After two years since its last update, Adobe has finally come up with a new version of Photoshop. For the first time this beta version of the software is free to download just by signing in with your Adobe ID account so you can test run the new features yourself. But what's new in this version? Most of the changes were made based on user's feedback which is a smart move on Adobe's side. The first noticeable change is the UI which is now darker instead of the light grey we have been used to for so long. And apparently one of the biggest improvements is its improved speed.
In total there are 65 new added features, including a new crop tool, expanded video editing options, auto recovery and the ability to search for specific layers. Fans of the dotted lines in Illustrator now get the same vector tools in Photoshop (finally!). And for the faint of heart, now your projects can be automatically saved in the background while you work on other stuff.
Adobe's also made some refinements to existing features. The liquify tool, for instance, now has a larger maximum brush size, and works in real time so you can see the effect in real time. Adobe's also added two features to complement Content-Aware Fill, which was first introduced with CS5. These include one for moving objects to different part of the image, and one for patching up a spot with content taken from another part of the picture. There's also a big improvement for video manipulation, now you can add and mute audio tracks, create transitions and fades, use the Text tool and perform all of the standard Photoshop edits on a video file. As for all the other new features you can check out the Adobe tutorial videos for more details. You can also see the press release here.