Everything you should know about CS5

It has been about a year and a half since Adobe’s release of CS4. And with the recent announcement of a “Launch Party“, there is buzz going around about whether or not Creative Suite 5 is going to be released either in April or October. Either way, the Talk to the T.A. Team has done some research for you, and gathered all of the interesting features that us, as designers, should look forward to. While this list doesn’t cover everything and every program, here is what we know:

Photoshop CS5

“White Rabbit”

- So maybe you have a photo with you and an ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend. It’s a great photo of you, you would love to use it again, but the task of removing your former ‘other’ involves faking what was behind them. There is now a feature in CS5, under the code name “White Rabbit”, which is essentially a content-aware-fill. When removing a section of a photo, this feature will fill in the gap with what it assumes would be there.

Better Edge Detection

- While Photoshop’s power has always been based upon its ability to select, when it came to edge detection it hasn’t always been the brightest bulb. Selecting hair, for instance, wasn’t the most intuitive task, and designers would either have to go through channels and levels, or use a third party tool altogether. CS5 is going to contain many improvements on how its engine detects edges.

3D Brush Tool

- Painting in Photoshop has never been my specialty, but this new feature may spark some motivation to improve. Similar to how Corel Painter currently works, the brush tool will now respond to both pressure and angle. The major difference is that the “paint” will also behave in a way that it does with an actual brush, understand the different brush strands and how they bend and spread when painting. .

“Just Do It”

- When the engineers at Adobe need to take a break, they tackle the suggestions made by users like us. They use these “Just Do It” days to step aside from the big issues, and listen to the users of Photoshop. There are three things that we know are coming to Photoshop because of this. The first one is a Sampling Ring, a tool that can be pulled up on-the-fly on order to select and compare colors without having to use the usual pallets. Another simple enhancement is the ability to straighten images with one click. You draw a reference line along the photos horizon, and then click ‘Straighten’. That’s it! Finally, they have added the ability to select multiple layers and change their opacity simultaneously. It may not be a major feature, but it definitely saves some time.

Dreamweaver CS5

Smart Paste

- With the upcoming rise of HTML5, and newer browsers beginning to provide support, Dreamweaver CS5 is going to include some ways of helping us implement some of these new features. The biggest one that I have seen is called “Smart Paste”, and it does some pretty cool things with illustrator. You can now use the vector graphics designed in Illustrator to create dynamic animations and charts. The kicker is that you can then bind information to these graphics, and Dreamweaver will write most of the heavy code for you. Most of this is done using the new Canvas element in HTML5.

Media Preview Window

- As designers, we need to keep up with the many different screen sizes that our websites will be viewed upon. This little feature allows you to preview your site on multiple size screens, while also previewing different stylesheets for their respective media.

Flash CS5

iPhone/iPod Development

- You will now be able to publish your Flash and Actionscript so that it will run as an iPhone application. This should help make the process easier for designers without Flex experience.

Physics

- Flash CS5 will also contain a 2D physics engine that will handle things like gravity and collision detection, eliminating the need for third-party plugins. You can view this in action towards the latter part of the video.

Fireworks CS5

Shear

- With the shear feature, individuals can add neat curves and designs to their photos. This enables them to easily add their own personal touches.

Custom Brushing

- Individuals wanting to add custom brushing to their photos will be elated to know that this is definitely possible. Those wanting to add custom brushing from Photoshop can also do this with minimal difficulty.

We Can’t Wait!

This list does not cover all of the new features, and we will definitely know more after the upcoming Launch Party. Either way, I can’t wait to see what Adobe has in store for the upcoming release of the Creative Suite 5.