Just announced at its annual MAX event, Adobe has updated its flagship photo editing application with the introduction of Photoshop CC ($20+ per month). Alongside new features discussed below, it comes with a whole new pricing scheme that caught us off guard, and will likely be unappealing to some users. Now, instead of just buying the app, you have to subscribe to it: $20 a month gets you access to a single title within Adobe’s Creative Cloud (CC)—it’s $30 if you don’t sign an annual contract—and CC pricing starts at $50 a month for the complete collection, including InDesign, Illustrator, and other former Creative Suite apps. Adobe will discontinue support for the CS6 apps when the new CC apps arrive in mid-June.
What’s new in Photoshop CC? Smart Sharpen allows you to improve your pictures while minimizing noise and halos, while intelligent upsampling lets you make photos larger without losing detail, which is really useful when you have to work with small files. Also new: camera shake reduction, which analyzes the trajectory of your shaking camera, and restores sharpness, helping to make up for blurs. Included with the CC subscription is access to all Photoshop Extended features, as well.
