Exactly 1 year after the release at Mix 07, Microsoft releases Expression Studio 2. The suite of tools for professional designers includes Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design, Expression Media and Expression Encoder.
It also works seamlessly with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, solving the age-old designer and developer workflow challenge.
Here are the most important changes that made it into this release of the Expression Suite:
• Expression Web 2 adds support for PHP and Adobe Photoshop import based on customer feedback.
• Expression Blend 2, in addition to Silverlight support, adds vertex animation and an improved user interface with a new split design/XAML view.
• Expression Design 2 adds improved exporting functionality including the ability to export slices.
• Expression Media 2 is a robust digital asset management solution for photographers and other creative professionals. It adds support for the latest file formats including RAW, provides geotagging functionality, and is supported by Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office for Mac 2008.
• Expression Encoder 2 is now a core offering of the suite. It allows creative and Web professionals to optimize almost any type of video content quickly for publishing on the Web, either in streaming video, rich-media advertising or other Web 2.0 projects.
For more info and trials, go to http://www.microsoft.com/expression/.