Adobe Creativity Goes Mobile
October 7, 2014

Adobe Creativity Goes Mobile

LOS ANGELES     At Adobe MAX 2014, Adobe announced it is shipping what it calls “a milestone release” of Creative Cloud that transforms how creatives work across desktops and devices.

This major release includes significant feature updates to 13 essential CC desktop tools that link to a new family of integrated mobile apps. In addition, the latest versions of Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC include breakthroughs in Touch support for Microsoft Windows 8 and Surface Pro 3. Central to this release is an all-new Creative Profile that drives deep connections between CC desktop tools and nine new mobile apps that extend the power of the Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator and Premiere franchises onto mobile devices. 

Adobe also launched a public beta of a Creative SDK that enables the delivery of mobile apps that connect to Creative Cloud, kick-starting a new era of third-party app innovation for creative developers. The company also introduced Creative Talent Search, connecting creatives around the world with job opportunities from top brands and companies. These innovations and more were demonstrated in the keynote session at Adobe MAX.

All-New Creative Profile is Member’s Creative Identity Within Creative Cloud

This Creative Cloud release includes a new Creative Profile that connects creatives to their work, to the assets they use to create, and the communities that matter to them - no matter where they are. Files, photos, colors, brushes, shapes, fonts, textstyles, graphics, and any other assets are always at their fingertips. This new Creative Profile moves with creatives from app-to-app, and device-to-device, so assets automatically appear when they need them, in the right context.

Mobile Apps Deliver New Creative Cloud Connections 

This release includes radical new connections between essential CC desktop tools and a new family of mobile apps that extend the power of Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and Lightroom onto mobile devices.  The line-up, includes:

In the Photoshop family, Photoshop Sketch lets creatives draw with new built-in expressive brushes and enables an integrated workflow with Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC. Updates to Photoshop Mix extend precise mobile compositing capabilities and now includes enhanced integration with Photoshop CC, as well as a new iPhone version. A new Lightroom Mobile app builds on integrated desktop and mobile workflows and includes features to allow clients, friends or family to select favorites and leave comments for photos shared online; and GPS information from iPhone photos now syncs with Lightroom desktop.

In the Illustrator family, Illustrator Draw (formerly Adobe Ideas) gives users access to their favorite vector drawing tools and features in a modern, streamlined interface, high-fidelity integration with Illustrator CC and enhanced support for Adobe Ink and Slide. Illustrator Line, a precision drawing app, gives creatives new features for perfectly distributing shapes as they draw, plus the ability to send sketches to Illustrator CC, where they have full access to their original vector paths for editing. 

In the Premiere family, the brand new Adobe Premiere Clip app easily transforms the video shot on iPhone or iPad into edited videos that are simple to share. Aspiring videographers can then send their compositions to Adobe Premiere Pro CC for advanced editing and finishing.

Adobe also introduced a new category of “capture” apps to create designs and bring them into creative workflows: 

  • Adobe Brush CC lets designers craft unique brushes, on iPad or iPhone, to use in Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC or Adobe Illustrator Sketch. Any photograph can be made into a brush, so creatives can quickly and playfully design beautiful, high-quality brushes that can range from photorealistic, to organic, painterly or graphic. 
  • Adobe Shape CC is a simple, unique and fun way to capture and create shapes on iPhone or iPad, wherever inspiration strikes. A high-contrast photo of anything - a chair, a pet, or a hand-drawn font - is converted into vector art that can be used immediately in Illustrator CC and Adobe Illustrator Line via Creative Cloud Libraries.  
  • Adobe Color CC (formerly Adobe Kuler) allows creatives to capture colors and save them as themes that are immediately available in other Adobe applications, including Illustrator CC and Photoshop CC .
  • These mobile apps work with all Creative Cloud plans, giving everyone – from freelancers, to creatives in large organizations – access to all the benefits of a deeply integrated mobile and desktop workflow, connected via their Creative Profile. Adobe also launched the public beta of a Creative SDK that powers the delivery of new 3rd party mobile apps that connect to Creative Cloud. Adobe Creative SDK is available at: creativesdk.adobe.com. 

New Features For Essential CC Desktop Tools

This Creative Cloud release includes powerful new features for Adobe’s flagship creative desktop tools. Highlights include: Touch support on Windows 8 devices for key design applications; new 3D print features and enhanced Mercury Graphics Engine performance for Photoshop CC; a new Curvature tool in Illustrator CC; interactive EPUB support in InDesign CC; SVG and Synchronized Text support in Muse CC; GPU-optimized playback for viewing high resolution 4K and UltraHD footage in Premiere Pro CC; and HiDPI and new 3D support in After Effects CC.  Through a member’s Creative Profile Adobe is driving frictionless creative workflows, with CC desktop tools able to access powerful new mobile apps and services. Building on the success of Creative Cloud capabilities such as file sharing, Behance and TypeKit, new services, available today, include:

  • Creative Cloud Market is a collection of high-quality, curated content that’s freely accessible to Creative Cloud members. Access and use thousands of professionally crafted files, including user interfaces, patterns, icons, brushes and vector shapes, to speed through desktop and mobile projects.  
  • Creative Cloud Libraries is a powerful asset management service that lets creatives easily access and create with colors, brushes, text styles, and vector images through Creative Cloud desktop, mobile apps and services. Creative Cloud Libraries connects desktop tools like Photoshop CC and Illustrator CC to each other -- and to companion mobile apps. 
  • Creative Cloud Extract is a cloud-based service that reinvents the Photoshop CC comp-to-code workflow for web designers and developers, letting them share and unlock vital design information from a PSD file (such as colors, fonts and CSS) to use when coding mobile and desktop designs.

All-New Talent Search Connects Creatives with Job Opportunities

Adobe also launched Creative Talent Search today. Talent Search connects creatives across the globe with job opportunities from top brands and companies. Hiring managers using Talent Search are able to use advanced discovery tools to find the right talent for their job – for example, finding experts in Photoshop, who live in a specific city, and have worked in automotive design is easier than ever. Custom algorithms recommend candidates for roles and get smarter the more a recruiter uses the system. Also, public postings will advertise job opportunities to the millions of creatives on Behance. More information is available at: https://www.behance.net/talentsearch.

These updates to Creative Cloud are expected to be available to Creative Cloud members by the end of the day as part of their membership at no additional cost. The new and updated mobile apps are free to everyone.