One day after the release of the new Flash Player, Adobe is shipping Creative Suite 4. Adobe CS4 is shipping in seven bundles, Premium and Standard editions for Design, Web, and Production, and a Master Collection bundle. Check out the prices and bundle details over at Adobe. Those wishing to try out the applications will have to wait a bit as the demo versions are not out yet.

VectorDesign is a program similar to Adobe Illustrator and Freehand developed by TweakerSoft, it has recently won the MacWord best of Show Award for its simplicity and power. VectorDesign features all the basic features of vector tools such as smart shapes, bezier creation tools, boolean tool for combining shapes, and even a tool for conversion of raster images to bezier. An interesting feature of VectorDesign is the integration of a Flickr browser to easy search and insert images.

VectorDesign is available for the Mac OS only, it can be purchased for $70. Click here to learn more about it and to download the applications trial.

Aviary is a set of web based applications for creating all sorts of media. The concept of this suite of creative content creation tools is similar to Picnik, Google Docs, and Adobe Kuler, all of which are rich internet applications (RIAs) to be used within your browser. RIAs provide the possibility to run the application on any machine that has a proper browser and an internet connection without the need to carry your data along with you or even install the applications on the computer you work on. The nature of web applications creates unlimited opportunities for collaboration at real time as featured in Google Docs.

Aviary takes RIAs one step further by providing relatively more powerful applications than what we have seen before, these applications include an image editor, a vector editor, a 3D modeling tool, a video editor, a music generator and other creative tools that make up its 14 application-suite. The video below illustrates the capability of Phoenix, Aviary’s image editor:

I personally use many web applications and Google Docs and Picnik are some of my favourites. I find Aviary’s project very interesting and think that it shows us a glimpse of how the future should be.Aviary is currently in private beta and invitations are floating around the internet. You can submit your email to the invitation queue and learn more about Aviary from their official website.

Reuters is reporting that Bruce Chizen, CEO of Adobe, said in a Q&A session during the Web 2.0 Summit in San Fransisco that Adobe sees a full shift of its applications from the desktop to the web within a period of ten years.

More and more applications are being made for the web so that they are accessed directly through a web browser without the need to install the application itself on the computer of the user. Such applications include Google Docs (for word processing, spreedsheets, and presentations) and Picnik (for simple image editing). These applications make it possible to save work data on the servers of the application provider so that the user can continue working from any machine without the need to install the applications or carry his data along with him. An additional feature of web applications worth noting is the possibility to share files and collaborate to work on the same file simultaneously.

Adobe announced several months ago its intention to release a lite version of Photoshop as a web application to be called Photoshop Express. Adobe said that this will not be a replacement of the desktop Photoshop, but it will be a much simpler version to target casual Internet users and not professionals. This recent report of Adobe’s CEO reflects Adobe serious consideration of migrating of applications from the desktop to the web, though a significant number of people think that while web applications do provide new opportunities and benefits over desktop, they will never be a total replacement due to the dependence of web applications on an active Internet connection to work, for which reliability will always be an issue.

We have ten years to see if Adobe could pull this off, while waiting for those ten years to pass, you can test drive and read about Aviary’s web creation project, an online suite created in Flex for creating all sorts of content that includes an image editor, a 3d modeling application, a vector drawing application, an audio editing application, and many others all available as web application or AIR applications. Check out their website for more info.

[via Download Squad]

Electric Rain (ERain) recently released Swift 3D version 5 for Windows. Swift3D v5 for Mac is coming out this year and it is going to be a big hit. Swift3D is the only 3D program that can be directly integrated with Adobe Flash and provides fast high quality vector rendering.

“When it comes to creating 3D vector animations, Swift3D doesn’t have any competition. For its ease-of-use and rapid development of 3D Flash, it really can’t be beat.” says MacReview.

Of course, you don’t have to export 3D animations as vector, you can also export as video which gives you all the capabilities of motion graphic design.

For more information, go to the Swift 3D page.

Toon Boom animation Inc. recently released the latest version of Toon Boom Studio, their 2d animation software for the Windows and Mac platforms. Toon Boom Studio 4 new features include an increase ease of us for animating bitmap images, extended styles and calligraphy, feather edges for creating blurred vectors and glow effects, improved motion effects, advanced web publishing options and other features as well. You can learn more about Toon Boom Studio by visiting their official website here.

Vecteezy is newly emerging index of free vectors that are always avalible for direct download. The site is updated daily, and feeds its index of vectors by having users submit them in Adobe Illustrator extenstion, so they would be losses and ready for you project work or for any other use. The site now holds pretty much of an impressive set of various types of vectors. Make sure you pass by and check them out.

Adobe finally officially pulled the plug on Freehand, the vector based illustration tool formally part of the MX studio by Macromedia. Freehand was last updated four years ago and has not been included since in any of the main software bundles by Macromedia nor in the latest edition of Adobe Creative Suite. Adobe is now offering users of Freehand MX the option to upgrade to Illustrator CS3 and has published an FAQ on migrating from Freehand to Illustrator.

Many have expected this to take place long ago as it did not seem to make sense for Adobe to produce two competing products. It would not be shocking to hear that Adobe is going to kill GoLive next.

Read the Freehand announcement on John Nack’s blog.

Trial versions of Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 applications can now be downloaded from Adobe’s download centre. The Adobe Creative Suite 3 was shipped last month in several bundles that include the latest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver and other applications for print and web design. Creative Suite 3 supports Windows Vista and Intel based Macs. Visit Adobe’s website to try out the new CS3 applications.