Adobe's New Subscription Only Service Explained

Today, Adobe kicked off their MAX conference with a big keynote address, at which the company announced the newest version of what will be a re-branding of their popular Creative Suite software. The new versions will be branded as Creative Cloud and will only be available on a subscription basis. That means, if you want the newest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver or InDesign you're going to need to subscribe.

What exactly is Adobe Creative Cloud?

Creative Cloud is the new mash-up of all the Adobe professional creative desktop applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, and more — plus new features and upgrades. Instead of a one time installation from your typical install media Creative Cloud offer users a subscription service that is renewed monthly. Your basic software files will be installed locally however the software will work with Adobe's online services to act as a storage and file repository giving you syncing capabilities to have access to your files wherever you are, even on your mobile device. Cloud-based services let you build and publish websites, mobile apps, iPad publications, and content for any medium or device.

Your Creative Cloud desktop applications (such as Photoshop and Illustrator) are installed directly on your computer, so you won't need an ongoing Internet connection to use them on a daily basis. You will however, need to be online when you install and license your software. If you have an annual membership, you'll be asked to connect to the web to validate your software licenses every 30 days. However, you'll be able to use products for 180 days even if you're offline.

What are the Adobe Creative Cloud pricing plans?

Right now Adobe offers two different levels one being a full suite and the other being an app by app plan. For new Creative Cloud members it will be $49.99 and $19.99 per month.

• The single app full version of one desktop application $19.99/mo will offer 20GBs of cloud storage for file sharing and collaboration and limited access to services
• The full suite version will the entire application catalog is $49.99/mo and offers full versions of all of Adobe's most popular desktop applications — Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, and more plus full access to services to help create mobile-ready content and apps. You also get 20GB of cloud storage for file sharing and collaboration

There are also plans for teams and businesses which will offer more applications and storage or for students and teachers discounted pricing. Click here for more details on pricing.

What's New in the Adobe Creative Cloud Applications?
Photoshop. Like other members of the suite, have been updated to take advantage of the syncing mentioned above, with the ability to migrate presets and settings. It also lets users share to Behance, a creative pro social network, and save to the Adobe Creative Cloud. The CC version also adds a smart sharpen tool, the ability to use Camera Raw settings as filters, intelligent upsampling, multiple shape and path selection, and more 3D features formerly only included in the Extended edition. There is also a new feature called Camera Shake Reduction, the tool analyzes your photograph for camera motion, comes up with a path representing the shake motion, and aligns the photo pixels to remove the blur.

Illustrator, InDesign and Muse ad new fonts and new Kuler iPhone app that lets you snap a photo and tap at objects' colors to create a color swatch that can be synced to Illustrator for use as a color theme in your design project. Also in Illustrator is the new Touch Type tool, which lets you customize individual font characters by scaling and rotating them. To continue the syncing theme, Adobe Typekit fonts can now be synced.

Dreamweaver gets a new CSS visual editing tool, a new redesigned interface, JQuery UI widget support, and build support for PhoneGap, which lets you create iOS and Android apps. Edge Animate now includes motion paths, custom templates, support for an Akamai CDN, and support for swipe interfaces. Edge Reflow, which lets your site respond to different screen sizes, now has an Assets panel and Adobe Typekit integration for a huge font choice. Flash Professional CC has been rebuilt in 64-bit architecture, a new code editor, and enhanced HTML5 support.

For video geeks both Premiere Pro and After Effects feature updates. Premiere Pro updates include a simplified, redesigned timeline, a clip locator, the Adobe Anywhere collaboration server, integration of the Lumetri Deep Color engine, better closed captioning support, and precise audio control.

After Effects now benefits from the Live 3D Pipeline between After Effects CC and CINEMA 4D, an enhanced 3D Camera Tracker, and layer and mask snapping. The very cool Refine Edge tool takes a huge amount of tedium out of rotoscoping. For more detail on new stuff in the other video-related apps, including SpeedGrade, Audition, Encore, Media Encoder, Story Plus, and Prelude, read Adobe Reveals New Features in CS6 Video Apps.

For more information be sure to checkout the Creative Cloud FAQs.