Adobe to deliver Photoshop CS3 beta Friday

Adobe has announced it will introduce on Friday a beta version of the Universal Adobe Photoshop CS3 software to "enable customers to more easily transition to the latest hardware platforms, particularly Apple’s new Intel-based systems." The beta, first previewed in early September, is available as a Universal Binary for the Macintosh platform, as well as for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista computers. As noted previously, the final shipping release of Adobe Photoshop CS3 is planned for Spring 2007. Packed with new features, Photoshop CS3 beta also includes a pre-release version of a major upgrade to Adobe Bridge, as well as a preview release of the all-new Adobe Device Central. The software will be be available at its Adobe Labs website in the early hours Pacific Standard Time on December 15 and will require a valid serial number.

Photoshop customers can use Adobe Device Central to design, preview, and test compelling mobile content, created specifically for smaller screens. This new tool, integrated in the Photoshop CS3 beta, simplifies and accelerates the creation of mobile content through a preview environment and built-in device profiles.

“This is an exciting time for the Mac, and Adobe wanted to ease the move to new Intel-based systems with a preview release of Photoshop CS3,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. “We didn’t want to leave Windows customers out of the party, so the beta is available to everyone in the creative industry's most passionate user community -- no matter what their platform choice. We still have some surprises in store, but this beta gives customers an early chance to see the power of another great Photoshop release, optimized and tuned to run natively on the latest hardware and operating systems.”

To utilize Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta, customers require a serial number from either Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Creative Suite 2, Adobe Creative Suite Production Studio, Adobe Design Bundle, Adobe Web Bundle or Adobe Video Bundle. Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta is available in English only. Customers who have a valid serial number for all other language versions of qualifying Adobe products can download the software. Without a serial number, users can still download Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta with a two-day time limit. The company said that customers must register online with Adobe or have an existing Adobe.com membership account to access the software.

Adobe recommends that users have either Mac OS X 10.4.8 (or "Leopard" 10.5), 1GHz PowerPC G4 or G5 processor or an Intel-based Mac. The Photoshop CS3 beta will expire soon after the launch of Photoshop CS3 in Spring 2007. Details on final pricing, system requirements and availability have yet to be determined.

Filed under: Apple