Adobe is taking the wraps off of Production Premium CS6 just in time for NAB. There is too much to fit into one post, but since I’ve gotten an opportunity to take a peek at this upcoming release, I wanted to give you at least a quick look at some of the features that I’m most excited about.

CS6 Production Premium will include the following applications:
• Adobe Encore CS6
• Adobe Media Encoder CS6
• Adobe Story Plus
• After Effects CS6
• Audition CS6
• Photoshop CS6 **public beta announced March 21
• Prelude CS6
• Premiere Pro CS6
• Speedgrade CS6

New to the suite are Adobe Prelude, an ingest and rough cut application and Adobe Speedgrade, an amazingly powerful color correction application. OnLocation doesn’t seem to have made it into Creative Suite this time around.

Throughout the Suite, the default interface is sleeker and uses a darker background and brighter colors to help put your eye where you want it. Dynamic Link works in the same way as in previous versions, but has been recoded to work much faster, allowing smoother workflows than ever.

Here are just some of the major features you’ll see in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6:
• An optimized Mercury Playback Engine that is faster than before in software-only mode, and also sports a broader range of choices in graphics cards. There’s even OpenCL support for certain MacBook Pro (TM) machines using OS X 10.7 that have AMD Radeon HD6750M or HD 6770M graphics cards with over 1GB of VRAM.
• Adobe Mercury Transmit gives Adobe I/O hardware partners, such as AJA, Black Magic Design, Bluefish444, Matrox, and MOTU direct access to the Mercury Playback Engine, so you experience better playback performance than ever before. When using external monitors, you’ll get full-screen playback while maintaining all the real-time performance benefits of the Mercury Playback Engine.
• The addition of Warp Stabilizer and Rolling Shutter Repair, which were previously only in Adobe After Effects.
• Unlimited cameras in Multicam.
• Many new and enhanced editing tools such as adjustment layers very reminiscent of After Effects, trimming directly in the Program Monitor, and a redesigned Audio Mixer. You can now double click to apply effects to selected clips.
• A redesigned Three-Way Color Corrector effect, that of course, uses GPU acceleration
• The redesigned Adobe Media Encoder is now fully 64 bit software with a much expanded preset list and more efficient batch encoding that makes multiscreen delivery a breeze.

More to follow!

Well, put me down, Im upgrading.

Wow, looks great!

I wonder if purchasing CS5.5 Production Premium now and getting the free CS6 upgrade deal will allow you to download the new programs in the suite, Prelude and Speedgrade?

Reading the terms and conditions on the Adobe website the official wording was something along the lines of "get a free uprade to the equivelant CS6 version of the programs." So, what if there is no CS5.5 equivelant to upgrade from? Does that mean that taking advantage of this offer means you'll miss out on the new components in this suite?

I've got a new workstation arriving this week and I'm itching to place an order for CS5.5 to take full advantage of the 16GB RAM and GPU acceleration (currently I'm on CS3). This announcement makes me even more excited!

I should have mentioned in the first post that actual availability date and pricing are not yet available.

A few highlight about After Effects CS6 before I turn in for the night:

• Native support for Adobe SpeedGrade .Look files, cineSpace .csp files, and overrange IRIDAS .cube files.
• Not only is Mocha still there, but you can launch it directly from within After Effects.
• Global RAM cache. This is a vastly improved frame caching system that allows you to try different options and Undo without a penalty in productivity, as well as render and cache a comp’s work area in the background.
• Persistent Disk Cache. Previews done in a previous session are saved and immediately available the next time you open a project.
• New graphics pipeline. With more efficient use of OpenGL, the work environment in After Effects is more highly responsive and smoother. You’ll get faster manipulation of layers with graphical overlays such as masks, motion tracker points, and motion paths. Depending on the hardware, functions may be speeded by anywhere from 1.5 to 16 times!
• A new intelligent 3D Camera Tracker effect.
• A new ray-traced 3D rending engine giving you the capability to quickly design fully ray-traced geometric text and shape layers in 3D space. Pair this engine with, say an nVidia Quadro 2000, and you’ll see over 10 times the performance over CPU-only rendering by a stock Intel i7 3960X processor!
• Variable mask feather lets you set any number of points along a closed maks and define the width of the feather on a per-point basis
• Pro Import, previously available as a separate product from Automatic Duck, is now included with After Effects CS6.
• Many, many effects that were previously 8bpc now support 16bpc or 32 bit float including all of the HD plug-ins of the included CycoreFX HD Suite.

The new AE 3D tracker and Ray-traced 3D engine look like great additions. This will make it much easier to integrate 3D text into a composition, even with camera movement, without the need for plug ins.

Another big plus for me is the variable feathering on masks. This will greatly simplify the masking process, making it easier to use a single mask for a particular object.

I'm very excited about the addition of Warp Stabiliser to Premiere. This will halve the amount of time that I spend in AE for most projects, as stabilising footage is currently the main thing I use Premiere/AE dynamic link for when editing weddings.

The new Prelude program looks useful, particularly if it plays nicely with Cineform. If I am understanding right, it means that I can now import my footage, select only the useful parts of each clip to convert (ie cut out the stuff where the camera is pointing at the floor, or get rid of excessive handles), and then let it transcode in the background. This will not only be a huge time saver, but a space saver as well as it will only transcode the useful parts of each clip, rather than wasting HDD space transcoding an entire 2-minute clip when you only need 3 seconds of it.

Speedgrade looks like a huge value add-on, and for many people might eliminate the need to use any 3rd party grading tools such as Magic Bullet or even Firstlight. Also, I hope that Premiere's new 3-way colour corrector is similar to the one in FCP. this will make 95% of my CC so much easier and faster. I hate Premiere's current 3-way CC and avoid it like the plague.

Exciting times for sure! Now, where did I put my credit card?

I thought I would hold off on this and maybe just wait for CS7 if I'm still in the game by then. But these new features, particularly those in Premiere, have made me rethink my plans. I guess it will all depend on the pricing. I'll miss OnLocation though.

Will they add support for superwhites? Or does it still clip whites at 235?

Interesting blogs:
- Premiere Pro CS6: what’s new and changed (http://blogs.adobe.com/premiereprotraining)
- After Effects CS6: what’s new and changed (http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva)
- What’s New in Adobe Audition CS6 (http://blogs.adobe.com/insidesound)

Looks like an awesome update with the exception of Speedgrade integration, which is kind of underwhelming. I mean - export to DPX to grade? Resolve can do better than that. I guess we'll have to wait for 7 for the better stuff in Speedgrade.

Anyway, I have been watching Lynda.com's trainings with the new features for past few hours.

I'm curious though about a few issues that are not mentioned there (so far), so if there is anyone here in the know and can talk, please let me know:

1. The uninterrupted playback feature rocks. Does it extend to live scopes in reference monitor as well?

2. Is the performance with AVCHD scrubbing improved in any way?

3. I guess no smart rendering - Premiere still forgets what it rendered if you stopped it and only part of the clip was rendered?

4. You can change monitoring, which is great. Can you change the sequence settings?

5. Can you copy audio mixer settings between sequences?

6. Is the HD to DV/MPEG-2 for interlaced footage bug fixed?

Even if all the answers are no, we will most likely be upgrading, but I'm curious if these were addressed in any way.

I thought I would hold off on this and maybe just wait for CS7 if I'm still in the game by then. But these new features, particularly those in Premiere, have made me rethink my plans. I guess it will all depend on the pricing. I'll miss OnLocation though.

And there it is... the first mention of CS7 haha!

I agree though that so far on paper this is the first refresh that makes me really feel like I need it.

A bit on Adobe Audition CS6

It’s kid in the candy store time. Adobe Audition CS6 is so loaded with new capabilities and ease-of-use enhancements that I’m not sure where to start. So in somewhat random order, here are some of the big ones:

• Clip Stretching is as easy as click and drag. In real time. Simple as that!
• The new Automatic Speech Alignment Tool not only examines transients and waveforms, but does frequency and spectral analyses to improve the accuracy and speed overdubbing.
• Both a real time, configurable Automatic Pitch Correction feature and really feature rich Manual Pitch Correction will be essential tools for voice overs, vocal music, and so much more. A really cool new Spectral Pitch Display is immediately going to become as invaluable as the Spectral Frequency Display has been over the years.
• Envelop keyframe editing gives you essentially unlimited control over multiple envelops on any combination of track effects. Each envelop is displayed in a different color in the automation lane below the track’s waveform. (Personal comment: WAY awesome!).
• The Multiple Clipboards feature of Adobe Audition CS6 keeps up to five clips in memory for quick use and re-use.
• Industry standard controller devices like EUCON, Mackie, and the Avid Artist series are fully supported. Just tell Adobe Audition CS6 which controller you have hooked up and you’re off to the races. Setup is simple: a single dialog box in the Preferences menu.
• Workflow features include not only grouping, but being able to suspend a group temporarily to work on a single clip. The hidden beauty: the group still exists so it takes just a single step for the whole grouping to be in effect again. No more recreating groups if you need to make a change to one clip! Groups will automatically change to a different color, but you can easily give each group your choice of custom color for easy visualization.
• Have you ever spent too much time repetitively trying to get a seamless delete of a segment of audio? Yeah, probably a million times. Finally, it’ll be a quick and easy task. Clicking the Skip Selection icon will (by default) play from three seconds prior until to three seconds after a selection – but skip the selection. Drag the selection boundaries as you please while Audition loops the segment. When you’re happy, just delete the selection and you're done. The pre- and post-roll times are adjustable, of course.
• Conversely , the Trim to Time Selection command in multitrack will trim all portions of a clip or group before and after a selection. This is the multitrack equivalent of the Waveform Editor's Crop command.

Some other additions I’ll simply list: As with Premiere Pro, marker management is now much more robust; we have Metronome; Generate Tones effect; new channelization capabilities that give you additional signal routing capabilities like side-chaining and up-mixing stereo to surround formats; and Red Book music CD burning.

This version of Adobe Audition CS6 is genuinely a giant leap forward.

1. The uninterrupted playback feature rocks. Does it extend to live scopes in reference monitor as well?
No, the scopes does not update during playback.

2. Is the performance with AVCHD scrubbing improved in any way?
Feels like status quo to me. On the other hand i have not compared AVCHD, CS5.5 vs CS6, that much, so i may be wrong.

3. I guess no smart rendering - Premiere still forgets what it rendered if you stopped it and only part of the clip was rendered?
No smart rendering per se. I just tried to render a Timeline and when i canceled it does remember what it already done.

4. You can change monitoring, which is great. Can you change the sequence settings?
No, Sequence Settings cannot be changed. I would love to see this change in the future.

5. Can you copy audio mixer settings between sequences?
No.

6. Is the HD to DV/MPEG-2 for interlaced footage bug fixed?
What bug, describe it? Have you filed it to Adobe? I have been able to export interlaced HD > interlaced SD for years without issues.

What HD and what frame rate, ie 1080i50 or 720p50?

- For DV PAL/DV NTSC it will still do a field reversal = Don't look so good. (Annoying yes, but it is designed that way for some odd reson...)
- For MPEG2 it will *not* do any field reversal = Looks good.

For DV in a avi container, use another codec such as CineForm of Blackmagic Design, etc.

Encore CS6 will retain UFF and does *not* force HD UFF to SD LFF when using HD assets or Dynamic Link as it used to do in "CSEarlier".

Unlimited multicam. Thank goodness... It's about time. This one is a constant thorn in my side.

I'll upgrade for just that feature (assuming that the rest of the program isn't so buggy that I can still work- don't get me started on my problems with CS 5.5)

--Ben

Adobe bought Serious Magic, and got the ultra and on location and then threw away all the great features ultra had - like virtual studios (which I'm still using from my old copy) and the Serious Magic version of on location had great features that didn't make it into the adobe product - and now they're all gone. Crazy world!

Thanks for all your answers, Roger. I was afraid it was so, but well... let's hope some of these issues will be covered in the next release.


What bug, describe it? Have you filed it to Adobe? I have been able to export interlaced HD > interlaced SD for years without issues.
- For DV PAL/DV NTSC it will still do a field reversal = Don't look so good. (Annoying yes, but it is designed that way for some odd reson...)


If you combine scaling with field reversal it looks awful. If you first scale (HD UFF to SD UFF), then reverse fields (SD UFF to DV or MPEG-2), it looks fine. For some reason I and quite a few other people also have this same issue with straight HD (HDV/XDCAM EX) to MPEG-2 export.

I would love to do it in a single step, but now I can't, I have to use an intermediate. I (and others as well) did file a bug report quite some time ago, and this has been quite a hot topic here - at least three threads were dedicated towards this issue,

I don't want to hijack this thread further. This update looks really awesome with many great features, especially for standalone Premiere users.

The issue with Encore reversing the fields with HD to SD coming from Premiere via DL has been fixed in CS6.

... and Adobe Speedgrade, an amazingly powerful color correction application.

I'll upgrade for Speedgrade alone. All the rest (and there's a lot) is just gravy.

Did someone post the expected upgrade charge from CS5.5 ??

Any changes or improvements to Encore in CS6?

What about all 64 bit architecture, the lifting of the 99 limit on still shows, the better color management for menus and buttons à la PS?

I'll upgrade for Speedgrade alone. All the rest (and there's a lot) is just gravy.

It's often the gravy that adds extra flavour to a meal.

Not sure about the Speedgrade feature at the moment, it does seem like you can achieve a lot with Adjustment layers. I am all in favour for producing better colour in any production, so may hold back on an opinion until I have had a go with the Speedgrade

Adobe Encore Gets More Muscle

As Harm noted, Encore is now native 64 bit. You’d expect this to result in performance improvements and it does. One function that definitely benefits is MPEG2 import. Upon import, Encore indexes MPEG2 files and checks to determine if they are DVD and Blu-ray legal. This process is now done in the background so system resources are quickly released during import. That means you can continue working on other tasks instead of waiting for the import to finish. During this background process, the files are displayed as Pending Media in italics text.

Additionally, proxy creation for stills and slideshows has been moved out of the import process to render time, thus greatly speeding imports.

Some enhancements and new features:

• Yes, as Ann pointed out, much to the joy of those who have posted about this issue previously, imported files that are Upper Field First will now have that setting preserved for DVDs in Encore CS6.
• To add to Harm’s mention of the 99 slide limit, Blu-ray support is 999 slides per show. There is no limit at all in DVDs but beyond 999 slides, you cannot use Manual Advance on your remote control for individual slides in the last chapter. Adobe does note that slide counts above 200 may start having noticeable impacts on system performance.
• For Blu-ray and Flash exports, there is now an option to export 8-bit color buttons, instead of limiting them to 2-bit to comply with the DVD restriction (which is still part of the DVD spec and therefore cannot be changed). Blu-ray pop-up menus also have much improved color quality over previous versions.
• Blu-ray chapter lists are now supported. Choices for playlist organization include sequential, random, and shuffle.
• Coding changes make the CTI more responsive to prevent the stuttering sometimes seen in prior versions.
• Pixel aspect ratio correction has been improved in the Preview simulator. This will eliminate some button distortions and black bars we sometimes saw in times past.
• Web DVD support is now as fully featured as DVD and blu-ray, including multi-page menus including pop-ups, presets for bit rates and quality, button transitions, subtitle menu setup, and more.
• Limited DTS HD import capability. You can import, add the file to a timeline, and build a Blu-ray disc from that timeline. I say “limited” because you cannot play a DTS HD file within Encore, modify the file, use it in a motion menu, or use it for Flash or DVD projects.
• Auto-fix Subtitle Gaps: The Blu-Ray spec requires a minimum 5 frames between subtitle clips. If the gap is less, Encore will display an error to alert you. Just right click one of the problematic clips and choose Fix Gaps from the context menu, and the minimum number of frames needed to fix the problem will be automatically trimmed.

A cross-application feature worth mentioning is preview integration. Adobe Encore CS6, Premiere Pro, Media Encoder, After Effects and Audition all share a single media cache database that points to preview files that any of these applications can read and write to. If you change the location of the database in any of these applications, even if each application has its own cache folder, the pointers are updated in all of the applications.

Sounds very interesting. Any details on Photoshop?

Blu-ray chapter lists are now supported. Choices for playlist organization include ...


Music to my ears!

I have a client who wants the Blu-rays to play only one chapter at a time and then return to the menu. The first one had 57 chapters and, in the end, I had to t-e-d-i-o-u-s-l-y export 57 separate movies from my NLE to get this concept to work in Encore with Blu-ray. And last week I had to export 30 separate movies (chapters) for another Blu-ray. So this new blu-ray chapter playlist support will save me a great deal of wasted time (not to mention the annoyance).

Also good to hear that Premiere Pro is improving its ability to export. Hopefully this will include 1080p ProRes QuickTimes (CS5.5 seems only to give the option to export a QuickTime in the frame size for DV).

I sincerely hope that PPro CS6 implements a more robust import function (for timelines from FCP 7). So far, for me, it's been a bust. It'll import simple 30 minute timelines, but the timelines I really need it to import are extremely long and very, very complex and PPro CS5.5 can't handle them at all.

I've been using After Effects and Photoshop on my current project and both are brilliant! How did I ever live without them? I've now kicked most of my old FCS to the kerb but I've still had to keep using my old FCP as my NLE until I can find one to move forward with which will reliably import old FCP projects (which I am often called on to update).

If PPro CS6 can handle this, it'll make my "switch" to the Adobe suite of tools complete.

Sounds very interesting. Any details on Photoshop?It's already in public beta. You can download it now. See this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-creative-suite/506290-video-editing-photoshop-cs6.html

Pete - thanks SO MUCH for the details.

Do you know if Encore can now truly handle 2 Pass VBR - either import of previously encoded 2 pass VBR files from Adobe Media Encoder or using a customer preset within Encore?

Import of 2-pass VBR encoded media has always been possible, such as those encoded by PR. If they did not import properly, it was because the encoder used did not generate legal formats. Export from EN using 2-pass VBR has also been possible without difficulties, so my question is, what happened in your case?

This is one heck of an update and the new Photoshop is worth the price of the suite upgrade alone. In fact each application is almost worth the price alone. For me being a 17" MBP user this version is going to be huge since it finally supports the gpu for full Mercury Playback Engine gpu acceleration with the OpenCL based AMD gpus in the highend MBP's. My days of itching to move back to a PC are officially now over.

One thing I would like to know is if ProRes performance is a bit better with CS6? I always found ProRes files to be sluggish in CS5.5 during scrubbing compared to FCP7 or even FCPX. I love native editing of AVCHD material in CS5.5 but sometimes I do work with ProRes files from an Atomos unit or Blackmagic and Matorx cards and would love to see the files scrub as smooth as butter. Since Adobe is trying to cater to the FCP users I hope they looked into this a bit.

Pete, can encore cs 6, import multichannel surround pcm uncompressed audio now?

Thanks for the updates Pete.

Cheers

David: to export to ProRes requires FCP installed on the same system.

Thomas: I have had zero lag issues with ProRes HQ files (from PIX240) and neither does my biz partner on his iMac. I assume something else is causing the lag in your system.

My view on SpeedGrade has been updated after reading the PDF on it. So, for sequences with H264 and/or XDCAM flavors, you must render to DPX to go into SG. You don't have to send to DPX if using supported formats like QT, DPX, various RAW formats (R3D, ARRI, etc). This sounds much better than having to render everything as DPX.

One ridiculous requirement is the Nvidia Quadro SDI card in order to get SDI output. So, all of our BMD Decklink Extreme and Kona boards are useless with SG even though they work with PPro but the Quadro SDI card does not work with PPro.

I would expect that will get updated once Adobe has more time to dig their fingers into SpeedGrade. I'm sure they will eventually implement Mercury Transit since they are usually very keen on suite integration. At some point in the future it may even take more native formats like the rest of the Adobe applications. For those of us who still like a ProRes workflow however it sounds like the quicktime support means a good workflow.

Thanks for the feedback about the ProRes files. The files edit very well but the scrubbing hasn't been as smooth as FCP. Maybe it is something on my MBP. I just reformatted it when I upgraded to Lion but it is possible I have something slightly off.

Bummed I purchased my production premium on Jan 31st.

One ridiculous requirement is the Nvidia Quadro SDI card in order to get SDI output. So, all of our BMD Decklink Extreme and Kona boards are useless with SG even though they work with PPro but the Quadro SDI card does not work with PPro.

say what??? I didn't see that in the .pdf but could have missed it.

Thats totally ridiculous and completely unacceptable.

I suspect though it was due to getting it out on time which is ok with me for now.
It should be patched with an update asap though.

No aspect of post production requires more attention with proper external monitoring than the color correction / grading step.

Hey if anyone at NAB can comment on Encore cs 6 it would be much appreciated.

there was a rather ambiguous announcement about a partnership with DTS.

They say Encore will accept all flavor of DTS streams. They don't say
if Encore or Media Encoder have a DTSHD-MA encoder to make those
streams.

if it does, I could care less if pcm surround is supported.

any info would be helpful.

I can't be the only one excited that there will finally be a truly affordable
Blu-Ray authoring app in Encore that can do proper blu-ray menus and
support the best lossless audio codec.

@Daniel Browning:

I did some tests on Premiere CS5.5 where I fed it a full-range (0-255) horizontal Ramp image, then viewed on Premiere's Y-Scope (in Color Correction workspace). I found that SuperWhite-clipping only happens for certain Effects, not others. I'm guessing more of the former than the latter (haven't tested them all).

Premiere Effects that can be used to map (scale) rather than clamp (clip) not only SuperWhites but also SuperBlacks to the broadcast-legal range: include Fast Color Corrector, Levels 32-bit (Cineform), Luma Curve, ProcAmp, RGB Curves (Master=Luma). On the other hand if you have SuperWhites but no SuperBlacks (like many popular cameras) then Three-Way Color Corrector can handle that (it clamps only SuperBlacks).

Looks like there's plenty of choice, just need to use the right filters in the right order. I agree it's a pain though...

I found that SuperWhite-clipping only happens for certain Effects, not others. I'm guessing more of the former than the latter (haven't tested them all).


Thanks.


Looks like there's plenty of choice, just need to use the right filters in the right order. I agree it's a pain though...

Agreed.

I have written down a list of effects that don't work with superwhites in PPro and I really wish the Levels effect didn't clip everything above 235 when it goes to 255 - seems broken. I even tested the difference between the Broadcast effect and Levels to see which looked better. I was hoping that Levels looked fine because its accelerated but the Broadcast filter looked much better.

Speaking for myself, I am grateful that the folks who do have detailed information on these new Adobe products are taking the time to post it on this forum.
Right here is exactly where I go to find that sort of thing.
I don't mind if the information is posted by outsiders, insiders, or Adobe employees, as long as it's accurate.
When there is an impending release of a new version of a major product that I use- like Production Premium- I am very hungry for any & all information, links, videos, ads, & opinions that I can get my hands on.

...and here's the Main Event. The full announcement of Master Collection and Adobe Creative Cloud:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-video-industry-news/507192-adobe-launches-creative-cloud-cs6.html

FYI, I just received a press kit, courtesy of my contributing editor status with DV Info Net, with a trial of the latest Master Collection CS6 software, so I installed it and began editing a typical multi-cam shoot, my first real for-a-client project on CS6.

The interface and workflow enhancements may not be a sexy topic or look all that dramatic at a glance, but allowed me to do the edit in not much more than half the time it would have taken me in previous versions. Very intuitive and fluid. All the little things add up.

I know less about Cloud at this point, but it looks like a real boon to tablet users.

I've just being taking a look into the Creative Cloud, after seeing a news item on it over at the Register.

If the $50 per month for a 12 month contract sticks, then it'll take something like eight or nine years for it to have been cheaper to buy the boxed product, and any intervening upgrades. Or just over four years if you skip them.

As someone who doesn't own any Adobe products (no, I don't have pirate copies installed either), but was looking into buying them, this looks like a good deal. The only risk is that they decide to jack up prices next year...

None of the commentators have picked up on this yet, but the Creative Cloud license allows you to install the software on two machines. If you've got a Mac and a PC then you can install it on both, as it's not tied into a particular OS like the boxed version. As someone who owns a MacBook, and is going to buy a desktop PC soon, this is very attractive.

Just checked the " UPGRADE " price from CS5.... $750... So I'm sitting here asking... will the final output from CS6 be any different than the output from CS5 (CS5.5).. of course the answer is no...

So, it looks like I'm skipping out of this one... by the time I would upgrade to CS6 and spend the time and extra cost for all of the 3rd party plug-in programs that I have it will end up costing me a couple thousand $$$..

I could get a new camera for that...

see ya Adobe...

Do you have to sign up for the creative cloud when upgrading? I can't figure out how to remove it from my cart?

They were about to instigate a last version only eligibility for upgrades this time, except that those of us in the Adobe Video Ambassadors group put up a bit of a stink over it. And Adobe listened.

It will be happening from the next version (CS7) onwards. So you may possibly want to upgrade to CS6 after all. Or dip your toe in with the cloud subscription model as you need to.

Andrew

Just checked the " UPGRADE " price from CS5.... $750... So I'm sitting here asking... will the final output from CS6 be any different than the output from CS5 (CS5.5).. of course the answer is no...

So, it looks like I'm skipping out of this one... by the time I would upgrade to CS6 and spend the time and extra cost for all of the 3rd party plug-in programs that I have it will end up costing me a couple thousand $$$..

I could get a new camera for that...

see ya Adobe...

I would have to second that. I'll wait for CS7

You may not get a very good upgrade path when CS7 comes out if you don't have CS6. Adobe may only offer this same price upgrade path for older versions this one time only.

Hmmm....
Just looking at the Adobe website- upgrade of Production Premium CS5.5 to Production Premium CS6 is only $375.
Looks like a bargain to me.
I think I paid $600 to go from CS4 to CS5
Actually, CS4 to CS5 was priceless... :)

Just checked the " UPGRADE " price from CS5.... $750... So I'm sitting here asking... will the final output from CS6 be any different than the output from CS5 (CS5.5).. of course the answer is no...

So, it looks like I'm skipping out of this one... by the time I would upgrade to CS6 and spend the time and extra cost for all of the 3rd party plug-in programs that I have it will end up costing me a couple thousand $$$..

I could get a new camera for that...

see ya Adobe...

And who said you must upgrade your plug-ins or pay for them to be upgraded? Nothing of the sort occurred with CS5 to 5.5.

Hmmm....
Just looking at the Adobe website- upgrade of Production Premium CS5.5 to Production Premium CS6 is only $375.
Looks like a bargain to me.
I think I paid $600 to go from CS4 to CS5
Actually, CS4 to CS5 was priceless... :)

Not denying that it is a good deal; getting cloud services along with ALL of Adobe apps, however, if you purchase CS6 Cloud at announcement time, you will be paying $675 for 18 months of use. Here's the math... You get 12 months at $30 a month and then the next six months are at $50 a month. In other words $360 for the first 12 months and $300 for the next six months. In essence you are getting Master Colleciton with Cloud services for slightly less than the price of the heavily discounted Production Premimum CS5.5 a few months back. It is a deal but it is not $375. for the whole length of time that CS6 will be sold.

Interesting:
CS5 --> CS6 = $749
BUT
CS5 --> CS5.5 = $399 WITH FREE UPGRADE TO CS6 until May 6!

*Production Premium CS from Adobe.com, US $


My question is, is there a catch? If I go this route, do I have to go through the hassle of installing CS5.5 in order for CS6 to install properly? Or can I buy it to get the deal, and then keep using CS5 until CS6 shows up?