Day 1 of Adobe MAX wrapped up yesterday with a lot of buzz and news. We kicked things off in the morning with our keynote session, “A Creative Evolution.” We announced a slew of news as well, including all-new updates to our Creative Cloud apps – Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Edge Tools & Services, and more! If you missed the keynote, watch the playback available here or catch the community-curated version captured in Storify by MAX attendee, @GayaneAdourian.

Even more exciting, we shared an early look at a number of new explorations:

• Project Mighty – A Creative Cloud pen
• Project Napolean – Complementary to Mighty, Napolean is a digital ruler designed to bring back some of the feeling of drawing with analog tools like the t-square and triangle
• Project Context – Reimagines the editorial room for publishers

For more on MAX, join the #AdobeMAX conversation.

Today we’re excited to kick off audience voting for the Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) Aspire Awards, our annual competition inviting youth around the world to creatively express their vision for driving change in local communities.

Over the past 12 weeks, we’ve received more than 1,100 submissions from 51 countries – a record high! We’ve narrowed the field to 20 finalists in each of our content categories, including animation, documentary, music video, narrative, poetry, photography, collage, and collaboration.

Beginning today through June 8, finalist entries will be showcased on our Aspire Awards website. We encourage you – our community members and supporters – to get involved by helping to select our Audience Award winners. You can cast your vote by viewing, commenting on, sharing, “liking,” tweeting, and retweeting your favorite entries.

During the audience voting period, an international panel of professionals working in art, film, and other
creative fields will additionally select first- and second-place winners in each content category and a special category for this year – the UNICEF Challenge – which invites entrants to develop a youth-led project utilizing innovative digital tools and/or digital engagement to bring positive change to their communities.

Winners in our standard content categories are eligible to win software, hardware, and a charitable donation to a cause of their choice. In addition, the UNICEF Challenge winners will receive grants valued at up to $40,000(USD), dedicated to implementing the winning project proposals. Winners’ entries from all categories will be featured at distinguished exhibitions, including international film festivals and other arts organization events.

We’ll announce winners in all categories in mid-June and celebrate the winners and their achievements at the 2013 AYV Summit in August.

To learn more about our commitment to igniting creative confidence in youth, visit our Adobe Youth Voices website. And be sure to watch this space to keep up with what’s happening with the AYV Aspire Awards!

After gathering your comments and feedback from the Lightroom 4 Beta, the Lightroom team is excited to share that starting today, Lightroom 4 is available for just US$149 for the full version and US$79 for the upgrade. The Lightroom 4 Beta was about validating the work that was done to leverage performance and image quality enhancements, like the ability to geotag photos and view them on a map, the new book module or entirely new features like enhanced video support. Thanks to fantastic community feedback, the team made over 800 tweaks.

To learn more about Lightroom 4 and how to purchase it, visit the Lightroom blog.

Today Adobe announced the free public beta of Photoshop Lightroom 4, the digital photography workflow solution for both professional and amateur photographers. Available for Windows and Mac as a free download from Adobe Labs, the Lightroom 4 beta previews new workflow efficiencies, and features for image processing and management.

New features in Lightroom 4 beta include:

• Refined technology for shadow and highlight processing
• Native support for videos shot on DSLRs, point-and-shoot cameras and smartphones
• The ability to create beautiful photo books from within Lightroom
• An intuitive Map module with tagging controls for assigning locations
• Soft proofing in the Develop module
• Direct emailing of images from Lightroom

We encourage photographers to try the beta release and share feedback; there are a few avenues to do this:

• Submit comments at the community-powered feedback site: http://feedback.photoshop.com
• Connect with the Lightroom team directly: Facebook (www.facebook.com/lightroom); Twitter (www.twitter.com/lightroom); The Adobe Lightroom blog (http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal)

We’re really pleased with the new capabilities and expect that you will be, too. We look forward to your thoughts and comments!

Congratulations to students and educators in the Adobe Youth Voices program for another year of great work!

Adobe Youth Voices Live! events are held in 6 cities in the US, in Canada, the UK and India. The celebrations are the culmination of a year’s study in the Adobe Youth Voices program and are designed to give students the opportunity to showcase the work they have created with their teachers and mentor throughout the program year.

Projects for the events are selected from various pieces of multimedia including film, animation, print, photography and radio.

In addition to recognition from the local community, the Adobe Youth Voices Live! events have already generated fantastic news coverage; broadcast footage from local television stations in San Francisco and New York City and print and online news coverage, including an article in the New York Times.

See the amazing work students of the Adobe Youth Voices program have created here: http://youthvoices.adobe.com/