Adobe today announced Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta, a preview of what?s to come in the next release of the popular software, is available as a free download from Adobe Labs.

The new beta performance enhancements and it is available for the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows platforms. The final release is expected in the first half of 2012.

Key features include new additions to the Content-Aware tools: Content-Aware Patch allows greater control by letting users select and duplicate an area of an image to fill in or "patch" another, and Content-Aware Move lets users select and magically move an object to a new place in the image.

In addition, the Photoshop CS6 beta offers all the features of Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Adobe Photoshop CS6 Extended, such as new 3D editing features and quantitative imaging analysis capabilities.

The Mercury Graphics Engine promises to give near-instant results when editing with key tools such as Liquify, Puppet Warp, and Crop. Plus, a fresh Photoshop interface features dark background options that make images look better.

At installation of the beta version, users will be required to provide an Adobe ID to complete a one-time login and online product activation. For information on how to install Photoshop CS6 beta, visit www.adobe.com/go/photoshopcs6.