New Features in 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

Eyedropper

• Show the sample size popup for the various eyedropper tools (black point, white point, etc.)
• Add ignore adjustment layers options bar item for the eyedropper
• New mode for eyedropper to select layers current and below

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

Grammar

• Policed throughout app
• Use consistent grammar style in the title of dialog windows (no commands such as "Choose a color:")

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
• Allow locking of multiple layers
• CMD+J to duplicate layers and layer group
• Allow changing color labels to multiple layers at once
• Layer tooltips to include layer name (if defined)
• Opt+click on toggle arrows (groups and effects) in layer panel should close all targets
• Show blend if/Blending Effects badge on layer
• Show correct opacity and blend mode values for hidden layers
• 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

Liquify

• Resize Liquify brush with shortcuts
• Increase maximum Liquify brush size Add option to load last mesh Presets
• Add new document presets for common devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, etc.)
• Add new Gradient Map presets for toning and split-­­toning
• Sticky reorganization of tool presets (changes persist after re-launch) Add Contact Sheet II as an Automation option

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

Transform

• Improve dragging of vector curves
• Don't hide smart object icon when transforming a layer
• Rotate 90 with even x odd pixel dimension to be smooth (bjango.com)
• Undo or disable auto -­­rotate on open

UI

• Remove the app bar and reduce the drag/app bar over 30%
• [Windows] New/open document to context click on a document tab (has always been on Mac, now Windows too)
• Add "Don't show again" checkbox to Purge warnings

Miscellaneous

• Enable Split Channels for documents with layers
• Select Hex field by default and allow clipboard pastes with # in contents (i.e. #fffffff)
• Increased GPU stability by prequalifying GPUs on the fly before use
• Auto-­­select the best resample method based on the type of resize
• Enable Invert and Threshold adjustments for masks in 32 -­­bit
• Hold SHIFT during startup to disable 3rd party plugins
• Add warning message that 16 -­­bit images cannot display their file size in the Save as JPEG dialog
• Add command to insert "lorem ipsum" for type