Adobe

Adobe on Thursday announced that Photoshop CS6 beta is now available as a free download for Windows and Mac from Adobe Labs. The first major release since April 2010, Photoshop CS6 beta gives customers a preview of a ton of features including new image-manipulation tools, video-editing features and faster performance. The final release is expected in the first half of 2012.

New features of Photoshop CS6 beta include:

• 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
• Blur Gallery - users can apply a variety of effects to photos, including tilt-shift and simulated bokeh background blurring
• Vector layers - users can apply dashed lines and gradient strokes
• Searchable layers –quickly zero in on any layer you need
• New video tools - join and split video clips, add fade transitions, adjust brightness, contrast, tint, and more
• Refined interface - a new, modern look with dark UI options

Adobe released the public beta for Photoshop Lightroom 4 back in January for both Mac and Windows. Now the final version is available for $149 for the full version and $79 for the upgrade.

New features of Lightroom 4 include shadow and highlight recovery, new adjustment controls, a new Map module for GPS location tagging, in addition to Noise Reduction, Moire and White Balance controls.

Lightroom 4 also adds in native video support, allowing you to play, trim and extract frames from video clips shot on DSLRs, point-and-shoot cameras and smartphones. Video clips can then be easily shared in HD format on Facebook and Flickr. The newest version also allows you to create photo books.Read more

February is in full swing, which means it's time to announce X-Rite's schedule of webinars for professional and serious amateur photographers. Four free webinars are offered this month – Editing Portraits in Photoshop & Getting Prints Back that Match Your Display!, Image Edits and Enhancements in Lightroom 3, For the Birds! Nature Photography with Maxis Gamez and Edit & Enhance Landscape Images in Photoshop – all which will help photographers gain new confidence and learn quick, easy and powerful ways to enhance their color workflow.

"This month, X-Rite hosts four completely new Webinars that will surely appeal to a range of photographers looking to improve their photography as well as color management skills," said Mark Rezzonico, vice president, X-Rite Photo Marketing. "And we're especially pleased to co-sponsor with Nik Software, professional nature photographer and bird specialist Maxis Gamez's nature photography Webinar."

February Webinar Schedule:

Thursday, February 9, 2012, 11:00 AM EST and 1:00 PM EST
Editing Portraits in Photoshop & Getting Prints Back that Match Your Display!

Spend an hour with host Joe Brady learning how to edit portrait photographs to create images clients will love. In this free webinar sponsored by X-Rite, Joe will share some of his favorite techniques, tips and tricks for adding shape, direction and finish to portraits. From simple blemish removal to complex reshaping of body parts, these step-by-step tutorials will enhance your Photoshop skills and improve your editing quality and speed.Read more

This week at CES, Adobe released Lightroom 4 beta for both Windows and Mac. Available as a free download from Adobe Labs, the digital photo management and editing software gives users a preview of the new features that will be offered in the final release, expected in March 2012.

What's new:

• Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright highlights.
• Photo book creation with easy-to-use elegant templates.
• Location-based organization lets you find and group images by location, assign locations to images, and display data from GPS-enabled cameras.
• White balance brush to refine and adjust white balance in specific areas of your images.
• Additional local editing controls let you adjust noise reduction and remove moiré in targeted areas of your images.
• Extended video support for organizing, viewing, and making adjustments and edits to video clips.
• Easy video publishing lets you edit and share video clips on Facebook and Flickr.
• Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
• Email directly from Lightroom using the email account of your choice.

Adobe just released six new Adobe Touch Apps for Android tablet owners. Based on Adobe's Creative Suite, the new apps give tablet owners the tools needed to design, edit, and present their work, all on their tablet. The new apps are optimized for a touchscreen interface and include Adobe Photoshop Touch for image editing, Adobe Collage for moodboards, Adobe Debut for presenting and reviewing creative work, Adobe Ideas for sketching, Adobe Kuler for exploring color themes and Adobe Proto for website and mobile app prototyping.

The new Adobe Touch Apps will be components of Adobe Creative Cloud, which will launch in the first half of 2012. Files created via Adobe Touch Apps will be able to be viewed across devices, shared or transferred through Adobe Creative Cloud for access from almost anywhere.

"Adobe Touch Apps will transform how people use tablets – from mere consumption devices to vehicles for expression and creativity," said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media Business Unit, Adobe. "Our touch apps will be a key component in Adobe's full Creative Cloud offering, coming in 2012." Read more

Web designers and professional photographers have turned to Adobe Photoshop software for 20 years for their photo and video editing needs. But not everyone needs the full-fledged suite of tools that Photoshop offers. For the consumer there's the Adobe Photoshop Elements line - and new today for Mac users is Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 Editor and Adobe Premiere Elements 10 Editor.

Arriving today in the Mac App Store, the special edition of Photoshop Elements 10 Editor and Premiere Elements 10 Editor both include the core editing tools found in the full Photoshop Elements software line but come in at a cheaper price – $79.99 each – than the boxed versions which were just released two months ago.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 Editor is targeted at iPhoto users that are "ready to go beyond the basics" and offers new features such as:

• Guided Edits –guides you through the editing process step-by-step, to make achieving a shallow depth of field or a dream-like diffused glow with the Orton effect easy.
• New text functionality – allows you to get creative and add curving, flowing text to a photo that automatically follows the outline of a subject, custom path or shape.
• The Smart Brush – provides unique paint effects for specific areas of photos with 30 new effects like Pencil Sketch and Oil Pastel.

Adobe Creative Suite users who haven't yet upgraded to the latest version of design software, now is the time. The company just announced a special promotion giving Creative Suite users on older versions of the software the opportunity to upgrade from their individual or suite product to the latest version – including Creative Suite 5.5, Photoshop CS5 or Illustrator CS5 – with a 20 percent discount.

The offer runs through December 31, 2011 and will be honored by all Adobe Resellers and adobe.com for customers with a valid license to one of the following CS2, CS3 or CS4 products:

• Design Premium; Design Standard; Web Premium; Web Standard; Production Premium; or Master Collection
• Production Studio Premium or Standard; Design Bundle, Web Bundle; Video Bundle; or Macromedia Studio 8
• Adobe After Effects; Adobe Flash Professional; Adobe Illustrator; Adobe Audition; Adobe Dreamweaver; Adobe Fireworks; Adobe InDesign; Adobe Photoshop; Adobe Photoshop Extended; Adobe Premiere Pro