Adobe Releases Creative Suite 5.5, Adds Support for iPad Apps to Photoshop CS5

092341 adobe cs 5 5 box family

Following on last month's announcement, Adobe today officially released Creative Suite 5.5, bringing a number of enhancements to the company's flagship multimedia applications.

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 delivers important advances in HTML5 and Flash authoring, enabling designers and developers to create compelling content and applications. Creative Suite 5.5 products also feature significant innovation in the areas of video production and editing. Finally, Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 delivers exciting new capabilities in the exploding area of digital publishing. With Creative Suite 5.5 content authors worldwide can deliver high-impact work to multiple platforms, operating systems, Web browsers, smartphones and tablets - including Android, BlackBerry Tablet OS, and Apple iOS devices.

Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 is available in a variety of versions packaging various component applications together to meet users' needs, and upgrades from earlier version of Creative Suite (including CS5) are available at discounted prices.

As noted by Adobe's John Nack, Adobe has also pushed out a free Photoshop 12.0.4 update for existing Creative Suite 5 users, bringing support for Adobe's new iPad apps designed to extend the functionality of Photoshop.

The 12.0.4 update enables specially designed apps on tablets, smartphones, and PCs to communicate with and control interaction with Photoshop CS5 (Located in the File menu: Remote Connections). Now you can be creative on other devices and instantly incorporate what you create into Photoshop. You must install the 12.0.4 update to activate a remote connection between Photoshop CS5 and any apps that Adobe or third-party developers create to interact with Photoshop. For example, Photoshop CS5 must be updated to 12.0.4 to interact with three new iPad apps that Adobe has designed to work with it - Adobe Nav, Adobe Color Lava, and Adobe Eazel. Available on the App Store.

Those three apps, Eazel, Nav, and Color Lava, are not yet available in the App Store, but should presumably appear relatively soon.

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Dark Blue and Orange

iPhone 17 Release Date, Pre-Orders, and What to Expect

Thursday August 28, 2025 4:08 am PDT by
An iPhone 17 announcement is a dead cert for September 2025 – Apple has already sent out invites for an "Awe dropping" event on Tuesday, September 9 at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The timing follows Apple's trend of introducing new iPhone models annually in the fall. At the event, Apple is expected to unveil its new-generation iPhone 17, an all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17...
iPhone 17 Pro Iridescent Feature 2

iPhone 17 Pro Clear Case Leak Reveals Three Key Changes

Sunday August 31, 2025 1:26 pm PDT by
Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 17 series on Tuesday, September 9, and last-minute rumors about the devices continue to surface. The latest info comes from a leaker known as Majin Bu, who has shared alleged images of Apple's Clear Case for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, or at least replicas. Image Credit: @MajinBuOfficial The images show three alleged changes compared to Apple's iP...
xiaomi apple ad india

Apple and Samsung Push Back Against Xiaomi's Bold India Ads

Friday August 29, 2025 4:54 am PDT by
Apple and Samsung have reportedly issued cease-and-desist notices to Xiaomi in India for an ad campaign that directly compares the rivals' devices to Xiaomi's products. The two companies have threatened the Chinese vendor with legal action, calling the ads "disparaging." Ads have appeared in local print media and on social media that take pot shots at the competitors' premium offerings. One...
iphone 16 pro ghost hand

iPhone 17 Pro: 5 Reasons Not to Upgrade This Year

Monday September 1, 2025 4:35 am PDT by
Apple will launch its new iPhone 17 series this month, and the iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to get a new design for the rear casing and the camera area. But more significant changes to the lineup are not expected until next year, when the iPhone 18 models arrive. If you're thinking of trading in your iPhone for this year's latest, consider the following features rumored to be coming to...
iOS 18 on iPhone Arrow Down

Apple Preparing iOS 18.7 for iPhones as iOS 26 Release Date Nears

Sunday August 31, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by
Apple is preparing to release iOS 18.7 for compatible iPhone models, according to evidence of the update in the MacRumors visitor logs. We expect iOS 18.7 to be released in September, alongside iOS 26. The update will likely include fixes for security vulnerabilities, but little else. iOS 18.7 will be one of the final updates ever released for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR,...

Top Rated Comments

Osnabrueck Avatar
187 months ago
I've been using Adobe's software professionally since… oh gosh, Photoshop 3 I think, and possibly Illustrator 5 — even older versions while I was studying. I haven't been excited by upgrades to either of these for a long time.

InDesign, being a somewhat less mature program, has staggered some useful feature releases over the years and kept me forking out money for upgrades until CS4. They're all pretty decent programs, but upgrades are becoming far from essential or exciting IMO.


We're in the same boat. Been working professionally with Adobe software since PS3.

Adobe has been charting a 'bloaty/crufty' path for about a decade, and to date I can still accomplish the majority of my day-to-day design work with Photoshop 5 and Illustrator 8.

That being said - they still make the best design tools in the business and I have yet to run into a colleague who feels as though Adobe software has 'Bad UI.' To the contrary - their UI tends to be top-of-class when it comes to sheer usability.

I don't get excited about these updates - We're still on CS4 at the office and none of us really feel that we're missing out.

It's been good to see InDesign mature into full-featured Quark killer. I'm still looking forward to a day where Flash behaves like an Adobe product and not a massively retrofitted piece of 90s animation software.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bugfaceuk Avatar
187 months ago
I am excited about this update. Can't wait for the set of free ipad apps. Typical MacRumors anti-Adobe whiners...you must not actually be a professional designer of any real sort, right.

Adobe Junkie here... but one that is failing to get excited about 5.5.. The main tools I use are Flash, AE, & PS. What's getting you excited so I can muster an excuse to go buy the upgrade?
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
chrono1081 Avatar
187 months ago
This coming from a student, right?

Nope. Although I am a student at the moment its simply because I returned to school. I have plenty of professional experience and have been using Photoshop since version 5 and have used every single version since. Photoshop isn't the only Adobe product I use either I use Illustrator and After Effects and occasionally have to use Flash.

Sorry you have such a superiority complex.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Steve121178 Avatar
187 months ago
I wonder when Adobe is going to wake up to the fact that people aren't going to pay almost $2K for a software package that has competitors offering products almost as good and sometimes better for less than $100. I hope people are waking up to this reality...

You have to be joking, right?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
amorya Avatar
187 months ago
I wonder when Adobe is going to wake up to the fact that people aren't going to pay almost $2K for a software package that has competitors offering products almost as good and sometimes better for less than $100. I hope people are waking up to this reality...

Thing is, people are. Not home users, but there's enough professional users who wouldn't even consider anything that is not Photoshop that they can charge that kind of money.

If people really weren't going to pay $2k, they'd drop the price.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SpinThis! Avatar
187 months ago
Even on my Mid-2009 17" MBP, CS5.1 and CS5.5 are both much faster than the previous generation of Adobe software.
yeh CS5 is way faster than previous versions. I don't mind feature "bloat." Just because you don't use a feature doesn't mean it's worthless. If a new features saves a designer a couple minutes of work a day, you've easily made your money back.

People who usually complain about the price aren't professionals. Professionals use their tools, get paid using them, and write them off at the end of the year on their taxes.

Adobe Junkie here... but one that is failing to get excited about 5.5.. The main tools I use are Flash, AE, & PS. What's getting you excited so I can muster an excuse to go buy the upgrade?
After Effects has the excellent warp stabilizer (helps with rolling shutter on DSLRs and can all kinds of new tricks), new camera tools and camera blur effects, etc.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)