SAN FRANCISCO – Adobe Systems Inc., seeking more sales of its flagship product to thrifty graphics and Web designers, will introduce an update to its Creative Suite software in May that lets users pay for the product as they go.

Creative Suite 5.5 will be a collection of Adobe’s Photoshop, Dreamweaver, InDesign and other software that lets users pay for the products monthly or yearly at prices much lower than for unlimited use of the full suite. The cheaper rental cost may keep people buying even if they’re unwilling to purchase a comprehensive package, company executives said.

Creative Suite brings in more than half of the revenue for Adobe, the largest maker of graphic design software that creates products for professional designers. The programs can prove expensive for less regular users, said Dave Burkett, a vice president in Adobe’s Creative Suite group.

“It creates a barrier for many of our customers,” Burkett said in a recent presentation to reporters.

Adobe’s Creative Suite products include Photoshop, the software for photo editing; Dreamweaver, the tool for website design, and InDesign, the software for publishing.

Many Adobe consumers who work as freelance designers and move among jobs can’t afford the full Creative Suite, Adobe Chief Financial Officer Mark Garrett said last month in an interview.

Customers will be able to download subscription-priced versions of Photoshop for $49 a month or $420 a year, and Dreamweaver for $29 a month or $228 a year, according to a price list provided by Adobe.

Buyers can rent the full Creative Suite Design Premium edition for $139 a month or $1,140 a year.

By contrast, an unlimited-use license for Design Premium 5.5 will sell for $1,899, Adobe said last week in a statement.

Version 5 of Photoshop for Windows users who already own older versions of the product sold for $194 on Amazon.com Inc.’s website on April 8.

The subscription pricing could attract some of the millions of Adobe customers still using older versions of its software and entice them to buy full versions of Creative Suite in the future, said Brent Thill, an analyst at UBS in San Francisco.

“Now they can take it for a couple of months, and it gets their appetite whet to buy the whole thing,” Thill said.