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In case you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, the release of Adobe Creative Suite 5 is today. Designers, developers and creative professionals from around the world are gearing up for the launch. Are you excited yet? I know I am! So how is CS5 going to make our lives as a web designer much easier and more efficient? Here are just 5 ways in which Photoshop CS5 is going to make you a better web designer.

1. Content-Aware Fill is going to make working with photography incredibly easy.

Using photography in web design can sometimes prove to be quite difficult. Often times I’ll search around for hours on a stock photo site searching for that perfect photo only to find that there is something about it that doesn’t quite work, or just doesn’t fit in placement wise. I’ve spent countless hours doctoring an image to remove certain parts of it all the while trying to keep a sense of realism while making any changes. Now with the Content-Aware tool, all one has to do to remove certain blemishes, imperfections, even whole parts of a photo is just select the area in question and run the feature. The tool will automatically fill the space with surrounding patterns and make the changes in the image extremely realistic. Now it will be easier to turn almost-perfect photos into perfect photos for your next web design project.

In the demo video, the Content-Aware fill tool is used to remove some trash from the field, and remove a big tree just with a few quick selections. He was able to make an entire road situated in the desert vanish and replace it with realistic shrubbery. Perhaps the most impressive is how the Content-Aware tool was able to fix the problem of misshaped edges in panoramic photos. Check out the video demonstration below.

2. Complex selections are going to be easier then ever.

It never fails that when I am designing for the web I often need to cut out certain elements or objects from a photograph. If you are working with a very detailed photograph this can be quite difficult to do in photoshop and can take hours. Sure I can go around and ‘try’ to find that element or object on a white background so it is easy for me to select around it and cut it out but that can also take forever. When CS3 came out back in late 2008, a new feature called Refine Edge was introduced in Photoshop. Refine Edge gave us a way to fine-tune selections. This allows you to adjust several parameters including contrast and feathering in a single step while previewing the result before it’s actually applied. I can’t tell you how much I love this tool. I use it all the time to make selections smooth and perfect.

CS5 will bring about a completely redesigned interface and a few new features thrown in. One of these is a “Smart Radius” feature which uses advanced edge detection to help you create complex selections quickly. Now it is going to be incredibly easy to cleanly select the object from the photograph and implement it into your web design. Take a look at the demonstraton video below to learn more.

3. Setting default layer styles will save you time.

CS5 will introduce a way to setup specific layer style defaults so that every time you apply layer effects (such as a drop shadow or stroke), the style will reflect your unique settings instead of the typical photoshop default we are used to now. Think of how much of a time saver this will be. Not having to constantly go in layer by layer and set individual effects or copying whole layer styles and working backwards will allow me to be more efficient when designing. Check out the video below to see a demonstration of how this works along with a few more enhancements.

4. Photoshop: meet Flash.

While HTML 5 is on the ups, Flash still plays a large part in the web of 2010 and many clients still ask about using Flash in their designs. With CS5, Adobe has included a new professional web design tool called Flash Catalyst. Essentially what Flash Catalyst will allow you to do is to transfer files from Photoshop, Illustrator, and Fireworks and convert them into creative interactive designs without ever having to write any code. If you have ever worked with Flash you must know how difficult it can be to master and how time consuming it can be to create rich interactive flash designs. Put it this way, think of Flash Catalyst as the Dreamweaver of Flash.

5. The Adobe CS5 collection is going to work wonders on a multi-core processor, 64-bit operating system.

Developers are taking advantage of the fact that more people are adopting 64 bit versions of Windows and Mac. Especially when working with large files it is essential to have more then 4gb of ram at your disposal. Along with the trend in more ram in todays computer hardware, the latest series of multi-core processors will be put to the test with CS5 now fully taking advantage of them. This means faster everything: load times for the CS applications and their tools, opening of large files, conversions, filters, etc.

Great news for Mac users, Adobe has also declared that CS5 will be going Intel-only and drop support for the older Power PC hardware, and will also be rewritten in Cocoa for 64-bit native support. What does this mean? More ram, screaming fast speeds, and thus more efficient workflow for you.

So how about you? Are you going to be upgrading to or purchasing the newest version of Adobe’s Creative Suite?