Whether you're an existing user of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom or have just been interested in giving it a spin, the company has just released a public beta of the next version for all to enjoy.
Adobe Labs has released a public beta for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5, the next generation of the company's digital photography software for Mac and Windows. The public beta is free to download and use until its expiration on June 30, 2013.
Lightroom 5 adds welcome new features to the existing tools for organizing, enhancing and sharing images. The big news with the latest version is offline editing with Smart Previews, which creates smaller files perfect for SSD-powered notebook computers -- make image adjustments or add metadata, and those changes will automatically be applied to the original files the next time that offline volume is mounted.
The public beta also introduces a trio of new tools, including a more advanced healing brush for fixing image defects or removing entire objects, straightening tilted images with the new Upright tool and radial gradient, which creates vignette effects to better lead the viewer's eye to a specific area of a photograph.
Last but not least, Lightroom 5 introduces video slideshows for mixing still images, video files and music into HD videos viewable from almost anywhere, as well as improved photo book creation with simple, customizable templates.
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5 public beta is available free for all Mac and Windows users to download and use until June 30, 2013 from the Adobe Labs website.
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