Adobe has officially started shipping out Creative Suite 4. Enclosed in the web premium package, is none other than the brand new versions of its world-beating image editor, Photoshop CS4, llustrator CS4, InDesign CS4, Flash CS4, Dreamweaver CS4, After Effects CS4, Premiere Pro CS4 and Soundbooth CS4.
Some new features for Photoshop CS4 include a new technology that I am the most excited about. It is a content aware image-resizing tool, which allows users to pull and stretch images without distorting people or objects within it. Another cool new function is one that allows you to rotate the entire canvas so that you can quickly spin your image for detailed editing of specific regions. Photoshop CS4 is a heavy application, so Adobe has implemented an updated GPU graphics acceleration that will allow Photoshop to handle large images seamlessly. In a recent demo by Adobe's Photoshop expert John Nack, Photoshop CS4 was seen to effortlessly handle a large 2GB image, with the new applications zoom and crop functions vastly improved thanks to the GPU graphics acceleration.
Flash CS4 introduces a new timeline based editing model and compatibility with Creative Suite 4's new XFL format.
New features in InDesign CS4 include improved color and print support, as well as support for Flash documents.
The Creative Suite 4 will ship in six versions: Production Standard CS4, Production Premium CS4, Design Standard CS4, Design Premium CS4, Web Standard and Premium CS4, and the Creative Suite 4 Master Collection.
Recent buzz in the news regarding Creative Suite 4 is the controversy over the price difference in America from Europe. The Web premium is $1,699, which in Euro's is $2,808 in American dollars, leaving a price difference of over $1100! This means that UK users are being charged around a 70 percent premium, compared to US users. Adobe has responded to its critics by saying that the difference in the price was because of many factors, and particularly the "economies of scale of doing business in the US". I'm assuming in the upcoming months a lot of people in the UK will be on ebay.com instead of ebay.co.uk.
