Spiffy Photoshop-based things, they’re on the horizon.
Late Wednesday, Adobe released a public beta of its first major update to Photoshop CS6, the company posting a preview now available for download at the Adobe Labs website. The Mac OS X version of the software is a free 984MB download.
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.
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.
The Adobe Photoshop 6 preview requires an Intel-based Mac and Mac OS X 10.6 or later to install and run.
If you’ve tried the preview and have any feedback to offer, please let us know in the comments.