Yesterday, Adobe released a public beta of Adobe Photoshop CS6, the flagship photo and graphic editing program for professionals.  If you are picking up the online buzz about this new software release and would like to download the release beta, just browse to http://labs.adobe.com While the final release of Photoshop CS6 will be refined and tweaked, after about 24 hours of making Photoshop jump through the hoops, we are seeing a very stable build of this new software release. This version will remain free for public use until the full release date, which we guesstimate will be later next month or early in May.

Overall, Photoshop CS6 now has over 60 user-feedback-inspired features, including a totally revamped crop tool, auto recovery, auto-save, layer search features, refined HDR, and video editing options.  Also, every slider for the Camera Raw 7.0 plug-in has an updated and enhanced algorithm.

Here is a quick list of ten great new features that we have discovered over the past 24 hours.

1. New Darker Interface Design (Customizable)

The first thing you will notice about Photoshop CS6 , is a fully redesigned UI that has a much darker and richer look, similar to what you will see working in the most current version of Adobe Premiere. However, if you don’t like this new look, you can revert to the light gray color theme using the Photoshop preferences

2. Content –Aware Move Tool

Using the Content-Aware Move Tool in Photoshop CS6 allows you to make a loose selection around an object and drag it to a new position. Photoshop then fills in the background and blends the object while you sit back and watch. This new feature is long awaited and refined. It works very well!

3. Autosave

Finally! Photoshop now has the ability to autosave your document every few minutes while you are working.  Now Photoshop saves your work in the background and you can tell it how often with setting options from every 5 minutes to an hour. No more worries about losing work to an unexpected crash, power surge, or accidental system shutdown.

4. New and Improved Crop Tool

One of the most basic but impressive features is the new Photoshop CS6 nondestructive Crop tool with new composition controls. CS6 now lets you preview Golden Ratio, Diagonal, Triangle, and Golden Spiral overlays. You can also use the updated Crop tool to straighten images and change the aspect ratio of your images with a much faster/easier workflow, without accidentally changing resolution and image quality.

5. The New Blur Gallery

In Photoshop CS6, Adobe has introduced three new filters that will make photographers very happy. This new and welcomed gallery includes Field Blur, Iris Blur, and Tilt-Shift. Field Blur allows you to create a simple overall blur, or a blur from point A to point B. The Iris Blur creates an ellipse around the area of focus, which can be adjusted to include more or less pixels in the photo you are editing. Tilt-Shift empowers you with the ability to replicate the popular miniaturization effects by adding blur from a plane.

6. Character and Paragraph Styles

Like many of the other Adobe Creative Suite solutions, Photoshop CS6′s new Character Style and Paragraph Style Panels enable you to save your favorite font, size, color, and other type-related settings and edit/apply them using the fly-out panels. This can be a huge time saver and workflow option for print and web designers.

7. Search Layer Functionality

In Photoshop CS6 you can now search for layers by layer type, name, layer effect, blending mode, layer style, and color. If you know the name of the layer that you would like to find, – simply type the name into the search box at the top of the panel and you are there! No doubt this feature will save you some production time and frustration.

8. New HDR Updates

The beta of Photoshop CS6 has updated algorithms, options, and presets for photographers who like to use high-dynamic-range images. These improved algorithms reduce halos and there is also an Edge Smoothness check box to suppress the sharpness of the edge. This allows a higher amplification of the texture or detail of the photograph.

9. Skin Tones Color Range Select

Photoshop CS6 now has more controls for preserving skin tones in photographs where you would like to change or adjust the skin color. You can also preserve skin tones as you make changes to other parts of the image. You can find a Skin Tones option under the Color Range Panel. Check the ‘Detect Faces’ check box to allow greater control while editing the skin tone in your photographs.

10. Video Editing

Photoshop CS6 has some new features if you are interested in editing video without leaving your favorite photo-editing tool. You can import videos, manage them from a timeline, add transitions, and create motion graphic effects using keyframe options.

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Author: Russell Youngblood

• Character and Paragraph Styles
• Search Layer Functionality
• New HDR Updates
• Skin Tones Color Range Select
• Video Editing