Every so often we like to keep you bang up to date with the news from Adobe and there release dates for Photoshop CS5. As its part of a suite of releases, then we tend to have to make assumptions that it will be ready with the suite (this isnt always the case).

You may hear that CS5 will be out before the end of summer. That’s awfully vague as who knows whether we even get a summer this year! Truth is it was planned for release early 2010. Realiity is that it will now be the summer.

This site is full of CS5 sneak peeks. We can all guess that Photoshop will gain more 3D and animation capabilities, but what else? In Photoshop CS5, brushes will be a lot more intuitive and realistic – very similar to the way they function in Corel Painter. There is a 3D element to using brushes that will allow you to alter the angle at which a brush is “held” and also the pressure of each brushstroke (in a way that much more closely resembles reality than CS4 brushes). I for one am both excited and skeptical about this function… I’m fostering a new love for digital painting, and am still getting comfortable with the concept, so you can understand my trepidation at having to relearn to use Photoshop brushes. Like all new technology, I suppose it will just take some getting used to.

Taking a deaper look at the Adobe Cs5 suite we also have Flash in CS5. This will aparently be able to create games and interfaces directly for the iPhone, as well have have improved ActionScripting functions, and, of course, changes to the interface. Since I am a bit of a Flash noob, I’ll take this opportunity to link to some content written by Adobe about known problems with Flash CS4, corrections to those problems, and new features to be added here.

Another big change with CS5 is that it will be Intel-compatible only. PowerPC compatability is not being developed for CS5. Adobe seems to have followed Apple’s lead on this change. It’s been speculated that the reason for this change is that if a consumer isn’t hasn’t updated their hardware in over four years (when Apple made the switch), they aren’t likely to change their software, either.

I’ve heard some talk of individuals ditching Adobe Creative Suite, because they only seem to use Photoshop. Of course until there is a definite price list and CS5 release date, then decisions may have to be on hold.