Digital Arts UK

Adobe’s has released Creative Suite 5, which was announced to much fanfare a few weeks ago. Most of the tools -- from Photoshop to After Effects -- are available seperately, and it's available in a selection of bundles from the £1,032 plus VAT Adobe CS5 Design Standard with the key art-creation tools to the £2,309 everything-but-the-kitchen-sink CS5 Master Collection.

We'll be posting reviews of the final software soon, but here's out guide to what you'll find in Creative Suite based on some quality time spent with the betas -- including step-by-step guides to the main applications. It's expected to be on the shelves by the end of May, featuring revamped versions of its leading arts, design, video and animation tools – plus two new web-design applications, Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder.

The suite features new tools to improve your art (such as Photoshop CS5’s new 3D extrusion tool Repoussé, right), and mundane but useful productivity aids (such as InDesign’s Gap tool) that make using the suite that bit smoother.

Behind the scenes are some seriously ramped-up components – such as 64-bit After Effects and Premiere Pro to make animating and editing faster than ever – and at last a 64-bit Photoshop for Mac (Windows went 64-bit with CS4). In today’s time-sensitive workflows that means more than any amount of whizzy features. read more...