Adobe Photoshop CC 2025 26.3

Adobe Photoshop Review: Editing Tools, Versions, and Updates

Adobe Photoshop is an image editing application used for photo retouching, image composition, and graphic design. It is offered as a desktop application, as a web version, and as an iPad app, with a free trial and plans for individuals, businesses, and students and teachers.

The current desktop release is Photoshop 2025, version 26.11. The current mobile releases are version 6.5 for iPhone and version 6.5 for iPad, and Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe DNG Converter are both at version 17.5.

Key Features

• Non-destructive editing: Adjustment layers, fill layers, layer masks, smart objects, and smart filters keep edits adjustable instead of applying them permanently to the original pixels.
• Selection and masking: Marquee and lasso tools, quick mask, colour range selection, the Select and Mask workspace, and channel-based masks give several ways to isolate areas of an image.
• Generative AI tools: Generative Fill, Generative Expand, Generate Background, and Generate Similar are available on the desktop, with a choice of AI models for generative control. Adobe Firefly generations can also be refined within the application.
• Retouching and repair: The Remove tool, content-aware fill, content-aware patch and move, the healing brush, and sky replacement address common correction tasks, and Camera Raw handles raw image files.
• Cloud documents and sharing: Cloud documents can be created, managed, and edited, collaborators can be invited to edit them, and files can be shared for review. Presets can be synchronised across devices.
• Learning resources: The application is documented in an official user guide, with tutorials, training and support pages, and a community forum.

Updates and Version Support

Updates are installed from the Help menu by selecting Updates. The installed version can be checked under About Photoshop on macOS and under the Help menu on Windows. Camera Raw versions are checked through the Plug-in menu.

Adobe provides technical support and security fixes for the current version and the version before it, while bug fixes are provided only for the current version. Older versions that were installed by default may be removed during an update.

• Auto-update settings can keep the previous version installed until the new release is familiar.
• Third-party plug-ins that have not been updated should be reinstalled to use the shared Creative Cloud plug-in location.
• Extensions not installed through Adobe Add-ons should be reinstalled manually.
• Offline installation is possible, but an internet connection is needed briefly to register and activate the software.