Photoshop CS7 to be tablet-only (with exclusive screenshots)
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With Photoshop CS6 currently avaiable as a free beta, Adobe has given us an exclusive sneak peek at what it's planning for the next version: Photoshop CS7, which is due for launch on April 1 2014. The biggest surprise is that Adobe is dropping the desktop version for a tablet-only release for Apple's Even-Newer-Than-New iPad and whatever Android tablets are still with us.
Adobe says that it's stripping back Photoshop CS7's feature set to focus on core creative tools, which it claims will help artists and photographers work more efficiently and concentrate on their work. Adobe's turning its back on Photoshop CS6's new dark interface and returning to a lighter texture accented in yellow and blue.
The toolset will include only a Pen tool with four widths, and Eraser of four strengths, a simple set of swatches (though more colours can be purchased separately), the ability to start again and a button for when you're finished. There will also be a simplified Text tool.
"I've spent a lot of time with the most popular creative iPhone app and it's changed the way I look at what we can achieve with our software," Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen told us. "I was spending so much time on it that it was beginning to take over my working day, but with our new strategy I can carry on as it's much-needed research, right?"
He added, "do you think John Warnock will be able to tell this is 'bromance'?"
So here's our exclusive look at the Photoshop CS7, helped out by a trio of London-based artists and designers we begged and cajoled until they agreed to help us.
Photoshop CS7's new toolset
The new Text tool. Image by James Walker, art editor of Macworld.
Created using Photoshop CS7 by Ciara Phelan, the East London-based illustrator and designer who's just co-founded new online art shop Many Hands.
Created using Photoshop CS7 by Robert Reed, creator of that mindblowingly-great pencil-drawn cover of Stylist magazine with Helen Mirren that you retweed last year.
Pricing will be £9.99, inevitably swiftly reduced to 69p.