Adobe releases free public beta of Photoshop CS6
Adobe late on Wednesday released a public beta of its first major update to Photoshop in two years, touting new 3D editing capabilities and a redesigned interface.
The preview of Photoshop CS6 is available for download at the Adobe Labs website. The OS X version of the software is a free 984MB download.
Adobe last overhauled Photoshop with the release of Creative Suite 5 in April 2010.
According to the company, highlights of the upcoming version of the photo editing application include a new content-aware patch, "blazingly fast performance," a dark background user interface and "new and re-engineered design tools." The software will be powered by a new Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine, which promises "near-instant results" from editing tools.
“Photoshop CS6 will be a milestone release that pushes the boundaries of imaging innovation with incredible speed and performance,” Winston Hendrickson, Adobe's vice president products, Creative Media Solutions, said in a statement.
Screenshot of an earlier beta of Photoshop CS 6
Users should note that the beta includes features from Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended, such as 3D editing features and "quantitative imaging analysis capabilities," that will not be included in the basic version of Photoshop CS6.
After downloading the preview, users are directed to select "Try. I want to try Adobe Photoshop CS6 for a limited time." Users will then have seven days to activate the beta with an Adobe ID login.
Adobe has yet to announce an official release date for the software, though the press release announcing the public beta says the final release is "expected" in the first half of this year. Some reports have pointed to a May launch for Creative Suite 6.
AppleInsider was first to leak Photoshop CS6's new features, including the Aperture-like dark background UI and the new 3D capabilities, last October.
[ View article on AppleInsider ]
Comments
Does anyone else think these yearly "upgrades" are non sense as well?
Ditto, I would much rather spend the $2600 on a new Mac yearly thanks.
Suppose the upgrade for CSx is like $600 bucks.... well that is still a new Mac on a good ebay day.
Personally, I love the fact that character and paragraph styles are finally in Photoshop. It will make mocking up websites much easier.
If you are interested in learning more about the new features, you can watch Deke McClelland demo all of them for free at lynda.com (you don't need to be a member) here.
Personally, I love the fact that character and paragraph styles are finally in Photoshop. It will make mocking up websites much easier.
Wow that's awesome. I've been hoping for character and paragraph styles for years - never thought it would actually happen. That will save tons of time.
My biggest issues with cs 5:
Dual monitor editing gets really messed up. I have to collect the windows in tabs to get it working properly again... Main symptom is having one document selected but the layers palette is showing another document's layers and well nothing works till I fix it.
Performance is ridiculous... They should tap into apple's Apis more eff the pc version. Pixelmator runs rings round pshops in certain functions.
The drawing tools are crap. Want to draw a line or box? It draws a mask! In fact one of cs6?s touted features is to allow a dotted line... Wow just wow!
As always it will be really nice if they fixed the probs in previous releases as a free update...
Lost any faith in their integrity years ago. Fastest best Pshop I ever had was Pshop 6 on 400mhz OS9 mac with a twelfth of the ram I've got now. Dug it out few years after its retirement when the machine I had at the time lost its HD and was floored at how much more responsive it was than CS2.
Then when I got an Intel Mac the CS3 beta was better and more stable than actual release CS3.
etc etc, I won't count the ways. On CS5 now with Snow Leopard. Each new release is special and individual with the variety of little things that won't work this time.
James Bond would have a favourite vintage of Photoshop that he would ask for like a conoisseur of Adobe's bullshit - 'Yesh, I'll have the Photoshop Shixsh on an O Esh 9 mac pleashe'.
'None of your Shee Esh rubbish like the lasht time. And be quick about it'
It's an adventure.
Does anyone else think these yearly "upgrades" are non sense as well?
You betcha. They feel like they're just re-arranging the chairs and calling it new so they can juice their actual paying customers one more time for more 'shareholder value'.
Adobe give me a feeling like my arm is being twisted and I don't like that.
"The software Adobe Photoshop CS6 requires Runtime Java" Big fail. The only reason I will be upgrading is, if I don't I loose my upgrade eligibility for future versions (CS3 user here).
Why would you lose eligibility? You can still install and maintain runtime java, just apple have handed management of this to the developers, it's not managed by apple as part of OS updates, he same as many technologies and database set ups that developers use.
Although I hate Adobe with it's DRM, weird interface conventions and bloated apps, Photoshop is still king of the hill in its class.
Do you also hate Apple because of their DRM?
Do you also hate Apple because of their DRM?
What DRM would that be? Apple were the ones who pushed music companies to drop DRM. Movie and TV studios are the current holdouts in this area. Apple has never been a DRM proponent. As far as I'm aware, none of their applications have DRM, though I might be mistaken.
Not to mention the Runtime Java and the inability to do proper fullscreen when running on 2 monitors. Oh, and the constant annoying "pop to the front" whenever it's doing something that's ment to be "background actions". Whenever I have an action running in Photoshop and it's working on a bunch of images that will take about 20 minutes éven with an action, it keeps trying to jump to the front… I want to work in another program, not be bugged by you every time you open a new photo. There's just no proper multitasking when you're touching Adobe's programs.
What DRM would that be? Apple were the ones who pushed music companies to drop DRM. Movie and TV studios are the current holdouts in this area. Apple has never been a DRM proponent. As far as I'm aware, none of their applications have DRM, though I might be mistaken.
I think he's talking about software that can't be easily installed from a "friend's" copy.
Why would you lose eligibility?
It's more expensive to upgrade from versions older than one or two generations. Arm twisting.
I hope the full version is on the Mac App Store. Mountain Lion includes an optional setting to only run apps from the Mac App Store, and I intend to turn it on to protect myself from malware.
Adobe is simply not going to cede 30% of it's profits to Apple when they already have their own dedicated sales (and distribution) channels that they need to have to sell their Windows Apps. And thats assuming it's even possible to sell their apps in the MAS (which I doubt is possible given Apple's rules). There is also volume purchasing for business to consider. Simply put, the MAS is incompatible with Adobe's business models.
Second - Last I heard the default is not MAS only, rather the default is signed apps.
Oh, right. They make the suite of programs that I use every single day, that are buggy, expensive, bloated, confusing, and did I mention expensive?
I'm not one of those people who complains when an iPhone app is two bucks instead of one or free, but after paying over and over and over to their well-organized extortion pyramid for decades, I look forward to their downfall.
There's a lot of up and comers out there, many in the app store, that might just do the job.