Adobe Launches CS6 and The Creative Cloud

By Scott Fresener on Apr 22, 2012 with Comments 0

On Monday, April 23, at 10:00am PT (USA), Adobe launched Creative Suite 6 (CS6), the next versions of its popular software programs like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. They also rolled out the MUCH ANTICIPATED new Web-based subscription service, Creative Cloud.

The April 23 event, was hosted by Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, and was streamed over the Web on Adobe’s launch site. If you miss this event or read this article after the event the presentation will be/is available for replay at tv.adobe.com.

Naturally we watched the entire 1-1/2 hour event online which was full of surprises of new features, a view of things to come, and an obvious showing that Adobe is taking the Apple approach of keeping it simple (pricing) and giving an “all you can eat” approach. Bravo! Nice presentation. Most of the news versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Premiere Pro were demonstrated to the public for the first time with a lot of emphasis on the interactivity of the program across platforms and file sharing.

The one to watch is the Creative Cloud service which gets users all of the CS6 apps—Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, DreamWeaver, Premiere Pro and the rest—along with updates, starting at $49.99 per month for an individual user – including 20gb of online storage in the cloud. The service includes all of Adobe’s mobile apps, too, as well as online collaboration and project hosting capabilities. This one is huge – especially if you don’t already own any of these programs. For a simple monthly fee you get them all!

AND…. if you are a registered user of CS3 or higher they have a first year introductory offer of only $29.95 per month! More details here.

The fine print….we ordered a membership to the Creative Cloud and had to enter our Adobe account info to see if we qualified. We did! We then proceed to checkout. There is a comment that the product will not be available until May 7. But, this is a ONE YEAR contract. You can cancel in the first 30 days and get a full refund but after the 30 days if you cancel you will have to pay 50% of the contracted amount. They will authorize your credit card each month for the monthly service.

In addition to the product launches, Adobe “unveil new primary research on the impact of creativity on our culture and economy, and reveal new initiatives that encourage creativity in education.

Watch for more news on the new Adobe product updates as it becomes available. To the cloud!