Launched 20 years after its first release, Adobe Photoshop CS5 features "more technological advancements from Adobe Labs than any other release," the firm says. "The software has greater intelligence and awareness of the content within images, allowing for complex and magical manipulation in just a few clicks."

One of the most impressive, and controversial, new features is Content Aware Fill, which lets users remove an image's subject, with the software automatically filling in the vacant space with the most appropriate background. A sneak peek video of Content Aware Fill quickly became a viral phenomenon online with more than two million views on YouTube, says Kevin Connor, vice president of product management for professional digital imaging at Adobe. The feature is expected to complicate the work of judging panels such as World Press Photo, which disqualified, earlier this year, one of its winners after he was caught removing a foot from one of his images (read our full report).

Photoshop CS5 also features a new Refine Edge tool, that allows for "nearly-impossible images selections". The tool can detect and mask the "trickiest types of edges, such as hair and follage, while eliminating background colour contamination," says Adobe.

It also includes new High Dynamic Range capabilities that easily combine multiple exposures shots into a single HDR image. The software can also reproduce, to a lesser extent, the same effects using only one single-exposure shot.

Photoshop CS5 Extended, which includes everything in Photoshop CS5, packs tools for editing 3D and motion-based content.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 and CS5 Extended will be available this month and retails, respectively, at £548 +VAT and £794 +VAT. Visit www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop/family.

A full review of Photoshop CS5 will appear in BJP's May issue on newsstands on 05 May.