If you want to make sure your presentations and projects look as slick as possible, then get your hands on Adobe Photoshop CS5 for the coming fall semester. Students get unbelievable discounts on Adobe products - up to 80 percent in fact -  so what are you waiting for?

Adobe Photoshop CS5 has been one of the biggest digital software launches of recent years. The new tools and the simplified User Interface have won Adobe a lot of credit.

The most exciting of all the tools is the new Content Aware Fill. This lets you selectively edit areas of an image. You simply highlight which part of the image you want removed , click the content aware option and the object magically disappears, what’s behind it merges seamlessly with the image around it.

In truth this function was possible in the past, but it took a lot of skill, effort and time. Today Content Aware Fill appears is easy – available for anyone with the even a minimal skillset. Why not check out the official Adobe video on YouTube? It’s already racked up well over 3 million hits.

There’s also an updated paintkit with a much larger selection of brushes and better-quality edge detection to make it easier to mask areas.

PatchMatch is a sampling tool, similar to content aware fill, allowing you to patch an image based on the neighbouring content.

Overall this is a truly spectacular piece of 21st Century image editing software that brings possibilities to the masses that would have previously required years of hard work in a design school. This is highly recommended.

Not as well-known as other Adobe products but highly valued by those of us who do, is Adobe Fireworks CS5, an excellent piece of software that lets you create visually stunning graphics and export them fully optimised for the web.

It isn’t as complex as Photoshop, as it is a graphics software package that has been specifically designed for people looking to work with images and graphics on the Internet. You can create both vector and bitmap modes and they will be optimised especially for your chosen platform – be it smartphone, PC or kiosks.

Adobe Fireworks CS5 is ideal for anyone intending to do a lot of online work. It is less expensive than Photoshop and has a much simpler learning curve. Once you get used to it you’ll be creating web-page layouts and banner graphics in no time at all.

You can make a wireframe quickly and easily from a template and add text, imagery, symbols – all using the outstanding vector and bitmap toolsets available on the easy-to-use User Interface.

Video aficionados will love the ease with which you can create graphics on transparent backgrounds and export them to your video editing software to create professional titles and callouts.

All in all this is fantastic software and a perfect low-cost alternative to Photoshop.

The top notch Adobe CS5: Master Collection is bit of a beast. Every possible stage of editing and design across print, web, audio and video is handled here.

Photos can be imported and arranged in Bridge and Lightroom, and then edited and optimised in the Photoshop Extended edition.

InDesign gives you access to the most powerful publishing software, allowing you to design, edit and layout documents. You can then export them to PDF using Acrobat.

Transferring to web, the Master Collection comes with Dreamweaver to code and build a website, Fireworks to design it and Illustrator to turn images into vectors, as well as Flash Catalyst to animate them.

This is really only for design professionals, and for those who spend their working days designing, building websites, and working in print as well as audio and video. If this is you then the Master Collection is the best and only choice.

Price:

New purchase: £2,303

Upgrade (from 1 version back): £794

Upgrade (from 2 or 3 versions back): £1,302

Upsell (From eligible individual products): £1,270

You can find out more here

Adobe CS5 Design Premium offers more than Design Standard while not being as internet focussed as Web Premium.

The combination of Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign means you can still produce top quality print works. Whilst with Fireworks you can design your website; it’s a bitmap and vector graphics editor, so it does overlap somewhat with Photoshop and Illustrator (also included) but it integrates easily with the rest of the programs and is optimised for web design.

You can then code and build your site in Dreamweaver, and the latest edition has far more help for “cross device authoring”- designing your site so it works perfectly on range of devices from mobiles to desktops.

It’s the classic all round package for designers. It doesn’t have the audio and video capabilities of the top end Suites, but for those working in print and online it’s perfect.

Price:

New purchase: £1,509

Upgrade (from 1 version back): £516/

Upgrade (from 2 or 3 versions back): £714

Upsell (From eligible individual products): £1,231

You can find out more here

Compared to the other suites Adobe CS5 Design Standard may look a little under nourished, but really it’s just Adobe CS5 stripped down to the most vital programs.

It comes with Photoshop CS5 Standard version, but this is far from limited, and it’s still the most mind-blowingly powerful image editing software out there.

With Illustrator CS5 you can create and edit vector graphics for logos and illustrations both for print and the web.

InDesign CS5 gives you the desktop publishing software to print everything from packaging to a good ol’ fashioned newspaper spread, before exporting any files to PDF with Acrobat 9 Pro for collaborative review or printing.

Also included is Adobe Bridge to make it easier to arrange and find images and content.

Though Design Standard CS5 is the smallest suite, it’s the cheapest and for those who only work within one or two media it’s the best choice.

Price:

New purchase: £1,032

Upgrade (from 1 version back): £357

Upgrade (from 2 or 3 versions back): £476

Upsell (From eligible individual products): £635