The Creative Suite 6,  including Photoshop CS6 is now available for download or shipment. . It is available for pre-order now, though it won’t start shipping for up to 30 days. (The website “estimates” May 7.)

The traditional stand-alone Photoshop CS6 full version will be $699, and the upgrade will be $199. Photoshop CS6 Extended, which contains the ability to create and manipulate 3D objects, is $999/$399. Note that video editing has moved from the Extended version to the Standard version. Upgrade pricing is available to owners of CS3 or later (though for CS3 and CS4 owners, it will expire Dec. 31, 2012.)

You can also gain access to Photoshop CS6 by subscribing to Adobe’s new Creative Cloud subscription service. Click here to read my next post discussing these two different alternatives.

Purchase CS6 or get more information at this Adobe link.

Photoshop CS6 contains everything that the Beta version did. Amongst the highlights for photographers in are:

  • Adobe Camera Raw 7, with the same new Basic panel, adjustment brush, graduated filter, and tone curve new controls as Lightroom 4
  • Content aware patch tool, for better patch repair/replacement
  • Content aware move and extend tool, to move, extend and copy objects
  • New blur filters with dynamic on-screen controls and preview
  • Adaptive wide-angle lens correction
  • Color Range selection enhancements to easily select skin tones
  • More intelligent auto-correction in curves and levels

Since CS6 is the same as the Beta, I will refer you to my Beta posts for more information:

What’s New in Photoshop CS6 (Beta)

Video of My Favorite New Features

Here also is a nice PDF summary from Adobe of what is new in Photoshop CS6.