Adobe surprised everyone late Wednesday with a public beta for their new Photoshop CS6, which is expected along with the rest of Creative Suite 6 in the first half of this year. But is this just another iterative update without many new features? You be the judge with our first look.

Adobe Labs has released a public beta of the forthcoming Photoshop CS6, which marks one of the most radical new updates in years, in terms of new and enhanced features. The company has posted an extensive 42-page PDF document detailing the release, but here’s the short version for those of you who prefer not to tinker with public betas.

User Interface

The first thing you’re likely to notice about Photoshop CS6 is the user interface. In keeping with other Adobe applications, it’s now darker -- although users can choose just how dark they want it (from four shades of grey) via Preferences > Interface. The UI also has more consistency than previous versions.

Adobe has also added a bunch of little things -- which they call JDIs or “Just Do Its” -- that will have a big impact on many workflows. Brushes can be increased up to 5,000 pixels, there’s now a brightness/contrast slider for textures when painting and HUD brush resize and hardness can now change opacity. Common stereo image pair formats like JPS and PNS can now be read, and TIFF files can now use additional bit depths.

There are plenty of little changes in Layers as well, such as a contextual menu item that deletes a layer effect rather than disabling it (yay!), locking of multiple layers, a new CMD + J keyboard shortcut for duplicating layers and layer groups and the Tab key now goes to the next layer while performing an inline layer rename, while Shift + Tab goes to the previous layer.

Key Features

That new darker, more consistent UI wouldn’t warrant an upgrade for most of us without some new or updated features, and Photoshop CS6 has them aplenty. The Crop tool is now all new and redesigned, with more discoverable handles that allow previewing the extended canvas before committing to it. Crop also allows images to be rotated while dragging outside the box, while the canvas automatically expands and shrinks to stay within the image.

The Crop tool now centers around the region you’re cropping while making a selection, and also features redesigned aspect ratio controls with support for common preset sizes as well as specific sizes of your own choosing. Best of all, these Crop features retain the same resolution as the original image, and the tool features a new simplified option bar.

Content-Aware continues to expand its horizons in Photoshop, where the feature has now been added to the Patch tool as well as the new Content-Aware Move tool. Content-Aware Patch build upon CS5’s Content-Aware Fill by choosing which area you want to perform the Patch simply by dragging from inside the selection to a surrounding region. This feature dramatically reduces unwanted areas of an image being pulled into the marquee area you’re trying to patch, with five levels of adaptation ranging from Very Strict to Very Loose.

Likewise, Content-Aware Move makes short work of moving objects within a photo, magically healing the gap left in its place. Simply draw a marquee selection around the object, select Content-Aware Move Tool and drag the object to its new location. In a moment, Photoshop CS6 will repair the original background, replacing it with elements from the surrounding background.

Video

As crazy as it may seem, video is also a big part of Photoshop CS6 -- and it’s no longer limited to the more expensive Extended version of the application. Video Group Layers now allow for Adobe Premiere Pro-style timeline editing right from within Photoshop, complete with basic drag-and-drop transitions, audio (that’s right -- in an image editing program!) and titles.

Dragging the edge of a video clip pops up a live preview of your edit in or out point, and Photoshop CS6 will automatically set an End of Work Area based on the last clip in your timeline. To set a clip to a specific duration, simply right-click on it and type in the desired length or speed. Photoshop also gains 10-bit external monitor support as well as 3D LUTs and color adjustments for film professionals as well.

Photoshop CS6 also includes a new video playback engine that supports virtually anything you can throw at it, including AVCHD, and video exports are now rendered through the Adobe Media Encoder, which is capable of encoding in H.264, DPX, MPEG-4 or QuickTime. Presets are included for popular formats such as Vimeo or YouTube HD as well as the iPad and common HDTV sizes and frame rates.

Performance

Now that Photoshop is leaving behind its 32-bit roots (the CS6 version requires 64-bit capable versions of Mac OS X, which means Snow Leopard 10.6 or Lion 10.7), the application can really begin to soar with new GPU and performance enhancements. Saving, auto-saves and auto recover can now be done in the background for less of a performance hit.

Warp Transform, Puppet Warp Preview, Liquify and Oil Paint features all get a huge boost from your computer’s GPU, with features such as Lighting Effects and new Blur Galleries also getting a jolt.

Blur Gallery and Corrections

Adaptive Wide Angle is a new feature that one-ups the existing Lens Correction feature by identifying wide or fisheye lens images and allowing lines to be straightened for a distortion-free look, even with panoramic shots. Adobe Camera RAW 7.0 allows for highlights and shadows to be adjusted separately for more dramatic images that use a wide dynamic range -- perfect for toning down overexposed skies or bringing detail out of the shadows.

A new Blur Gallery introduces three new methods to Photoshop CS6: Tilt-Shift, Iris and Field Blur. Each offers creative effects for selectively softening images or creating the illusion of a shallow depth-of-field.

Tilt-Shift Blur is a popular technique for making portions of an image appear tiny, mimicking the lens blur photographers get from a view camera. It’s perfect for those bird’s-eye views of a city or landscape which are so popular in iOS camera apps these days. Field Blur allows users to set an all-over blur with a single pin, or use multiple pins to create a gradient blur. Iris Blur simulates a camera lens blur, but allows users to control the shape and size of the blurred area.

Lots of Little Things

Photoshop CS6 layers can now be filtered based on certain criteria of your choice, which makes short work of PSD files with tons of layers. Color Range selections can now select skin tones, and a new checkbox called “Use Faces” will further refine the skin tone using face detection.

If you were a fan of the Contact Sheet II and PDF Presentation plug-ins, you’ll be happy to know they’re back in Photoshop CS6, which also retools the Type menu with improved font rendering and pixel accuracy. A completed redesigned Print dialog will also aid users when it comes time to output your work for proofing.

Shape Layers have now been replaced by Vector Layers, which brings some Adobe Illustrator-style functionality into Photoshop, with complete control over stroke, fill and fill color as well as paths. Finally, Adobe has added a new “Enhance Brightness and Contrast” algorithm to the Curves and Levels Auto Options which will make automatic adjustments more accurate than ever before.

Adobe Photoshop CS6 is now available as a limited-time free public beta from the Adobe Labs website for both Mac and Windows. You’ll need a multicore Intel processor with Mac OS X 10.6 or Lion 10.7 (both 64-bit capable), 1GB RAM and 2GB of available hard disk space as well as a 1024x768 or higher display and a qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL graphics card with 16-bit color and 512MB VRAM to run the beta, but thankfully that covers pretty much all Macs made in the last few years.

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