Adobe has made it a trend to release a Creative Suite product every 2 years because professionals can really get a lot of mileage with the programs included. For instance, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 may already be enough for aspiring web developers that wish to make basic sites rather than interactive web apps. However, some professionals don't really upgrade because the new features don't really justify the fairly high upgrade price tag. To heighten those concerns, Adobe also recently switched to yearly releases with the launch of Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 and that may frustrate those individuals that are into Adobe Creative Suite training. But Adobe Creative Suite 6 is the real upgrade that many professionals can take advantage of because of these features.
Performance Improvements
Adobe is known for driving up the system requirements every major release but Adobe finally decided to focus on optimizations for CS6 not only so older systems can notice some performance improvements but also so modern systems can really fully utilize their hardware capabilities. The Adobe Mercury technology is one example of a modern optimization improvement and it is used in several components of the suite. The Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine featured in Photoshop allows certain tools like Puppet Warp and Liquify to work instantly so you can enjoy smoother workflow if your Adobe Creative Suite training program covers these tools. Illustrator CS6's Adobe Mercury Performance takes advantage of 64-bit operating systems so it better utilizes higher amounts of RAM when opening large files. Finally, the Mercury Playback Engine enables Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 to utilize any GPUs that are OpenCL compatible as well as NVIDIA Maximus dual-GPU setups.
Some specific performance improvements are applied to other applications too such as After Effects CS6 which works a lot faster now thanks to the Global Performance Cache. Transferring large files via FTP in Adobe Dreamweaver is also faster as it now uses multiple threads for uploading. Adobe Audition's audio editing features are more precise and work faster as well.
Interface Improvements
Adobe hasn't really made so many facelifts to the interface since Adobe CS3 but several of the programs featured in CS6 feature huge improvements to the user interface. The dark interface is a growing trend that developers of creative software are utilizing and Adobe is hopping on to that bandwagon. Dark interfaces allow professionals to focus more on the content. But don't worry if you are reading Adobe Creative Suite training guides that cover older versions because many of the familiar tools are still in their usual locations.
Adobe Creative Cloud
In addition to the usual Adobe Creative Suite bundles, Adobe is adding a new and unique bundle to the mix called Creative Cloud. It takes a cue from Microsoft's Office 365 subscription-based software service by offering all programs in the Adobe CS6 Master Collection for $49.99 a month covering a year. This offer is a great way to let professionals that are very interested in Adobe Creative Suite training but don't have the budget to purchase the latest and greatest bundle. In addition, Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers get 20 GB of online storage where users can easy share files. When Adobe releases any new versions, Adobe Creative Cloud subscribers can immediately use them.
These are just some of the major features that CS6 offers. Many of the other improvements are program-specific so you will need the latest Adobe Creative Suite training guides to fully put these features to good use. Mandi Pralle