Photoshop CS6 breaches half a million downloads in a week

Last week, Adobe made the beta version Photoshop CS6 available for download free of cost to the general public. Within a week of availability, the beta has been downloaded over half a million times, Adobe confirmed.

Photoshop CS6 offers a host of new features, along with significant improvements to the existing ones. For example, photographers have reacted enthusiastically to the new Content Aware Patch and Move tools. The addition of three new blur types in the Blur filter gallery is also quite an impressive addition. A sleeker interface that resonates the image of Lightroom has also attracted many.

Photoshop CS6 is the long awaited update to Adobe's flagship image editing software, Photoshop CS5. With the pricing pegged at $699 for the standard version and $999 for the extended version, it was becoming clear that many would choose not to upgrade to the new iteration of the editing software. However, Adobe has allowed users to download the beta version for free, with a trial limit of 60 days.

So far, the response to the feature set of Photoshop CS6 has largely been positive, as demonstrated by how quickly the software breached the 500,000 download mark. There is no firm date of release yet, but Adobe has said they plan on making the final build of Photoshop CS6 available in the first half of 2012.

Here's our hands on and first impression of Adobe Photoshop CS6 beta.