Instead of jumping ahead one full version number every 18 months as usual, Adobe surprised us this spring with Creative Suite 5.5, a mid-cycle upgrade that brings new features to applications snubbed in the last release. The company plans to continue this trend in the future with major updates (like CS6) coming every two years and “point five” releases in between. Users of earlier versions can also graduate slowly to CS5.5 if they so desire -- our older copy of CS4 Design Premium coexists nicely with the latest and greatest version -- but as usual, preferences don’t transfer from older versions.

If you thought animation was purely for professionals, think again. iStopMotion strips stop-motion animation down to its very basics so that anyone with a Mac, a camera, and a vivid imagination can produce their own animated movies. By default, they’re shot at 12 frames per second. That’s too low a frame rate for regular movies, but fine for stop-motion animations. You can choose a higher frame rate when you create your project, but remember that each frame has to be shot individually. At only 12fps, 120 shots will get you a 10-second movie. That’s a project!

For those times when the full-fledged features of Final Cut Pro are too overwhelming, and iMovie’s massive library of effects just aren’t needed, Shave Video does simple video editing and exporting for the masses. The app’s interface doesn’t use timelines or waveforms, but rather presents the video in plain form for you to edit as you please.