What You Need to Know About Adobe Creative Suite 6 and the Creative Cloud

What You Need to Know About Adobe Creative Suite 6 and the Creative Cloud

on Apr 24th 2012 with 17 comments

This week, Adobe made a big announcement; Adobe Creative Suite 6 and the new Adobe Creative Cloud will be released within 30 days. This is fantastic news for anyone who is looking to upgrade their current installation but a lot of people have questions about what this means for them. In this article, we will discuss what you need to know about the upcoming release.

What is included in Adobe Creative Suite 6?

The CS6 Applications include: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Premiere Pro, After Effects, Adobe Audition, SpeedGrade, Prelude, Encore, and Bridge.

How much will CS6 cost?

That depends on the suite that you purchase. There are 4 different suites that you can purchase: Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design & Web Premium (US$1,899), Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard (US$1,299), Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium (US$1,899) and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection (US$2,599).

How much is a standalone copy of Photoshop CS6?

Adobe Photoshop CS6 is $699 to buy and $199 to upgrade. Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended is $999 to buy and $399 to upgrade.

When will they be available for purchase?

Adobe hasn’t released a firm release date but what we do know is that it will be released within 30 days of April 23, 2012.

What is the Creative Cloud?

The Creative Cloud is a subscription-based service that will give you access to all the Adobe CS applications, Adobe Muse, Adobe Edge, application upgrades, Creative Cloud publishing services, TypeKit, and much more.

Update: earlier we mentioned that the mobile apps would be included with the Creative Cloud. We were incorrect. Here is an excerpt from the press release.

Adobe Touch Apps can be purchased separately from the iTunes App Store or Google Play for US$9.99 each. Special offers for Adobe Touch Apps are available for customers who sign up for annual membership of Adobe Creative Cloud. For more details visit http://adobe.com/products/touchapps.

Will all the Adobe apps be hosted and streamed in the cloud?

No. You will be able to download all the Adobe applications onto your machine and use them the same way that you do now. You only need to be connected to the Internet once a month so that Adobe can check to see if your subscription is still valid.

How much will the Creative Cloud cost?

Adobe Creative Cloud membership is $49.99 per month, with an annual contract. A special introductory offer of $29.99 per month for the first year for CS3, CS4, and CS5 customers is also available.

How many computers can use a Creative Cloud subscription?

You can install Adobe applications on 2 machines, just like you do now. A laptop and Desktop, for instance.

Is there a student and teacher version of the Adobe Creative Cloud?

Yes. The Student and Teacher Edition of Adobe Creative Cloud is available for $29.99 per month.

Still have more questions?

More information about the Adobe Creative Cloud can be found on Adobe’s FAQ Page.

Tags: CS6
 
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Grant Friedman is a veteran blogger, social media addict, and design enthusiast. Grant has been blogging about the design industry since 2008 and is currently the editor of Psdtuts. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about Psdtuts, feel free to direct them to Grant's Twitter account.  

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  • http://emouvoirphotography.com Will

    From my understanding you can install creative cloud on 2 computers but the programs can’t run at the same time.

    http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/faq.html

    On how many computers may I install the software I download from Creative Cloud?

    You can install the desktop applications available in Creative Cloud on your primary computer and one backup computer, as long as they are not running at the same time. You will have access to both the Mac OS and Windows versions, so if you have a Mac at home and a PC at work, for instance, you can install your applications on both. See the product license agreements page for more information.

  • Trevor

    Teacher and student edition, what about the retirees!

  • http://algebrafilms.com Daniel

    The mobile apps are not included with Creative Cloud. It looked like they were, but if you read closely, they are separate purchases. If you subscribe to Creative Cloud, purchase 3 of these apps, and log in to Creative Cloud from each of the three, you can get an extra month of Creative Cloud as a bonus.

    • http://psd.tutsplus.com/ Grant Friedman
      Author

      Thanks for the comment. It looks like you are correct. I’ve updated the article.

  • Mubashar Ali

    it helped me to understand Creative Cloud, thanks for the article.

  • http://www.joeleadedesign.com.au Joel Eade

    I signed up for Creative Cloud this morning. The download date is the 6th of May, although it may be subject to change. Can’t wait!

  • http://mikestratton.co.uk Michael

    Is this available for UK? And is it strictly for student/teachers?

    I couldn’t see any info about this.

  • http://halucinated.com Steve Lucin

    Thank you so much!

  • http://www.twitter.com/mmcwatters Michael

    Not being able to run them on two machines at once is a major hassle; what if I have it open on my work machine when I leave for the day, and forget to close it? Seems like it should be smart enough to know which machine is actually using the software and not sitting idle.

    • http://twitter.com/jholyhead James

      The only way I can think to do this is with some kind of kill command – so if you open up instance 2 whilst instance 1 is still running, you can tell Adobe to disable instance 1, and only after instance 1 has been successfully disabled will instance 2 allow use. I highly doubt Adobe bothered to include something like that

  • http://www.paul-sproat.co.uk Paul Sproat

    From Adobe’s FAQs it says you can’t run both at once, and this is the same as now, you shouldn’t run both programs at once if you only have 1 license.

    For example, if you bought a PC game, and had to have the CD in, in order to use it, but then you also had it installed on a friends PC, and they had a no CD hack which allowed them to play without the disk. This technically isn’t allowed. Which is what Adobe mean by the following question in their FAQ.

    “On how many computers may I install the software I download from Creative Cloud?

    You can install the desktop applications available in Creative Cloud on your primary computer and one backup computer, as long as they are not running at the same time. You will have access to both the Mac OS and Windows versions, so if you have a Mac at home and a PC at work, for instance, you can install your applications on both. See the product license agreements page for more information.”

    Hopefully this make it clearer for everyone!

    • http://nnmportfolio.com Natasha McEachron

      This sounds like good news. I currently use CS5.5 on a desktop PC and plan to get a Mac laptop so I can work when I’m out of the studio but I was concerned that it would be expensive or a hassle to get and install the program for both platforms. I’ll have to take a closer look at Creative Cloud it might be the perfect solution.

  • http://www.casualgamedev.com Shajedul

    This is great article. I like it.

  • Gary

    In the future, Adobe should consider some sort of tiered pricing for their Creative Cloud service.

    For instance, the current subscription price per month for all products and then lower pricing for access to the various CS suites (i.e. CS 6 Design & Web Premium, CS 6 Design Standard & CS 6 Production Premium) and then an even lower price for individual products.

    I believe the uptake on this would be huge as the current one price for all is a bit steep, especially if you only need to use one or two products occasionally and buying them outright isn’t cost effective.

  • http://store.deluxive.se Christopher Anderton

    In Sweden, Master Collection is priced around 4 614,50$. Quite different prices depending which side of the pool you are at.

  • http://www.medienzentrale.net Oliver

    In Germany Master Collection costs approx. 4080 USD. It’s cheaper to fly to New York and buy it there.