Adobe Systems on Wednesday unveiled a beta version of the upcoming Photoshop CS6 for the public to test its new editing capabilities before its official release.

The new version promises a host of exciting features including 3D editing and image innovation capabilities, thanks to the new Adobe Mercury Graphics Engine (MGE) that Photoshop CS6 operates on. The beta can be downloaded for free from Adobe Labs, after which customers can offer feedback through the website's user forum.

Photoshop CS6 will be a milestone release that pushes the boundaries of imaging innovation with incredible speed and performance, Adobe's vice president products, Creative Media Solutions, Winston Hendrickson, said in a statement in the press release.

According to Adobe, the full version will be launched somewhere around the first half of 2012. The company is yet to reveal pricing, but according to Venture Beat Photoshop CS6 will be included in the Adobe Creative Cloud package for $50 a month on contract.

Here are the top five exciting features of Photoshop CS6 that once can expect:

New Interface The most obvious change is the new streamlined interface that is set by default and allows photos to pop from the dark gray background. Users can also revert to the old style by selecting Preferences.

GPU-acceleration The MGE gets a huge graphics boost and its GPU (graphics processing unit) enabled features will now allow for quicker edits and adjustments.

We're wrapping our whole GPU pipeline over the Mercury Playback Engine, Photoshop product manager Zorana Gee was quoted as saying to CNET.

Editing Tools/ Lens Correction Among the editing tools are Liquify, Warp, Transform and a revamped cropping tool which works similar to the one in Lightroom, CNET said. Using the crop tool, users can now rotate the images rather than moving it in a rectangular fashion. Also available are a bunch of filters such as the Blur Gallery, Lighting Effects Gallery, and the Adaptive Wide Angle filter, all of which help in image correction.

Video editing Photoshop CS6's new editing capabilities offers a plethora of artistic functions. Users can drag-and-drop images in a photo, explore a wide range of video formats, as well as create, edit, splice, add audio track and transitions, Mac World said.

3D Manipulation Photoshop's revamped software now allows for manipulating 3D objects, including switching views, panning and zooming images, all in real time. According to Mac World, the new program allows users to combine 3D and 2D capabilities, as well as play around with shadows and reflections.

In addition to the above features, Photoshop CS6 offers automatic correction controls and includes Content-Aware technology for relocating objects besides blending and filling in patches.

Software Adobe Beta