Adobe Systems Inc. is unveiling the first upgrade in two years of its flagship design software -- including Photoshop -- which accounts for more than half of the company's overall revenue.

The 13 stand-alone products and six suites in Creative Suite 3, as the upgraded software package is known, represent the fullest use of Flash technology to date.

These include, Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium and Design Standard editions; Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium and Web Standard editions; and Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium.

Creative Suite 3 Design Standard focuses on professional print design and production and includes the CS3 versions of InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, plus Acrobat 8 Professional.

The Design Premium bundle includes new releases of Adobe InDesign CS3, Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended , Adobe Illustrator CS3, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, and Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional is also included as a key component of Design Premium.

Creative Suite 3 Web Standard is based around the ex-Macromedia core of Dreamweaver, Flash Professional, Fireworks and Contribute.

The Premium version adds new versions of Dreamweaver CS3, Flash CS3 Professional, Fireworks CS3, Contribute CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, and Acrobat 8 Professional.

Creative Suite 3 Production Premium brings together After Effects CS3 Professional, Premiere Pro CS3, Encore CS3, Photoshop CS3 Extended, Illustrator CS3, Flash CS3 Professional, and Soundbooth CS3. There?s no Standard version of this Suite.

The Creative Suite 3 Master Collection includes the new versions of InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Contribute, After Effects Professional, Premiere Pro, Soundbooth, Encore, OnLocation, Ultra, Acrobat, Bridge, Device Central CS3 -- and should install in just under a week.

Reviews of Creative Suite 3 have been positive until now, according to analysts.

Adobe said it would begin shipping Creative Suite 3 in April. It estimates that Creative Suite 3 Design Premium will sell for $1799, Creative Suite 3 Web Premium for $1599, Creative Suite 3 Production Premium for $1699 and Creative Suite 3 master collection for $2499.

Two Editions of Photoshop CS3

Adobe announced Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended, two new editions of the professional industry standard for digital imaging.

Photoshop CS3 software offers new innovations in editing power and productivity for designers and photographers.

With new features for advanced compositing, designers can automatically align multiple Photoshop layers or images based on similar content. The Auto-align Layers command quickly analyzes details and moves, rotates or warps layers to align them perfectly, and the Auto-blend Layers command blends the color and the shading to create a smooth, editable result.

With the latest version of Camera Raw, photographers can process raw images with increased speed, with its support for over 150 raw formats, JPEG and TIFF files, compatibility with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, and new tools such as Fill Light and Dust Busting.

Photoshop CS3 Extended software includes everything in Photoshop CS3 plus additional specialized features such as support for 3-D and video workflows, animation and in-depth image analysis. With support for popular 3-D formats, creatives can render and incorporate rich 3-D content into their 2-D compositions, including texture editing on 3-D models. Using the Enhanced Vanishing Point, designers can measure in perspective and also export from Enhanced Vanishing Point to a 3-D model. For video post-production, Photoshop CS3 Extended now includes video-format and layer support to edit video files frame by frame. The resulting video can then be exported to a variety of formats including Flash.

Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended will be available as stand-alone applications or key components of Adobe?s expanded Creative Suite 3 family. The software will be available as a Universal application for both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs and will support both Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista. Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended will begin shipping in April 2007 to customers in the United States and Canada, and will be available through Adobe Authorized Resellers. Estimated street price for Adobe Photoshop CS3 is US$649 and US$999 for Photoshop CS3 Extended. Upgrade pricing is available.