Adobe has announced Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta, a preview of what’s to come in the next release of the digital imaging software. It's available as a free download from Adobe Labs (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/photoshopcs6/).

Customers can download the beta, try out the experience and provide feedback to the product team. Photoshop CS6 beta is available for the Mac OS and Windows platforms. The final release is expected in the first half of 2012. According to Winston Hendrickson, vice president products, Creative Media Solutions, Adobe, key features include new additions to the Content-Aware tools.

Content-Aware Patch allows greater control by letting users select and duplicate an area of an image to fill in or "patch" another. Content-Aware Move lets users select and "magically" move an object to a new place in the image.

The beta offers beefed-up performance thanks to the Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine, enabling near-instant results from popular editing tools including Liquify, Puppet Warp, Transform and Lighting Effects, Hendrickson says. A refined, modern interface featuring dark UI options make images pop, he adds. Hendrickson says the Photoshop CS6 beta also offers:

° New and re-engineered design tools to make creating designs faster and more efficient;

° Vector layers that allow users to apply dashed lines and gradient strokes;

° Searchable layers that help users quickly zero in on any layer;

° New type styles that let designers quickly apply type treatments to their designs.

In addition, the Photoshop CS6 beta offers all the features of Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended, such as new 3D editing features and quantitative imaging analysis capabilities. These features will be included in the shipping version of Photoshop CS6 Extended when it becomes available.

The Photoshop CS6 beta is available immediately as a free download in English and Japanese. At installation, users will be required to provide an Adobe ID to complete a one-time login and online product activation. Customers can submit feedback via the Photoshop CS6 beta forum (http://www.adobe.com/go/pscs6_forum). Users can also connect with the Photoshop team via the community-powered site (http://feedback.photoshop.com); on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Photoshop); YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/photoshop); Photoshop.com blog (http://blogs.adobe.com/photoshopdotcom/); or via Twitter: (http://twitter.com/photoshop).