MAX 2018: Adobe unleashes next generation Creative Cloud

At its annual Adobe MAX creativity conference, Adobe as expected, announced major updates to Creative Cloud apps including Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Premiere Pro CC and Adobe XD. Expanding the family further, Adobe also unleashed Adobe Premiere Rush CC, the all-in-one, intuitive video editing app for social media creators. The company continues to bet big on building full-blown apps for touch-enabled devices, previewing the much-anticipated Project Gemini and Photoshop CC for iPad.

Creative Cloud, now even bigger and better

Adobe introduced powerful new updates to its flagship desktop applications. This includes a new Content-Aware Fill workspace in Photoshop CC; performance and workflow improvements across Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic; and the ability to design with photorealistic, freeform gradients in Illustrator CC.

InDesign also gets powerful Content-Aware Fit capabilities; instantly create and animate unique, stylised puppets using a webcam and reference artwork with Character Animator’s new Characterizer; Dimension CC gets a new rendering engine for improved render preview performance; and Adobe Stock gets new Sensei-powered search features and exclusive content, including new library clips from GoPro.

That’s not all, Adobe is addressing the needs of the video animation industry with new workflows and integrations across apps, including After Effects, Animate to Character Animator and Adobe XD to After Effects.

With the voice assistants and voice-powered devices playing an increasing role in our daily lives, Adobe is adding new voice capabilities to Adobe XD, the all-in-one UX/UI solution for websites and mobile apps. Adobe recently acquired Sayspring technology, to empower designers to prototype experiences and apps for voice-powered devices like Amazon Echo.

These new voice capabilities include voice triggers and speech playback, enabling designers to create powerful new experience with screen and voice prototyping, all in one application.

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Made for social video content

Premiere Rush CC, the exciting, brand new app from Adobe targeted at online video creators makes it easy to capture, edit video and audio, colour-correct, add motion graphics and publish to social platforms like YouTube and Instragram. The all-in-one solution lets online video creators harness the power of Premiere Pro and After Effects CC without having to be experts in video, colour or audio fields.

The app offers built-in access to professionally-designed Motion Graphics templates in Adobe Stock as well as the nifty Sensei-powered one-click, auto-duck feature to adjust music and normalise sound.

Touch the future

Adobe previewed Photohop CC and Project Gemini for iPad, as it continues to commit to delivering high-performance apps for multi-surface creation. These touch-enabled apps complement workflows across Adobe’s existing flagship desktop apps.

Key highlights:

Photoshop CC on iPad has been redesigned for a modern touch experience and delivers power and precision of its desktop counterpart. The app lets you open and edit native PSD files and will feature familiar Photoshop layers panel. Photoshop CC is coming first to iPad in 2019. The beauty about Photoshop CC for iPad is that you can start work on your iPad and seamlessly roundtrip your edits with Photoshop CC via Creative Cloud.

Project Gemini is a new app coming first to the iPad in 2019. It combines raster, vector and new dynamic brushes into a single app built for drawing. The app enables you to use and sync favourite Photoshop brushes and it works seamlessy with Photoshop CC.

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Sensei powers everything

Adobe Sensei, the artificial intelligence and machine learning framework announced in 2016, plays a crucial role across Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Experience Cloud. The 2019 release of Creative Cloud showcases more than a dozen new Sensei-powered features and productivity enhancements.

These include expanded Content-Aware Fill workshop in Photoshop CC; new Content-Aware Fit in InDesign CC; new Freeform Gradients in Illustrator CC; and a new tool in Character Animator CC called Characterizer.

Future of immersive design

Adobe previewed Project Aero, another brand new cross-device AR authoring tool to design augmented reality experiences. It’s the first AR app built for designers and artists. You may have seen it in action at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference earlier in the year.

Everything Adobe announced at MAX:

Digital and Creative Imaging: including Photoshop CC, Photoshop CC on iPad, Dimension CC, Project Aero and Project Gemini
Photography: including Lightroom CC and Lightroom Classic
Digital Video and Audio: including Premiere Rush CC, Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Audition CC and Character Animator
Design and Visual Storytelling: including Adobe XD, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC and Adobe Spark
Services: including Adobe Stock, Adobe Portfolio and Adobe Fonts

Pricing and availability

Updates to Creative Cloud desktop software are now available to all Creative Cloud subscribers, including membership plans for individuals, students, teams, educational institutions, government agencies and enterprises. Adobe’s mobile apps are available for download from the iOS App Store and Google Play.

Photoshop CC on iPad, Project Aero and Project Gemini on iPad will be available in 2019. Spark Post on Android, previously available as a public beta, is now available as a 1.0 app in the Google Play store.

Premiere Rush CC, available now on Windows and macOS and via the iOS App Store (Google Play store availability coming in 2019), is offered across a series of plans.

Premiere Rush CC is available for USD9.99/month to individuals, USD19.99/month to teams and USD29.99/month to enterprise customers. Premiere Rush CC is also included as part of All Apps, Student and Premiere Pro CC single app plans and comes with 100GB of CC storage. Additional storage options, up to 10TB, are also available for purchase.
Premiere Rush CC Starter Plan: Available for free, the Starter Plan gives customers access to all Premiere Rush CC features, use of desktop and mobile apps and the ability to create an unlimited number of projects and export up to three projects for free.