FREE Photoshop CS6 beta

Great and free. You don’t hear those words together often. But it’s the case today as Adobe is kindly offering a FREE download of Photoshop CS6 beta.

Ostensibly to “provide feedback to the product team” (but possibly also to drum up excitement, good will, good press, and future sales), the beta version is provided free at Adobe Labs for Mac and Windows. The only requirement is that you create an “Adobe ID” with your email address and a password. That’s it! I had the software up and running in a few minutes; you can too.

Download Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta here.

There are detailed hands-on reviews by The Verge and DPReview.

“Packed with groundbreaking new innovations, features and incredible performance enhancements, Photoshop CS6 beta is available for the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows platforms.”
— Adobe, March 22, 2012.

What’s New

• Lens Blur
• Content-ware Patch tool and Move
• Adaptive Wide-Angle Filter
• Background auto -save

What’s Better

• User interface — Dark grey
• Icons
• Crop Tool — now nondestructive
• Graphic engine — much faster allowing for real-time changes
• RAW import — with better highlights, shadows and whites
• Typography — with a Lorem Ipsum text generator
• Automated image correction

“I’m in love with Photoshop CS6 after working with the beta during the past few weeks. For the first time in many years, this one is a must-have update. It will save a lot of time for professionals on the day-to-day, thanks to new and updated features, a new graphic engine, and a new, beautiful, streamlined interface.”
— Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo, March 22, 2012.

“Various under-the-hood improvements promise to make life easier and protect long hours of labor-intensive operations.”
— Jackie Dove, Macworld, March 22, 2012.

“Photoshop CS6 will be a milestone release that pushes the boundaries of imaging innovation with incredible speed and performance.”
— Winston Hendrickson, vice president products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe, March 22, 2012.

Adobe says “the final release is expected in the first half of 2012.” Pricing will be $699 for the standalone product and $999 for the extended version. Upgrades will be $199 and $399 respectively.

Download Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta here.

Source: Adobe press release, Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo, Jackie Dove, Macworld, Dana Wllman, Engadget.