Adobe launches Creative Cloud Express for simple, mobile media creation
Adobe introduced a new Windows, Android and iOS app to its growing list of Creative Cloud products for mobile devices. Dubbed Creative Cloud Express, the new offering promises to provide creative professionals and amateurs alike with a way to quickly and easily generate shareable content by combining a drag-and-drop interface, Adobe's massive asset libraries, and its Sensei AI.
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Adobe calls Creative Cloud Express a "unified task-based, web and mobile product" that was designed to help users "create and share beautiful rich multimedia content -- from social media posts and stories to invitations to marketing materials like logos, flyers and banners."
Its drag-and-drop interface draws from "thousands of high-quality templates, 20,000 premium Adobe fonts and 175 million licensed Adobe Stock images." Once loaded, these assets can be manipulated via Adobe's Sensei artificial intelligence and machine learning platform, which powers several recently-introduced features in its Photoshop, Premier, and other software titles.
Sensei-powered "Quick Actions" within the app include automated removal of background objects, the ability to trim and merge videos, a tool to quickly convert video clips into animated GIF files, and an option to rapidly export finished creations as PDFs. Users can also resize, crop, rotate, and perform other basic photo editing functions with the included assets, as well as their own images.
Adobe made it clear that collaboration and sharing are baked into the core of Express through its Shared Templates and Shared Brand features. Both are designed to support the consistency of content creation across teams within a single organization by creating sharable standards and designs. Existing Creative Cloud Libraries can also be accessed from within the app to bring assets generated across the entire Creative Cloud suite into the mix.
Adobe said that sharing completed content is designed to be easy as well, thanks to compatibility with social media and content planning tool ContentCal being built into the app's export functionality.
The software maker clearly hopes to position the solution as an easy, mobile way for private users, businesses, and students to rapidly generate media-rich content for distribution via social media and other deliverables -- all without needing to have prior experience or existing art assets to use.
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Creative Cloud Express is available now as a free app product on the Microsoft Store, Google Play Store, and Apple's App store. The free version includes access to "thousands" of templates, assets and fonts; a "limited collection" of Adobe Stock photos from the repository's free collection; "basic editing and photo effects"; access to both web-based and mobile versions of the app; and 2GB of free cloud storage.
Premium subscribers receive all of the benefits of the free plan as well as access to the entire library of supported templates, design assets, stock photos, and fonts. Expanded editing options are included as well, with support for more advanced photo manipulation features, the option to add customized branding and logos, and the ability to curate your own library of templates and assets within a new or existing Creative Cloud Libraries account. Storage for premium plans is also bumped up to 100GB.
For existing "Creative Cloud All Apps" or single-app subscribers on plans costing more than $20 per month, Express' Premium tier is available as a free extra. All K-12 subscribers can also access the Premium service for free. Private and business users wishing to subscribe to it as a standalone product will be required to pay $9.99 per month.
Adobe noted that specialized subscription options for "Enterprise and Teams" deployments will also be made available in 2022.