The problem is not that the new shortcuts were offered, but that certain people at Adobe were, and I fear still are, hellbent on forcing people to adopt the new shortcuts.
I’m with michael Foster on this one. On the UI. And I always welcomed change in Photoshop. From version 7 and up I liked all the updates in UI – like the dock-able palettes, the possibility to make the main palette longer vertically. All great choices. The possibility to zoom with the middle mouse wheel, and many more.
But from the Photoshop CS4 and up, if my company purchase those, I use only the special and new features – like content aware scaling and such. For all other purposes I use CS3. That’s too bad – because with a few more options and customizations – that could have been avoided – for me and many others.
[What specifically is keeping you from using CS4 full time? –J.]
Thank GOD Photoshop still has compatibility PSD saving – unlike other programs.
michael,
you are right. Adobe can charge what ever they want… and yes they can tell their customer to suck it up and shut up.
I guess for that reason alone Adobe should drink some of it’s cool aid: suck it and shut up about Apple keeping you out of the party. It’s their party not yours.
The day Adobe stops being so double standard they can get back on their high horse. Until then shut up and suck it up.
As for upgrade pricing… I am seriously thinking about going back to just running pirated copies or buy grey imports… let’s those suckers from regional Adobe offices “starve to death”. If there even is a regional office here in Australia… every time I call Adobe they only seem to be employing Indians who barely speak English. Money well spend guys… money well spend.
people don’t complain about the cost. they complain about the difference in cost.
despite what the media is telling people the Australian economy hasn’t been all paved with gold. Unless you are working in the resources sector things actually look pretty bad. For most people I know in the industry it’s the fat years in the past and their savings that allowed them to survive through 2009. So yeah, every dollar counts these days. BTW, most of the software package upgrades in the past year I got at a discounted rate because the vendors understood what was going on in the economy. Not so the regional Adobe subs it seems.
For all I care close Adobe Australia down. I have never managed to either see or actually speak to a single Adobe Australia employee in person. For all I know only have a letter box company running in some office building.
The main difference, tom, is that Apple appears to be preventing competition based on the notion that they want a ‘perfect’ user experience, which only they control. The argument includes Apple being able to perform platform upgrades without breaking anything, and presumably having a Flash authoring platform doesn’t let them get there.
Right.
Adobe on the other hand is simply setting prices for their product, like any business would do. They pay attention to markets, and charge what they think is a fair price based on who knows how many factors. There certainly could be corporate greed in there, which is to be expected. But if you look at Apple’s policy of charging 2-3 times the price of a comparable Windows machine… well, let’s just say there’s ongoing precedent, shall we?
Pot, meet kettle.
John, any news on the query on the GPU system requirements? Specifically, the phrase “with qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card”? For example, the current Mac Minis have a NVIDIA GeForce 9400M integrated chip using 256MB of system RAM, but is that “qualified”, i.e. will it run PS CS5?
The UI changes in CS4 are not so bad that they prevent you to get any work done. I’m just nitpicking, but why should I make an effort to tolerate something even mildly annoying when I can just continue to use CS3 ?
Drag and drop a picture and it opens maximized. You have to make an extra step and drag the pic to de-maximize it.
The new interface tries to help by snaping the pictures in tabs or other places most of the time I don’t want.
All this “helping” and guessing makes the interface slow with all kinds of weird flicker. I use a quad core with a new nvidia card. I tried all kinds of advices / or disabling enabling opengl and so.
And a few other stuff – not bugs – but mostly personal preferences. Not available in CS4 (and maybe CS5) but available in CS3.
The CS3 is super fast – and basically just acts normal.
Hello!
the fact that is running in native 64 bit is reason enough for me to buy it.
and the roto tool?
Its amazing
Really excited for this one.
John. I don’t know any other way of trying to contact you. I’ve been reading and digesting every post on this great site of yours for a long time. Since day one I think.
I made the full jump to CS4 Master on Feb. 7, 2010. And then the CS5 upgrade which I am drooling over was announced two months after. But I’m feeling a bit bummed as I bought it two months before the announcement I have to pay the full upgrade price of nearly $1000. That’s $500 a month for my commitment to the Master Suite. (Note that I love the products and use them personally. I don’t even make a living from them!) And I will upgrade to Lightroom 3 the minute it is out of course. Is there any way I can save on this? I tried phoning customer service and they would only give me free shipping. Which doesn’t help at all as I buy the download version anyhow. I’d love to hear back from you. Thanks.
I guess we still haven’t heard from Adobe on this one, although the system requirements pages now say 16-bit colour and 256 MB of VRAM. So if you bought your Mac in early 2009, you may very well be out of luck, as 128 MB was common on lower-priced models. Am I reading this right? If so, this is an absolute show stopper.
I’m in the same boat and I’m unhappy too. Bought CS4 January 20th and now have to pay 899.00 to upgrade. Seems a little impersonal to me.
Also, I believe that I read that the Adobe policy was to provide free upgrades for a period of time – which certainly should be within the few weeks between when I purchased CS4 and when CS5 was realsed? Is there someone at Adobe that can help an individual who wants to do things right (ie: not rip off the product and find the cheat access codes) since I just don’t have another 899.00 to spend after the initial 3,148.77 outlay of cash!
I’m really interested in CS5 (production premium) but the stated hardware requirements involve graphics cards costing thousands of dollars, and I’ll need a new CPU and motherboard as well. How poorly does CS5 work on other, less expensive hardware?
It depends on what features you use. If you depend on 3D and video compositing, you’ll really want one of the required video cards. The Quadro FX 3800 (Win) can be had for ~$800, so that’s probably the best value. If you don’t do work that doesn’t leverage the GPU, then the CPU and amount of RAM is probably your biggest win, especially if you’re running in 64bit.