What Is Adobe Creative Cloud

 

What Is Adobe Creative Cloud?

Adobe Creative Cloud, often referred to as Adobe CC, is a comprehensive set of software applications available for both Mac and Windows computers. Used by creative professionals in a variety of fields, Adobe CC provides users with everything they need to create high-quality content for print, video, and online distribution.

A few Creative Cloud applications are available for use on iOS and Android devices. The programs can be used for a wide variety of both graphic and design applications ranging from creating flyers and brochures to full-motion videos, websites, presentations, and photography retouching. Many Creative Cloud applications can be bought individually, or as part of an all-inclusive suite.

What Is Adobe CC Used For?

Adobe CC is a powerful software that can be used for various tasks, especially in the areas of graphic design, video editing, web development, and photography. Many professionals use the applications because they are widely known to be some of the best in the field.

For example, Adobe Premiere Pro is a non-linear video editing tool that has been used to edit many different feature films and television shows since it was first released in 2003.

James Cameron's film Avatar, the highest-grossing movie of all time, used Premiere Pro for its daily and basic edits. Other popular films, like Deadpool and David Fincher's Gone Girl, also utilized the software for this purpose.

Adobe CC also includes applications for print design, newspapers such as the New York Times use InDesign from the Creative Cloud for this purpose, while virtually every major magazine publisher and website uses Photoshop.

What Does Adobe CC Do?

Adobe CC is an excellent tool for both web developers and coders as it provides a comprehensive suite of tools for building professional websites. For those who are less experienced in coding, this makes it possible to create websites without any prior coding knowledge.

This is because the software includes nearly anything that someone would need to build a website from scratch.

In addition to web development, Adobe CC can be used for a variety of other creative endeavors such as graphic design, video editing, and photography.

CC documents and projects can be stored in the cloud, which means they can be accessed from any device with an active Internet connection and shared with others.

How Much Does It Cost?

The cost of Adobe CC varies from $10 to $50 per month, depending upon the subscription selected. The different subscription options include:

·         Photography: This plan was created with photographers in mind, giving them access to Lightroom CC, Photoshop CC, and 1 TB or 20 GB of cloud storage for only $10 per month. As with all other Creative Cloud options, this is a subscription fee that is paid monthly. For the same price, users can choose to download just Lightroom CC with 1 TB of cloud storage.

·         Single App: The Single App subscription gives users access to one Creative Cloud desktop app and 100 GB of cloud storage for $20 per month.

·         All Apps: With the All Apps plan, Creative Cloud subscribers have access to the entire collection of more than 20 Creative Cloud desktop and mobile apps, as well as 100 GB of cloud storage, for about $50 per month. With so many apps at your disposal, this plan provides great value for creative professionals.

·         There are also special pricing plans available for businesses, schools, students, and teachers.

How to Download Adobe CC

Once a user has selected and paid for their ideal subscription plan, they are given the ability to download the relevant apps from their account dashboard.

So, for example, if a user pays for the Photography plan, they would be able to download both Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC from Adobe.com after signing in.

Did you know that you can access additional features like fonts from Adobe Typekit or royalty-free images directly from within the app?

Note that there are also mobile versions of CC apps available in the respective app stores on mobile devices.

If you want to download the mobile version of Photoshop, for example, you can find it in the iTunes App Store and log into your account.

How Many Computers Can It Be Installed On?

You can download and activate Adobe CC apps on up to two different computers per license. However, note that pricing is handled on a per-license basis as stated in Adobe's terms of service.

So, if two users working for the same business wanted to use an application like Photoshop, they would need to purchase two separate licenses. Having said that, both of those users could install Photoshop on two separate machines.

If you try to install a CC app on a third computer, the other two will be deactivated. But don't worry, you can still reactivate your license on one of the previous two computers.

What Apps Are Included?

The suite of more than 20 applications can be bought together or separately, depending on what you need. They are:

·         Acrobat is software that allows users to create, view, and edit documents in PDF format. Acrobat has two main components: Acrobat Professional or Professional Extended, which both allow users to create PDF files; and Reader, which allows users to read PDF files.

·         After Effects is software used by graphic designers to create digital animations and motion graphics.

·         Animate is perfect for animating interactive vector graphics for Adobe Flash, Adobe AIR, HTML5, and WebGL platforms. You can create all sorts of animations using Animate's vector animation tools, making it a great tool for web and app designers alike.

·         Flash Builder is an integrated development environment (IDE) used for developing Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and cross-platform desktop applications that run on the Adobe Flash platform.

·         Scout: A tool used to profile Flash-based SWF files. Adobe Scout makes it easy to identify and diagnose performance bottlenecks in Flash-based apps and games.

·         Audition: Adobe's digital audio editor. Note that many of the capabilities of a previous Adobe solution, SoundBooth, have been rolled into the Creative Cloud via Adobe Audition. Audition provides powerful tools for editing audio, including the ability to remove noise, add effects, and mix multiple audio tracks together.

·         Bridge: An organizational program that links the various parts of Creative Cloud together. Adobe Bridge makes it easy to manage your creative assets, including photos, videos, and fonts. Bridge also provides access to creative community resources, such as Behance and Typekit.

·         DreamWeaver: a code/GUI web development application that helps you create websites.

·         Illustrator: a vector graphics editor and illustration application that's often used in conjunction with Adobe Photoshop. Illustrator is great for creating logos, typesetting, and other graphic design tasks.

·         InCopy: A word processor that's used for writing stories and articles. Once the story or article is finished, it can be imported into a page layout created using InDesign.

·         Adobe InDesign: a desktop publishing software application. It is utilized in the creation of a variety publications like brochures, flyers, posters, presentations, books (both print and eBooks), magazines and newspapers. In addition, it has the ability to format content for digital publication on tablet devices through the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite.

·         Media Encoder is a powerful tool that helps you output video files into any desired format, so you can play them back on any device or share them with others. With Media Encoder, you can control the quality and size of your video files, and choose from a variety of popular formats.

·         Media Encoder is a powerful tool that helps you output video files into any desired format, so you can play them back on any device or share them with others. With Media Encoder, you can control the quality and size of your video files, and choose from a variety of popular formats.

·         Prelude is a great tool for importing and logging tapeless media. It makes the whole process a lot faster and easier.

·         SpeedGrade is an excellent tool for performing color correction on projects started in Premiere. It lets you get the perfect look for your project, and it's very easy to use.

• Dimension: a tool that allows users to create and render 3D images.
• Muse: a web design tool that enables designers to build websites without writing code.
• Photoshop: If you're looking for a powerful image editor that can do just about anything, Photoshop is the software for you. With Photoshop, you can perform all sorts of photo manipulations, like painting, drawing, measuring and navigation, selection, typing, and retouching. Photoshop also makes it easy to perform advanced color grading and adjustments, cropping, and more.
• Photoshop Lightroom is a photo processor and image organization tool that lets you quickly and easily edit your photos.
• Premiere Pro is a real-time non-linear video editing solution that gives you the power to edit your videos in minutes.
• Behance is an online, social media-based service designed for creative professionals to help them build project portfolios. With Behance, you can easily showcase your work to potential clients or employers.
• Story Plus: a screenwriting and pre-production application designed for those in the film and television industries. Story Plus integrates into the other included Premiere Pro applications, making it a valuable tool for filmmakers and television professionals.
• Spark: a series of visual storytelling tools that include Spark Video, Spark Page, and Spark Post. Spark provides users with everything they need to create beautiful, engaging visuals that tell a story. Whether you're creating a video, a web page or a social media post, Spark's easy-to-use tools will help you get the job done.

Adobe Encore and Adobe Fireworks have both been discontinued by Adobe, but are still available as downloads for Creative Cloud users. If you're looking for a video editor, Adobe Encore is still a great option. And if you need a web-based image editor, Adobe Fireworks is still a great choice.

Cross-Platform Compatibility

Creative Cloud offers mobile apps that are compatible with both iOS and Android platforms. Examples of these apps include:

·         Adobe Capture CC: With this app, you can turn an image into a color theme, pattern, or unique brush. Capture CC is made up of a series of smaller applications, including Color CC, Shape CC, Hue CC, and Brush CC.

·         Adobe Comp CC: With this tool, you can create software layouts and designs. Note that Adobe Comp CC is only available to devices using the iOS operating system, including both the Apple iPhone and the iPad and iPad Pro.

·         Adobe Photoshop Draw: a vector drawing application that helps you create expressive illustrations.

·         Adobe Photoshop Sketch: an app used for drawing and painting on your mobile device.

·         Adobe Preview CC: an app designed for previewing mobile designs.

·         Adobe Premiere Clip: a mobile version of Adobe Premiere designed for smaller, clip-based projects.

·         Adobe Photoshop Mix: a solution that brings layer-based image editing to mobile devices.

·         Adobe Photoshop Fix: a tool for image restoration, retouching and color correction.

Creative Cloud Versions

The Creative Cloud versions of the applications have the name CC and the year of the most recent release in parentheses. For example, Photoshop is labeled as Photoshop (CC 2020), with CC standing for Creative Cloud and 2020 being the year of the release.

Oftentimes, the versions are incremented with very minor changes, so the differences between the Creative Cloud (CC) 2019 and Creative Cloud (CC) 2020 versions of many applications can be quite unnoticeable, for instance, updating the background color from light grey to dark grey, or making icons look more contemporary.

Mac vs. Windows

The only differences between Mac and Windows versions of Adobe CC are minor. The tools, menus, panels, and options provided are all in the same place on each version. So, someone using the software on a Mac doesn't have to give up anything by not using a PC (or vice versa).

As part of the standard licensing agreement, Adobe provides access to both versions of each program, which means you can have one computer running Windows and another running MacOS. This is true across all CC packages and pricing tiers.

For companies that use it as part of a corporate computer environment and only support the Windows operating system, users should download the Windows versions of each program.

So long as the computer or device being used has a fast processor, an adequate amount of RAM, and an acceptable video processor, users will be able to perform all of the photo editing, video editing, or animation tasks that they need, regardless of whether the computer being used has the Windows or MacOS operating system installed on it.

All Adobe CC applications currently have a minimum requirement of MacOS 10.11 (for Apple computers) and Windows 7 (for PCs). If your local operating system does not meet these requirements, you may be able to download an older version of an app.

For MacOS users, you will need to use Safari 7 or a newer version as your web browser. If you are running Creative Cloud on a Mac, you must have Firefox 4 or later, or any version of Google Chrome.

If you are using a PC with Microsoft Windows, you must have at least Internet Explorer 11 or later, Firefox 4 or later, or any version of Google Chrome.