With CS6, Adobe tidies up Premiere Pro, speeds up After Effects
Premiere Pro CS6 strips away much of the widgetry that cluttered its predecessor's user interface. (Click to enlarge.) — (Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET) — Quick access to software features is nice, but there can be too much of a good thing.
Context & Ripple Effects
Adobe had already used CS6 to showcase new Photoshop capabilities, including a content-aware move tool, and its beta introduced a major Photoshop interface redesign. The Premiere Pro and After Effects changes extend that release-cycle emphasis from individual features to day-to-day creative-tool usability.
Against Adobe's 2010 CS5 shipment, CS6 signals that the company is treating interface cleanup and faster execution as release-level improvements across its professional creative applications.
First-order effects
- Premiere Pro users get a less widget-heavy workspace, reducing interface friction in Adobe's video-editing application.
- After Effects users receive performance improvements, making speed a central part of Adobe's CS6 pitch for motion-graphics work.
Second-order effects
- Adobe's CS6 proposition becomes broader than Photoshop features: video and motion-graphics customers are being asked to weigh workflow efficiency alongside new capabilities.
- Competing professional creative tools face a clearer comparison on two daily-use measures—interface complexity and application performance—rather than feature checklists alone.
Third-order effects
- If Adobe applies the same design discipline throughout CS6, professional creative suites will increasingly compete on how smoothly their applications fit sustained production work, not only on marquee features.
The trend: Creative-software vendors are shifting major upgrades toward cleaner workflows and faster execution across connected professional applications.