Adobe MAX, The Creativity Conference, opened today in Los Angeles and we announced some big news: a major update to Adobe Creative Cloud, including fully integrated cross-device collaboration, community and publishing capabilities; and the next generation of Adobe’s pro creative desktop applications.

Here are some of the details:

Adobe Unveils Major Update to Creative Cloud

A milestone update to Adobe Creative Cloud simplifies the entire creative process with new versions of desktop tools; services that take publishing content to the next level; and capabilities that make it easier than ever to collaborate and share work on a worldwide basis. Behance, the world’s leading online creative community with over 1.4 million creatives in the network, is now central to the Creative Cloud experience.

Adobe’s desktop tools, previously known as Creative Suite (CS) are now branded CC to reflect that they are an integral part of Creative Cloud and have been reinvented to support a more intuitive, connected way of creating.  All of Adobe’s fan-favorite desktop apps have been updated: InDesign CC, Illustrator CC, Dreamweaver CC, Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC, Muse CC and more.  Indeed our most iconic application, a powerful new version of Photoshop – Adobe Photoshop CC – will anchor this update to Creative Cloud.  In all, Creative Cloud will now consist of more than 30 tools and services that enable professional grade content creation and delivery across print, web, mobile apps, video and photography.

This major update is expected to be available, around the globe, in June.

Adobe Accelerates Shift to the Cloud

Moving forward, the company also announced that it will focus creative software development efforts on Creative Cloud.  While Adobe Creative Suite 6 products will continue to be supported and available for purchase, there are no plans for future releases of Creative Suite or other CS products. By focusing development on Creative Cloud, Adobe can accelerate the rate of innovation that it can deliver to creatives worldwide.

We thought long and hard before doing this, and we understand that this transition may be hard for some people.  As our teams work to deliver a constant stream of innovation for Creative Cloud members, we are actively engaging with customers to answer their questions — in forums like Creative Cloud community. And attractive pricing plans and promotions for individuals, teams and enterprise customers are being offered to make the transition to Creative Cloud really easy.  More information can be found at on our Creative Cloud plans page.

More detailed information about today’s major Creative Cloud update can be found in the full press release here.

And if you have specific questions, chances are you’ll find an answer in our comprehensive FAQ.

You probably heard back in December that Adobe acquired Behance, the leading online social media platform that enables creative professionals to showcase and share their work with millions. We wanted to share some great news for our Creative Cloud complete members.

For quite a while now, we’ve been watching the creative process evolve. Increasingly, the way in which we do our work looks a lot more like the way we interact socially. We seek feedback from networks of our trusted peers. We make our work public to build our reputations. And we thrive on the work of others for constant inspiration.

That’s why I’m thrilled that Behance is joining Adobe, and confident that together we’ll offer a truly integrated service to Creative Cloud members that spans the creative process. All Creative Cloud members will soon gain access to the base Behance capabilities (like portfolio creation and community features) while paid Creative Cloud members will also have access to premium capabilities (like Behance ProSite).

Building creative tools that empower you to do your best work has always been at the heart of our vision at Adobe. When we launched Creative Cloud, we gave you access to Adobe’s world-class creative tools and services, and a commitment to make your membership more and more valuable over time. We’ve delivered on that promise by releasing updates to our products faster than we ever have before. Just last week, we added new digital publishing services and training features, and launched file synchronization and sharing capabilities.

Adding Behance to Creative Cloud accelerates our efforts to enable a more open and collaborative creative community. As we start to roll out increasingly integrated workflows across the services, you’ll start to see the benefits of combining the creation of content with the ability to seek feedback, showcase your work and distribute it across devices.

I believe the essence of the creative process is to inspire, engage and invoke emotion. With Behance and Creative Cloud, we’ll give you the power to not only create, but to collaborate and connect with a strong and vibrant community. I’d like to personally welcome the Behance team and community to the Adobe family.

David