Adobe MAX: Software heavyweight responds to digital change

Adobe MAX, one of the most anticipated creative conferences of the year, has kicked off today in Los Angeles, and sees the company making a number of key announcements while also embracing all things creative.

This year's event showcases how Adobe is gearing its offerings toward a world where mobility is an unstoppable trend, collaborative tools are more coveted than ever before, and unique, quality content is king [link to other Adobe article].

The event sees more than 7,000 attendees from a number of different backgrounds and persuasions, coming together to learn more about Adobe and how to maximise the tools in their arsenal.

Over the three-day event, Adobe will highlight a number of updates and additions to its Creative Cloud offering, including new mobile apps, additions to the desktop tools, and extended Adobe Stock offerings.

This year, Adobe has also invited various individuals to talk about their own experiences in the creative field, including Baz Luhrmann, feature film director; Brandon Stanton, Humans of New York founder and photographer; Maria Kalman, illustrator and writer; and Elle Luna, designer and author.

Looking to enable people to 'create and share their work from anywhere' Adobe has added two new mobile apps to Creative Cloud: Photoshop Fix and Capture CC. Both are available for free now from the Apple app and Google Play store.

Photoshop Fix brings retouching and restoration focused image editing to mobile devices – and will be first available on the iPad and iPhone, with Android coming later this year.

The Capture CC app combines the capabilities of other (previously separate apps) Adobe Brush, Adobe Shape, Adobe Color and Adobe Hue. The captured design asset can be used as a brush, shape or color theme for professional work.

As well as the introduction of these two apps, Adobe has updated other essential connected Creative Cloud mobile apps, including Photoshop Mix, Photoshop Sketch, Illustrator Draw, Comp CC and Premiere Clip.

Ensuring the Creative Cloud experience is cohesive across devices and apps is Adobe's patented CreativeSync technology.

This technology syncs creative assets such as files, fonts, photos, vector graphics, brushes, colours, settings, metadata and more.

It enables users to save all assets created with Adobe mobile apps to Creative Cloud Libraries.

These libraries can be accessed across desktop and mobile apps, and shared with anyone who has a Creative Cloud membership.

This empowers individuals to work on their own projects across both desktop and mobile applications, and also collaborate with other users, keep branding consistent within a company, and create style guides to use across projects.

Bryan Lamkin, Adobe Digital Media senior vice president and general manager, says, "With this latest release, we're giving our creative customers the freedom they need to work and be inspired from anywhere.

"Being connected to your assets, team and projects, at all times, is critical to today's designers.

"With this Creative Cloud update, Adobe's signature CreativeSync technology drives powerful connections between desktop and mobile apps as well as essential creative assets.

As well as improving the Creative Cloud mobile experience, Adobe has announced new features to its flagship CC desktop apps.

These include updates across nearly every Creative Cloud application for design, web, user experience (UX) design, video and photography.

For one, Adobe has added touch capabilities to Creative Cloud desktop applications, including Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC and Premiere Pro CC.

New Touch capabilities also include Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC and Character Animator optimised for Surface Pro, Windows tablets or Apple track pad devices.

Recognising the increasing power of video, Adobe has also brought in support for editing 4K to 8K footage, and advancements to colour correction and audio.

Furthermore, Adobe Stock, launched in June 2015 and already integrated into flagship products, will soon support the download and purchase of video content.

Adobe Stock also adds the ability to search for and browse assets directly from Creative Cloud Libraries, including new support for accessing stock within Muse CC, Dreamweaver CC and Flash Professional CC.

In addition, Adobe Stock is delivering new capabilities for businesses, offering pooled licenses at no extra cost to Creative Cloud for team customers, as well as additional support for license management, reporting tools, and unlimited usage of stock content in large print runs.

Adobe Portfolio, that will be free with any Adobe Creative Cloud plan, enables users to create and customise their portfolio sites, including responsive web design to ensure content is optimised for all screen sizes.

Portfolio is built on Behance, the world's largest creative community with more than 5.6 million members.

Users can sync Adobe Portfolio to their Behance Projects pages to engage with other creatives and maximise opportunities to get their work discovered.

Updates to Creative Cloud desktop software will ship to members before the end of the year.