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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Photoshop Version CS6 to be Released First Half of 2012

It has been over 18 months since the release of Photoshop Creative Suite version 5 (CS5) and the new version CS6 is expected to be released the first half of 2012. Based on previous version release dates, speculation is that it will be in May. Read "When Will Adobe Creative Suite 6 be Out, Including Photoshop CS6?" for more information. Adobe developers have already released the prerelease (beta) version of CS6 to those interested in testing it and some videos showing CS6 new features are already posted on the internet. Ps CS6 will include a new user interface (interaction of the software and the computer) that improves the rendering of some effects and has a different looking window. Tools and features are enhanced such as the camera raw processing, 3D effects, addition of three image blurring effects, greatly improved vector pen tool, a new color replacement brush, and will include an auto file saving feature.

New Adobe Software Updating Policy
Because updating software is expensive, many artists do not update every time a new version is released. It normally is not a problem with Adobe software because in the past Adobe has allowed discounted software upgrades for users of three previous versions of the software. But Adobe's policy has changed starting with CS6 and now they only discount an upgrade of the previous main version. However, users owning CS3 and CS4 will be allowed to purchase CS6 at the upgrade price until December 31, 2012. An alternative way in using many of Adobe software packages is to sign up for Adobe Creative Cloud. Creative Cloud is a membership service (starting at $49.99/month) that allows the member access to all the CS software, Adobe Apps, services, and new products as soon as they are released. Unfortuately very few artists can afford it.

Below are some videos of a sneak peak at the new Photoshop CS6. Note: The sound in a few of the videos is not very good or the presenter is hard to understand.

• Camera Raw Processing tool: "Sneak Peak #1"

• Liquify Tool and Background Save: "Sneak Peak #2"

• Vector pen improvements: dash and dotted vector lines along a shape "Photoshop CS6 sneak peek video #3"

• Vector pen tool: "Photoshop CS6 New Features - Pentool / Stroke /Layer Palette Filters"

• Color Replacement brush: "Photoshop cs6 - new features - color replacement brush"

• New blurring filters: "Photoshop CS6 Review ( NEW 2012)"

• Magically move and remove images in painting: "Photoshop CS6 Content-Aware Sneak Peak"

Comments are welcomed. Enter them in the below comment section.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks Joan, very informative and great researching on this. I love your Valentine love birds, above!
    Ellie

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  2. Hi Joan, I am linking to this tomorrow! As usual, you have such great and timely posts! Thanks!

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  3. LOL - that $50/month for access to all titles is a bargain. The greedy little snots had started out wanting to charge $50/month for PS only - and equally insane subscription prices for all the other individual titles. They weren't going to sell CS6; they were going to put it all on the cloud. Maybe they took it seriously when I told them I would come over there and smack their nasty little fingers.

    Those improvements are all fluff and borrowing from Illustrator, so they can meet the standard for a version upgrade. I was hoping they would find programmers smart enough to expand the 3-D and video editing capabilities in Photoshop.

    What did the horrible 20-&-30-somethings at Adobe do to the grown-ups?

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  4. Anonymous,
    There sure was a lot of uproar when Adobe first announced their new pricing policy. I'm so glad that Adobe listened to their customers like you and changed their minds on pricing and allowing upgrades to individual software. As far as the fluff that is being installed in PS CS6, I'll be extremely happy to get them. I'd rather have a decent pen tool in PS then having to go back and forth between Illustrator and PS in order to create a combination of vector and raster images. Creating vector shapes in Illustrator was so much easier than in PS. Also I'm really looking forward to the new color brush since I often change colors of my images and the new brush looks much easier to use than the old methods. And the autosave future will save me loads of time when my computer crashes so that I don't have to recreate the image. Joan

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  5. Thanks Joan. I wasn't aware there was an upgrade discount. I work with CS3 still. What could I upgrade to and what kind of cost are we talking about?
    I watched a couple videos you listed. The man w/the heavy accent was jumping in and out of English (I think) making it hard to understand. I'm sure more videos will come out that are more clearly spoken.

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  6. Hi Denise,
    I would wait until Photoshop CS6 is released and then you could upgrade to it or the Creative Suite CS6 which is a combination of software packages (Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, In Design, etc.). Because you have CS3 you have until 12/31/12 to upgrade to CS6. After that you will have to pay the full price. I don't know what it will cost to upgrade to CS6 but to upgrade to PS CS5.5 the cost is $349. A new version of PS CS5.5 costs $999. The upgrade price for Creative Suite is about $1500. For more information, check out the following Adobe page - http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopextended/buying-guide-suite-editions.html Note: I use several of Adobe software packages so it is cost effective for me to upgrade to Adobe Creative Suite Design Premium.
    Joan

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