Photoshop CS6 Beta is now available

[GB1]

Hey everyone - You can download a beta version of CS6 here:

Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta | digital image editing software - Adobe Labs

I don't know how long it will stay active. Might be fun to play around with though.

[Photo-John]

Thanks for posting, Greg! I spent the morning watching videos and reading about the new Photoshop CS6 features. I think it looks pretty sweet - especially for photographers who also do some video editing. I've got an article posted with three videos demoing some of the new features:

Adobe Photoshop CS6 Beta Highlights & Videos >>

Who here is planning to invest in the Photoshop CS6? It's a very big investment for the average photographer. I usually buy every other version. I'm still using CS4, although I actually own CS5. I just haven't bothered to install it.The time investment of learning a new version of Photoshop always gets in the way of getting work done for me.

[GB1]

I'm like you J, I usually only get every other version (both PS and Corel).

But this time may be different. One of the things that bugs me about PS is its clunky UI (compared to Corel's Photo-Paint). Adobe has supposedly revamped on the UI in CS6, I don't know if this only means the new 'black background' mode.

Recommend that you go ahead and load CS5 - it does have enough improvements to warrant than. I believe that the UI and workflow is almost 100% the same in 4 and 5.

[Photo-John]

Interesting to know that you're using Corel. How long have you been using it and what version? Even if Photoshop CS6 is the greatest image editor ever, Adobe needs some competition. I agree that Photoshop is getting bloated. And expensive. There's a lot of controversy right now over Adobe's Photoshop pricing. It's priced way out of reach of the average photographer. And lots of serious photographers and pros are threatening to abandon it. It would be awesome if there was a really worthy competitor.

[GB1]

PJ - I've been using Corel Draw since version 3 (it's now on 16, or what they call X6), and Corel PhotoPaint since version 8.

They used to have a serious competition going. But somewhere along the way, Adobe PS pulled away from Corel and really never looked back. Corel Photo Paint didn't even have layers until the version X5 (they call them Objects), but IMHO their user interface is much easier to use.

As far as price, Corel gives you their CorelDraw suite with Draw, Paint, Capture, and a few other goodies for substantially less than Adobe. However, their upgrade price of $199 is the same as Adobe CS.

However, Corel really hasn't been doing as much to their Draw-Paint suite between upgrades anymore. They have so many art products now - Draw, Paint, Paint Shop Pro, Painter, etc - not to mention their Wordperfect and Winzip products, that I get the feeling that their development staff simply doesn't have the time to dedicate to any one product to make substantial progress. Still no HDR capability, and don't believe it has an auto merge-pano capability either. What's sadder is, they put their software out with bugs and have bugs that they are *not* fixing even on new versions. Actually, Corel PhotoPaint X5 was so buggy that it was quite nearly unusable. Several service packs have moved it over farther into the 'useable' category, though it still crashes occasionally and takes your work with it. They appeared to have problems making it work with Win 7.

CS also includes Bridge, which I use a lot. Corel has their Connect program, which is similar to Bridge, can only view and search, NOT allowing you to add EXIF tags (which makes it very useless IMO). Sadder yet, Corel just released version X6, and I did not read that they added the ability to add EXIF tags this time either.

So I guess until some company can catch up as far as capability and quality, PS will be the standard , and the most expensive.

[armando_m]

no photoshop here, I rely mostly on capture nx2, and lightroom 4
The rare ocassions I need layers I use corel paintshop pro (not my favorite experience)

[Eyelene]

Does anyone ever go to AdobeTV.com?
They have some pretty good video tutorials for free that I found very helpful.