The Adobe Creative Suite package is one that I use regularly, on a daily basis in fact. Today, Adobe announced a brand new version, CS2, offering several new features and facilities in the different packages of the software suite. I’m going to look at a few of them and write a quick preview of what you can expect. There are changes and improvements to Photoshop, Illustrator and more. I’m only going to consider the first two, as in my secluded world those are the only two I regularly use.

What’s new in Photoshop?
Firstly, the main new feature is the fantastic vanishing point addition. Put simply, it lets you extend and clone elements of an image to alter and change it while maintaining the original aspect and vanishing point of the picture. This is an example from the Adobe website:

These are the other main new features:

Multiple layer control
Select and move, group, transform, and warp objects more intuitively by clicking and dragging directly on the canvas. Easily align objects with Smart Guides.

Smart Objects
Perform nondestructive scaling, rotating, and warping of raster and vector graphics with Smart Objects. Even preserve the editability of high-resolution vector data from Adobe Illustrator software.

Multi-image digital camera raw file processing
Accelerate your raw file workflow with simultaneous processing of multiple images while you continue working. Import images into your choice of formats, including Digital Negative (DNG); enjoy automatic adjustments to exposure, shadows, and brightness and contrast; and much more.

Image Warp
Easily create packaging mock-ups or other dimensional effects by wrapping an image around any shape or stretching, curling, and bending an image using Image Warp.

What’s new in Illustrator?
The new Live Trace feature will allow you to scan in a hand drawn image, and convert it automatically to a vector - ready for editing as you would a file drawn in the program itself. This will be a huge time saver for many illustrators, as it saves the whole process of outlining a graphic in the program after it has been scanned in. Hopefully it will work as well in practice as it seems to in the below preview:

Other new additions to the program include:

Live Paint
Apply color to any region or edge and use overlapping paths to create new shapes with the Live Paint tool, which intuitively colors artwork and automatically detects and corrects gaps.

Control palette
Discover new features and find existing features faster in the context-sensitive Control palette. Accessing selection-based tools from a single location eliminates the need for multiple palettes.

Custom workspaces
Work more efficiently and optimize your screen area using custom workspaces that display only the palettes you need for a specific task. Save, share, or access any workspace at any time or use workspace templates.

Photoshop layer comp support
Control the visibility of layer comps in linked, embedded, or opened Photoshop files from within Illustrator.

There are so many other new features, it’s impossible to name them all. Have a look over here at how the new upgrade will benefit you. You can upgrade for only $350 as well, so it’s not that much of a price hit