After months of teasers, Adobe has officially announced Create Suite 5. The flagship Adobe package will be available in five different editions – Design Premium, Web Premium, Production Premium, Design Standard and Master Collection.

At the heart of Creative Suite 5 is Photoshop CS 5 which is now available as a 64-bit version for Mac enabling the industry standard image editor to take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM for enhanced performance. But the latest version is about more than just performance, and there are plenty of new features to get excited about.

Content-Aware Fill is one of the undeniable stars of the show, making it possible to quickly remove unwanted elements from an image and automatically and intelligently replace them with matching background content. A new Repoussé feature can be used to quickly and easily create 3D objects through extrusion, while the After Effects feature Puppet Wrap can now be used in Photoshop. A new Mixer brush closely mimics real-world paint, enabling users to mix colours on a wet palette and apply paint effects across layers.

InDesign includes and enhanced selection tool which allows for easier frame positioning and rotating, and support for different sized pages within the same document will be welcomed by many. Interactive content is now significantly easier to create and does not require Flash code to be written. Illustrator’s Perspective Grid can be used to draw objects in three dimensions, but it is also possible to work with flat images and drag them to the grid for automatic perspective creation. The new Bristle Brush allows for the creation of effects that very closely mimic natural media and a high level of control is available through the customisation of bristle type, stiffness, thickness and opacity.

Dreamweaver also sees the introduction of a range of new features while old favourites are enhanced. Content management systems such as WordPress are now supported and CSS Inspect can be used to view CSS properties when viewing web pages. Live View provides an accurate preview of how pages will look in a browser, complete with database and server driven content.

A key new feature of Flash CS5 is the ability to save a project as an iPhone app and general improvements to ActionScript make coding much easier. Also included are Flash Builder for designing Adobe AIR apps and Flash Catalyst for desktop programs. Performance is greatly enhanced in After Effects CS5 and a host of new effects and colour management tools are available to develop your work. Premier Pro CS5 also sees marked performance improvements.

Adobe CS5 should be available in May.

• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection is expected to be US$2599
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium is expected to be US$1899
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Standard is expected to be US$1299
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Web Premium is expected to be US$1799
• Adobe Creative Suite 5 Production Premium is expected to be US$1699