Adobe has released the beta version of the most eagerly awaited photo editing tool - Photoshop CS6. The preview version of the upcoming PS CS6 is now available for free download on the official Adobe Labs site. The final version will go on sale later this year for $700 for new users and $200 upgrade fee for existing users.

The beta version of Photoshop CS6 unveils a fully redesigned user interface and sports several new features and fun tools including the iris blur and title shift. Adobe says that the new Photoshop CS6 sports over 60 percent new features than the CS5 including 65 user-requested features such as a Paste Lorem Ipsum option to fill up text blocks.

The most striking feature in the Photoshop CS6 is the improved Content-Aware tool. With the new content-aware tool, you can seamlessly move or remove objects from an image. The new feature includes a whole lot of improvements to the CS5 Content-Aware technology.

Bryan O’Neil Hughes, Senior Project Manager of Photoshop, tells Wired that Adobe’s focus in this release has been on making Photoshop more productive – “We’ve been fine-tuning workflows,” Hughes says, “not just adding, adding, adding. There’s a lot of working with what we’ve got and making sure it works as best it can.”

Here are some of the features (full list) available in the Adobe Photoshop CS6 -

Brushes

• HUD brush resize and hardness can now change opacity
• Increase brush size to 5000px
• Change color dynamics to per stroke instead of per tip (user option for old behavior)
• Brightness/contrast slider for textures when painting
• Brush projection for static tips
• Brush cursor reflects brush dynamics for round and captured tips

File formats

• Read common stereo image pair formats (JPS, PNS) Allow for more bit depths in TIFF files
• Read BIGTIFF format
• Give the user choices regarding how they want transparency treated in OpenEXR on file open

Layers

• Add a contextual menu item that deletes a layer effect not just disables it
• Add dither options to Layer Styles for Gradient Overlay and Gradient Stroke
• Allow 00 or Shift 00 to work when setting layer/fill opacity (previously no way to get 0%)
• Add bicubic sharper & bicubic smoother options when free transforming layers
• Allow changing of blend modes for multiple layers at once
• Multiple layers locking and allows changing color labels to multiple layers at once
• Layer tooltips to include layer name (if defined)
• Show blend if/Blending Effects badge on layer
• Tab goes to next layer on inline layer rename, SHIFT + TAB goes to previous
• New command to raster layer effect into layer, merging the selected layers into themselves
• Reorder effects in the layers palette to match the Z-­­order style/blend mode (bottom most effects in terms of blending order, drop shadow is below the other effects

SDK

• Add the ability to return an array of guides in a document from the scripting SDK
• Add ability to access tool name associated with the tool preset name via scripting
• Selections
• Make the marquee, lasso, and mask panel feather values support decimal places like the feather dialog
• Remember feather radius when showing dialog for selection from a path

Download Adobe Photoshop CS6 for Free

The Photoshop CS6 beta is available to free download for both PCs and MACs, and you will not require a serial number to install the product. All you need to do is select the “Try. I want to try Adobe Photoshop CS6 for a limited time” option in the welcome screen when you start the installation process.

• Direct Link - Download Photoshop CS6 beta for Mac (DMG, 984 MB)
• Direct Link - Download Photoshop CS6 beta for Windows (ZIP, 1.7 GB)

The download is around 1GB in size and comes with all the features in the Photoshop CS6 and Photoshop CS6 Extended. The (minimum) required system configuration for PC is 2GHz or faster processor with 1GB of RAM, and a multicore Intel processor also with 1GB of RAM for Mac.

The new Content-Aware feature in the upcoming Adobe Photoshop CS6 just blew my mind. Adobe’s Senior Product Manager, Bryan O’Neil Hughes, came up with a video demonstrating the latest feature in the CS6. With the new Content-Aware feature, you can seamlessly move or remove objects from an image. The new feature includes a whole lot of improvements to the CS5 Content-Aware technology.

All of the tricks shown by Bryan in the sneak peek guide can be recreated in the earlier versions of Photoshop. However, to accomplish the end-result the task certainly is time consuming. With the new features added to CS6, it clearly makes work much easier, faster, and more flexible.

In the demonstration, Bryan uses the concept of Content-Aware that was introduced in the CS5. Added to this is the Content-Aware Move, Extend, and Patch tool in the Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Other changes we notice is the Photoshop interface, which is much darker compared to the earlier version.

So, how do you find the new Content-Aware feature? I can’t wait to get my hands on this feature and try it out myself!

[Windows and MAC]: There is one problem with Facebook photo albums, you are not shown any link to download the entire photo album in your computer. To download all the photos of a Facebook photo album, you have to click through each photo, load them in a new browser tab and save the images one by one. This procedure can be quite tiring and time consuming as well.

We have previously covered a Facebook photo download tool , which lets you download entire Facebook albums in your computer. But what about “Tagged photos” in Facebook? What if you want to download all the tagged photos of yours or may be some of your friends?

Enter Photograbber, a simple Facebook photo download tool which lets you download tagged photos of any of your Facebook friends. Once you have downloaded the package, extract and run the utility. This will open a browser window where you have to login to your Facebook account and grant the necessary permissions.

You will then be shown an authentication code, simply copy and paste it in the Photograbber preferences as shown below:

Photograbber will then display all your Facebook friends in a list, you can select yourself or any other friend from the list and then download all the tagged photos of that person in your computer.

The application searches your friends wall posts for images where you have been tagged. One downside is that you are not shown the thumbnails or any preview of the images in the application window. Photograbber goes to work and downloads all the photos at once, you are also not given any option to select the images you want.

I think Photograbber does a nice job, you don’t have to search for all tagged photos of a particular friend and manually download them.

Note: You can download only those photos which have been publicly shared by your friend. The application works if the privacy setting for the particular image is “Everyone” or “Friends” , otherwise not.

A few days ago, Google revamped their image search page by adding some cool features. The new Google image search provides a dense cloud of thumbnails which lets you look at lot of images at once. Just hover over an image and you are shown a greater sized thumbnail including the link to the website containing the image at the bottom.

Another feature worth noting is the automatic page scrolling, you scroll to the bottom of the page and the next search result page is loaded automatically in the same page. This is quite useful when are unable to find the perfect image and want to view more results quickly.

If you ask me, I am not quite comfortable with the newer design of Google Image search. The first annoyance is the automatic thumbnail preview, moving the mouse across the screen results in random thumbnails being shown. This can be a bit distracting, considering the fact that you prefer simpler things. Since I hardly look into deeper search result pages, the automatic page scrolling is again not required.

If you want to revert to the older image search interface of Google Images, you can click the “Switch to basic version” link at the bottom of the page.

However, here is another simple URL hack which will let you use the older Google image search layout. Just add &sout=1 in the search result URL and hit the return key.

That’s it, the older interface of Google Image search is back again.

Thanks to Lifehacker for the tip.

There are many tools that let you resize or watermark your images but very few that let you do both. PicGhost is an online tool that lets you edit images, resize them and add watermark to them in bulk. The images can either be uploaded from your computer or from the web.

Once the images are selected, you can specify a custom width and height or resize them to match the smallest or the largest image. You can also choose from one of the many recommended sizes to quickly resize the images. The option to lock the aspect ratio maintains the proportionality of your images.

The tool also lets you add a text or image watermark to your images. You can either upload the watermark image from your computer, or enter the text to display. Custom selection of font, font size and color let you customize the look of your watermark. You can also choose the alignment of the watermark on your images or have it tiled. Once the images are edited, you can preview them before downloading them as a single zip file.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

PicGhost is a great multi-purpose image editor and resizer that saves a lot of time and effort. The interface is intuitive and the the functionality is simple.

Rating: 4/5

There are photos and then there are videos. However, often what you really need is something in between. FotoBabble is a fun little app that lets you create talking photos. Once you sign up for a free account, just upload any photo from your computer. Then record your voice, enter some tags if you want to and save the photo.

Once you save your photo, you can either share it through email and social networks by using the permanent link or embed it on a website or blog using the provided HTML code. You can also give your photo a title and make it public so others can see it too. It is a great way to send greetings, describe a photo or simple add some acoustics to an otherwise static image. You also have the option to make your talking photo autoplay.

FotoBabble also lets you browse through hundreds of interesting talking photos created by other users. Moreover, you can create talking photos from your iPhone using the FotoBabble iPhone app.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

FotoBabble is a great fun app to create talking photos. The interface is easy to use and the app itself is simple and focused.

Rating: 3/5

If you are looking for an alternative to SnagIt, the popular screen capturing software, JShot is an excellent option. To be honest, it doesn’t have all the features that SnagIt has, but it has plenty of them to make it a worthy alternative that is free. Once installed on your Windows or Linux machine, JShot will stay in your system tray and can be easily launched to capture a region, the desktop area, the active window or the full screen.

Once captured, the image can be saved or edited with the JShot editor. In addition to the basic features of cut, crop, rotate, flip and Merge, JShot editor also lets you add text, shapes, lines and arrows to your image. Alternatively, you can use the pen, rubber or bucket tool to add effects to your image or create and remove anchor shapes. You can also add other filters to your image including blur, sharpen and grayscale. A config wizard also lets you save various settings such as image format and default external editor.

JShot also lets you upload images to online services. Currently, it only seems to be working for ImageShack though. However, it probably has the simplest uploading process of all. Once you click the upload button, JShot would automatically upload the image to ImageShack and copy the direct link to your clip board. No need to register, sign in or even open a browser window.

Download JShot here.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

JShot is one of the best screen capturing utility that is free. It is hard to believe they offer so many features without charging a penny. The interface can be tweaked a little but the usability is fantastic.

Rating: 4/5

Most of the screen capturing tools that are feature-rich, cost an arm and a leg. There are of course a lot of free tools, but they are not nearly as good as the paid ones. One of the exceptions is ScreenPresso, a desktop based free screen capture utility that lets you capture, retain and edit screenshots with ease.

Once installed, you can just used the PrntScrn key on your laptop to initiate a screen capture. Drag to focus on the area you want to capture and ScreenPresso will display your captured image along with previous screenshots you have taken. You can then save it to your hard drive, share it on Twitter, drag it to an email client to email it or drag it to a windows folder to save it there.

If you desire to edit the image, you can do so with the built-in editor or any other image editing software installed on your machine. The editor allows you to resize the image, add shapes and text, crop the image or add borders and effects to your image. The editor also has a built-in zooming utility allowing you to do some really detailed editing. The software has almost all the basic features that a premium utility like SnagIt offers, except the hefty price.

Techie-Buzz Verdict:

When it comes to free utilities to capture screen shots, ScreenPresso is probably one of the most feature-rich and intuitive ones.

Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

[Via MyDigitalLife]

Adding images in email messages can be a bit tiring. You have to either upload the image as an attachment or use a Gmail labs feature to add images in the email message body.

Same goes with blogging editors meant for WordPress and Blogger. You have to either use a blogging client like Windows live writer, or use the in built uploader. The first option may not be suitable when you are using other computers to write your blog post. The later option can be time consuming when you have plenty of images to consider. In the worst case, the browser freezes in the middle and you have to start the process all over again.

To solve this, use PicturePaste – a simple desktop app to add images in your emails and blog posts. Following are the steps involved to use this tool:

1. Drag and drop an image which you wish to attach in an email message or a blog post into the PicturePaste program.

2. Convert the image to a suitable format using the built in conversion options. (JPG or PNG)

3. When the image is ready, drop it in the email compose window and it’s done.

Similarly, you can attach images into other web based editors such as Google Docs, WordPress and email programs – Gmail, Yahoo and Windows live Hotmail. All the images are uploaded to Amazon S3 and there is nothing to register or configure. Great find – LifeRocks.

Techie Buzz Verdict

Picture Paste is fast, easy to use and does what it says. However it’s not completely free and the trial version allows you to upload only 50 images. I would love to see integration of a short URL feature so that we can quickly share the image on microblogging sites.

Techie Buzz rating: 4/5 (Excellent).

Spell with Flickr is a web service which enables you to type in any text you wish to and then, matches each letter of that phrase/word with letter pictures right from Flickr.

The letters that appear here are retrieved from images posted on the One Letter Flickr group. If you don’t like any of the images that appear, then you can just click on each individual image to change it. You can also try reloading the page to get a new graphic set of letters

Spell with flickr also provides with HTML code that you can copy and paste to any web page or blog.

This service can come handy to quickly make a heading for a web page and try alternate texts to suit your needs. It’s a nice little tool to play around with. Check out spell with flickr.

This service is free for use and does not require any registration for use.