Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta Hands On – Available Today
Adobe just launched the beta for Photoshop CS6, available immediately for download on their site now. Users will immediately notice a change in the UI, which now features a darker colored background, and better window management. Layers are now searchable – so when you have your 50-layer image, you’ll be able to search based on your notations. CS6 features several improvements to speed and has several notable additions.
Content-Aware Patch — This feature allows the movement and filling in of a selected object.
Basically, you are able to select an object within your image using the “content-aware patch” button and move it. Photoshop will then use the surrounding area to fill in that hole. On the test done by The Verge, the results were mediocre with somewhat-complicated backgrounds, but increasing flag poles and building heights, the results were effective.
UI — The user interface now features darker backgrounds and a more snappy response. Window, layer, and tool placement seems a bit more targeted for those who like to edit in Photoshop while doing other tasks. Simple things like how the windows expand seem a bit more responsive and all the tools within Photoshop automatically adjust to better conform to the windowed resolution.
On a side-note, you can revert to the original colors via General Settings.
3D — The 3D Editing features have gotten another major revamp, making it easier to position text and objects in a 3D environment. This being the first time trying out the 3D editing, I was impressed with how easy it was to quickly create some text and create a half-way decent effect with the image. Obviously not an extensive test, but hey – it’s 6 in the morning and I should be sleeping.
Video Editing — Photoshop CS6 brings in a basic video editor, which uses the same interface and interaction as in Photoshop. After sampling this out for a bit, the editor is quite a bit different than working with Final Cut, Vegas, or Premier. It is very rudimentary and I found the learning curve to do some basic clip editing a pain to get used to. For instance, trying to copy a clip from a separate file isn’t so cut-and-dry as selecting the layer, copying and pasting it. I had to Google how to correctly select the clip I rotated and place it into the other video.
Here’s a video with several demonstrations of the new features included in the Photoshop CS6 beta from their Youtube channel:
Overall, not a bad experience for a beta. We’ll do a more extensive review when the full product is available.
Source:
http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pressreleases/201203/032212AdobePhotoshopCS6Beta.html
