Adobe CS6 Released, Creative Cloud to Come on May 11: What Will You Require to Run the New Software On Your Systems?

Adobe Systems Inc Monday announced the availability of the upgraded Adobe Creative Suite 6 (CS6) software, which was unveiled two weeks ago.

The CS6 product line include Photoshop, InDesign, lllustrator, Dreamweaver, Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, Flash Professional and other products as well as four suite versions -- Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium, Creative Suite 6 Design Standard, Creative Suite 6 Production Premium and Creative Suite 6 Master Collection.

The company has also confirmed the availability of Adobe Creative Cloud by May 11. It is a subscription-based offering by Adobe which will act as a hub for making, sharing and delivering creative work. Moreover, CS6 point product subscriptions will also be available from the same day.

Top new features of CS6

The new software will come with the new Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine in the Photoshop Extended, which will offer users editing with key tools such as Liquify and Puppet Warp.

Adobe Mercury Performance System in Illustrator CS6 Work will allow users to work with precision, speed and rock-solid stability on large.

Also, it would come with After Effects CS6, which has taken 64-bit performance to a new level with new Global Performance Cache. As it optimizes and stores the user's previews, hence beating deadlines instead of waiting for updates.

Meanwhile, the new and reengineered design tools in Photoshop Extended will help users create superior designs faster in Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended -- with consistent formatting of type styles, vector layers with strokes and gradients, custom strokes and dashed lines, and more.

Furthermore, linking content within or across Adobe InDesign documents is another impressive feature which will help the users experience the possibility of changing the parent text or an object, which will be applied to all linked children objects. Even changes to interactivity will be applied to the linked content.

Also, efficient, fluid video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro will be there, to offer powerful, flexible nonlinear editing of any type of media in native formats, from video shot on a phone to 5K and beyond.

The users will be able to transfer large files with blazing speed using a specifically engineered, multithreaded File Transfer Protocol in Adobe Dreamweaver.

The users will be able to export symbols and animation sequences from Adobe Flash Professional to instantly generate CSS sprite sheets that would improve their workflow and performance.

Faster, more precise audio editing in Adobe Audition would be possible with precise cleanup, quick align and edit dialogue, change clip pitch and speed, automate mixes, and more.

Adobe Creative Cloud membership includes:

This new innovative feature will allow users to download and install all CS6 applications, new HTML5 desktop products -- Adobe Muse(TM) 1.0 and Adobe Edge preview -- and deep integration with Adobe Touch Apps.

It will also offer easy storage and sharing of content across desktop, mobile devices and the cloud. It would help in integrated website publishing and hosting.

The feature will support an ongoing innovation that will offer the users to keep themselves updates with all the new products and services.

Pricing and Availability

Adobe Creative Suite 6 products are immediately available through Adobe Authorized Resellers, the Adobe Store in North America and Adobe Direct Sales. Estimated street price for the suite is $2,599 for CS6 Master Collection, $1,899 for CS6 Production Premium, $1,899 for CS6 Design & Web Premium and $1,299 for CS6 Design Standard. Upgrade and education pricing as well as volume licensing are available.

On the other hand, Adobe Creative Cloud membership will be available to customers in 36 countries and in multiple languages. The Creative Cloud membership for individuals is available for $49.99 per month based on annual membership and $74.99 per month for month-to-month membership. A special introductory offer of $29.99 per month for CS3, CS4, CS5 and CS5.5 individual customers is also available.

System Requirements for CS6

Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design is basically a compilation of software that include breakthrough capabilities of photo editing, video editing, Web production and desktop publishing. These products are primarily positioned for a professional market and these powerful tools require a really powerful computer to utilize them fully.

The company has released separate suites for Windows and Mac version of computers. Hence the users need to be very careful while purchasing the appropriate suite for their operating system. The tech specs page for Adobe's new CS6 also holds the system requirements for both Mac and Windows users. Here are the tips which one needs to follow for their respective system before purchasing a CS6.

Mac OS

Operating System

The minimum operating system requirement on the Apple's side is Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard. Further, OS X 10.7 Lion is also supported and perhaps even recommended for the newly launched.

Processor

All users planning to get CS6 will need to make sure that their Mac computers must have a multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support for noticeably greater gain in performance.

RAM

The Creative Suite apps would need a minimum 4GB of RAM on the Mac if you want to experience a decent performance. However, the company has recommended 8GB RAM for best performance.

Hard Drive

Further, the new user will also need 15.5GB of available hard-disk space for installation and additional free space during the process.

Display

Moving on to the screen requirement, users will need a 1280 x 900 display with 16-bit color. For Adobe SpeedGrade, a 1680 x 1050 display is required and a second professionally calibrated viewing display is recommended. The graphics solution backing the computer must boast at least 512MB of VRAM and the system must also be OpenGL 2.0-capable.

DVD-ROM

A DVD-ROM drive or SuperDrive is required for burning DVDs and a Blu-ray burner is needed for creating Blu-ray Disc media.

Software

For the suite to install and operate properly, the Mac must have QuickTime 7.6.6 QuickTime features, multimedia, and HTML5 media playback. Mac customers will further require Java Runtime Environment 1.6, as well as Eclipse 3.7 (Cocoa version) for plug-in installation.

GPU Card

Finally, a dedicated GPU card is recommended for optimal performance in SpeedGrade and for GPU-accelerated features in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. Adobe recommends some specific solutions, including NVIDIA Quadro 4000 or other Adobe-certified GPU cards with at least 1GB of VRAM.

Microsoft Windows

Processor

The Windows users would require Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 processor with 64-bit support for a commendable performance. Further, they would need to have Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Phenom II processor for Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects and Encore. Meanwhile, an Intel Core i7 processor required would be required for Adobe SpeedGrade.

Operating System

As far as the operating system is concerned, the requirement would include Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 3 or Windows 7 with Service Pack 1. Moreover, Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (64 bit) would be compulsory for Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects and Encore. Also, Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 would be needed for SpeedGrade.

Memory

Windows-based computers would need to have at least 2GB of RAM for 32 bit, but the company has recommended 4GB for a great performance. On the other hand, 4GB of RAM would be required for 64 bit, but here again the company recommends 8GB as a better option.

Hard Drive

On Windows, the users would actually need 14.5GB of available hard-disk space for installation and an additional free space would be compulsory during installation (cannot install on removable flash storage devices).

Display

The user would find a 1280 x 900 display with 16-bit color best to experience the new software capabilities topped with 512MB of VRAM. And also, a 1680 x 1050 display would be necessary accompanied with a second professionally calibrated viewing display for Adobe SpeedGrade.

Optical Drive

Once more, a DVD-ROM drive compatible with dual-layer DVDs for burning DVDs and a Blu-ray burner is needed for creating Blu-ray Disc media for the Windows users. Further, the users would also like the Dedicated GPU card which would be a necessity for SpeedGrade.