At the Adobe Max conference 2017 in Las Vegas, the company unveiled the next generation of its Creative Cloud. The suite includes four new applications, which are the Adobe XD CC, Adobe Dimension CC, Character Animator CC, and an improved version of the Photoshop Lightroom CC. Along with these, Adobe also announced some major updates to its flagship application Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, and Premiere Pro CC. It also announced an ongoing expansion of the stock service. These updates are all powered by Adobe Sensei, an artificial intelligence and machine learning platform.
At the event, Shanmugh Natarajan, Managing Director, Adobe India said, “For over three decades, Adobe has been committed to delivering innovations that have redefined the creative landscape across the world. Every year, Adobe MAX is attended by thousands of creative professionals, who gather to get inspired, learn new skills, and hear about how our latest innovations can help them achieve things, bigger and better. Today, we are excited to announce the launch of the next generation of Creative Cloud, which comprises of amazing new applications – Adobe XD CC for experience design, Adobe Dimension CC for 2D to 3D compositing, and Character Animator CC for 2D animation. At Adobe MAX 2017, we have also announced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC as an all new cloud-based photography service and expansion of Adobe Stock, along with enhanced features across our flagship applications including Photoshop CC, InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, and Premiere Pro CC.
India is a strategic market for Adobe – both from a business as well as innovation standpoint. With one-third of our global engineering headcount based out of India, our labs spread across Noida and Bengaluru comprise of the best industry talent and drive a substantial portion of our core R&D efforts across Creative Cloud. Our India team is proud to have contributed to the announcements and technology sneaks at Adobe MAX this year, and continues to further our company’s innovation charter.
Given the current digital transformation in India, the role of creative content in delivering amazing experiences today, is more important than ever – specifically across aspects like UX and use of technologies like animation and Virtual Reality. We are confident that our innovations announced at Adobe MAX 2017 will deliver great value for creative professionals that are passionate about leveraging latest technologies to push the boundaries of creativity.”
Let’s take a look at the changes the updates brings to these individual applications.
Adobe XD CC
Adobe says that it developed the Adobe XD CC in an open partnership with the design community through a public beta. Adobe XD is the all-in-one cross-platform solution for designing and prototyping mobile apps and websites. Essentially, Adobe says that the application delivers the necessary speed, precision and quality to go from static comps or wireframes to interactive prototypes in minutes.
Adobe Dimension CC
Previously known as the Project Felix, Dimension CC application gives graphic designers the power and flexibility of 3D with the ease of working with 2D. Basically, Dimension CC enables graphic designers to create and iterate on photorealistic 3D images in real-world settings.
Adobe Character Animator CC
The Character Animator is a new product launched by Adobe today. Previously in beta,, this 2D animation tool helps bring still image artwork from Photoshop or Illustrator to life. New features on the application include pose-to-pose blending, new physics behaviors and visual puppet controls. Adobe Sensei also helps improve lip-sync capability by accurately matching mouth shapes with spoken sounds.
Photoshop Lightroom CC
Besides these, Adobe also announced an all-new Lightroom CC, which is cloud-centric and offers features like editing, organizing, storing and sharing photos. With the improvement, Adobe claims to have made Lightroom CC’s interface more intuitive, enabling powerful editing in full resolution, and automatically synchronizes changes across mobile, desktop and the web.
Further, Lightroom CC now also has features like searchable keywords that are automatically applied without the hassle of tagging. Sharing images on social media through the application has also been made easy.
Other than these, Adobe also announced performance and editing updates to Photoshop Lightroom Classic CC, previously known as Photoshop Lightroom CC, which continues to focus on a more traditional desktop-first workflow.
In addition to these, Adobe has also integrated assets, expanded services and education resources to its suite.
Adobe Stock
As per today’s announcement, Adobe Stock has expanded its asset collection with the introduction of new motion graphics templates for video users in Premiere CC and After Effects CC.
Adobe Typekit
Adobe Typekit will now use AI-based Adobe Sensei to provide new way to search for fonts. Users can submit their own photos of type and find similar fonts available on Typekit. Adobe says that the new Typekit visual search technology is also the first Adobe Sensei-powered service that will be available to third-party developers.
Inspiration and Education
Adobe has also announced additional investment and expanded resources, which includes the launch of AdobeLIVE on Behance, a live streaming channel. The channel now features 24 hours of weekly programming, and will expand to 24/7 programming starting in 2018.
Pricing and Availability
Updates to Creative Cloud desktop software are now available, including membership plans for individuals, students, teams, educational institutions, government agencies and enterprises. Adobe’s mobile apps are available for download from Apple App Store and Google Play now.
As part of the MAX release, Adobe is also offering a new series of photography plans.
For photographers that want an all-in-one plan that offers the full benefits of the Lightroom CC service plus the transformative power of Photoshop, the Creative Cloud Photography plan with 1TB includes Lightroom CC, Lightroom for mobile and web, Photoshop CC, Adobe Spark with premium features, Adobe Portfolio, and 1 TB of cloud storage ($19.99 per month, which is Rs 1,300 approximately, but available at $14.99 per month, that is Rs 975 approximately, for the first year for existing Creative Cloud Photography customers).
The all-new Lightroom CC plan addresses the needs of photographers who want a cloud-based photography service for editing, organizing, storing and sharing their photos from wherever they are, and includes Lightroom CC, Lightroom for mobile and web, Adobe Spark with premium features, Adobe Portfolio, and 1 TB of cloud storage ($9.99 per month or about Rs 650 per month).
Lightroom CC has also been added to the existing Creative Cloud Photography plan with 20 GB of storage to help users get started with the new service. This plan remains at $9.99/month and includes Lightroom CC, Lightroom for mobile and web, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop CC, Adobe Spark with premium features, Adobe Portfolio, and 20 GB of cloud storage.
Lightroom CC has also been added to Creative Cloud All Apps plans with 100 GB as part of the annual subscription price.
Also, for the first time since the introduction of Creative Cloud five years ago, a modest adjustment in commercial pricing will take effect for North America customers only on March 1 or at existing customers’ next contract renewal. Until March 1, new subscribers will benefit from current pricing and not see any pricing adjustment until their first annual contract renewal. Pricing will vary by plans – for example, CC for Individuals All Apps annual plan will increase by 6 percent from $49.99 (Rs 3,253 approximately) to $52.99 (Rs 3,400 approximately).
