Adobe announces Creative Suite 3

Adobe's Creative Suite 3 will ship in April in six packages

Adobe has announced the specifications for its Creative Suite 3 (CS3), the first new version of the Creative Suite package in nearly two years. 

The multimedia software firm said that the suite will ship in April in six packages containing various configurations of 13 applications.

These include Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. The suite also includes new versions of Premiere and Dreamweaver.

The latest Creative Suite software has been eagerly anticipated by graphics professionals, particularly those who use the latest Apple Mac computers.

The CS3 releases will be the first to be written in the Universal Binary format, allowing the applications to run natively on the Intel processors that have been shipping on all new Macs since last Autumn.

Previous versions of Photoshop had to be translated from PowerPC code, hampering the performance of the new Macs.

CS3 will also feature the first Vista-compatible versions of many of Adobe's flagship applications. Windows XP will still be supported as well.

The six packages will be geared towards different areas, such as a design package for graphics and layout professionals, a web package that includes Flash development tools, and a video suite that features Premiere and After Effects.

Users can also purchase a premium Master Collection package with all 13 of the major applications from each of the other packages.

Prices range from $999 for the basic web package, to $2,499 for the Master Collection.