You know good things are brewing for the weekend, when you start your Friday off with the news that Creative Suite 5 from Adobe has begun to ship to customers today. Now that we’ve got our Flash soap opera commentary out of the way, let’s focus on the fun stuff! (Round 2 can’t be far off; Microsoft came out today on the side of Apple (standards) but we all know MS’ track-record when it comes to early adoption of standards. Yikes!)
Below I’ve listed a few of the new features -as someone who works a lot in the realm of photography, video and motion graphics- that I will use most often, and why. Later today I hope to have a couple new tutorials up for you to check as well. Thanks for dropping by!
Photoshop CS5:
There are a couple features (as a photography lover) that really stand apart for me. First is the new HDR Pro function, and the second is the new Mixer Brush with Bristle Tips. Oh and that “little detail” of using as much RAM as I can throw at Photoshop because it’s now 64-bit on the Mac (though some filters and many plugins are still 32-bit for now).
HDR Pro: Prior versions of photoshop did allow for some tone-mapping and processing of high-bit images, but if you wanted to do real multi-shot HDR in Photoshop you had to use a 3rd party plugin to get results. HDR Pro in CS5 provides a large array of tone-mapping features that allow you to precisely control contrast regions, glow effects, and highlight / shadow details, as well as overall color balance. The de-ghosting feature is also extremely helpful. Every landscape shot I have that has water in it, uses this feature to good effect. Also helps with trees / leaves blowing.
Mixer Brush / Bristle Tips: Another fantastic feature for photographers is the new Mixer Brush with Bristle Tips. I am not a painter and I never will be a painter in the formal sense of the word. Some people just have that in them, and some don’t, but the Mixer Brush makes it so easy to convert a decent photograph into a really interesting photo-illustration that I will be using this tool all the time. You’ll be glad you kept a lot of your “almost” compositions — ones you perhaps would not be able to sell, but liked nonetheless. Photo-illustration is a great way to give those types of photos new life, and maybe even to the point where you can sell them at agencies like Shutterstock.
The Mixer Brush almost makes me feel like a painter, without having to pay for the college level courses (and years of dues to actually feel like I know what I’m doing). I can work with the colors and texture of my images in an way that allows for intuitive paths and creative experimentation, rather than following a rigid workflow or formula. That and the UI is about 10x more intuitive than anything I’ve seen from Corel. Digital Painting Gurus John Derry and Tim Shelbourne have recently provided some insights into just how cool this feature is for those more versed in formal painting (and Corel Painter) technique.
(Be warned: you’ll want some beefy hardware to get the most from CS5 apps, but that investment will be worth it too. If you’re in the market for a new Mac Pro and can wait a few weeks, I would. In fact, I am!)
After Effects CS5:
64 Bit: Since most of my time in AE is spent styling up DVD menus, creating motion graphics effects for title sequences and other intro / outro media, probably the biggest improvements for my workflow is that fact that AE is now a true 64 bit app on Mac, and allows for true multi-core performance in many areas. If you’re a big fan of plugins like Trapcode Particular 2, don’t worry; Red Giant is on the case. All of their core plugins will be moving to 64-bit and an affordable upgrade path will be available.
Speed makes all the difference when test rendering and working in AE, especially since I have a 2008 generation Mac Pro. Now if Apple would release those new Mac Pros with 12 RAM slots, we’re on target.
DigiEffects Freeform: For those not aware, this plugin lets you take 2D shapes and warp them into 3D shapes, which can then be manipulated in ways that simulate true 3D. This is a pretty cool thing for FX and motion graphics pros because it used to be a pay-for-it plugin in the 3rd party space and we’re now getting it as part of AE.
RotoBrush: If you’re stuck with roto work, you will definitely appreciate the new RotoBrush. John Dickinson has a nice overview you can look at here.
Illustrator CS5:
Perspective Drawing: As a non-illustrator by trade who likes to occasionally set up bits and pieces of a scene in Illustrator and then move them to AE or other apps like C4D, the ability to draw structures in correct perspective with these automated guides and tools is really helpful. Not to mention it’s just fun and feels like it’s opening up a new area of illustration and drawing not previously accessible to me .
Bristle Tips: Yep… they’re in Illustrator too, not just Photoshop. Realistic brush strokes and styling FTW.
Draw Behind / Draw Inside: This was the kind of stuff that always used to drive me nuts when trying to use AI (as someone who didn’t have formal training as a drafter or illustrator. It’s these type of little details that make Illustrator more accessible for everyone IMO.
Premiere Pro CS5:
If you went to the Adobe booth at NAB, you already know the answers to this one. Improved AVC support, GPU-acclerated editing and rendering while you work, and I can attest first-hand, overall a FAR more stable and speedy product than the CS4 variant when it was originally released.
The Premiere Pro team made a decision to buckle down and really tackle the most common user comments and requests: reducing the buggyness, greatly increase overall speed and performance of common workflows, and new workflows like AVCHD.
Adobe nailed it. I think every app in the Adobe arsenal would benefit from having one cycle like this Premiere cycle, maybe every third or fourth release, to really hammer on performance and reliability across a variety of hardware configurations.
Bottom Line: Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 is the single best upgrade I’ve used since they started bundling everything as the suite, and for apps like Photoshop, the best upgrade I’ve seen in a decade or more. You are doing yourself a disservice if you do not upgrade or at least closely investigate the new features of your favorite apps, because most likely you’re going to be costing yourself time and in some cases output quality vs. older versions. Get it.
There is so much cool stuff in CS5 that not being able to share the new capabilities with creative professionals and others like myself, was a test of willpower this cycle. Let me give you a few of the highlights from the new 
