The announcement comes hot on the heels of Apple shipping its own digital photography product Aperture.

Unlike Aperture, Lightroom will be available for Windows as well as Apple and doesn't require as powerful a machine to run.

It supports more than 100 digital cameras and uses Adobe's raw file conversion.

Adobe is seeking feedback from users of the software, which it is positioning as a complement to Photoshop, prior to the launch of a commercial version before the end of the year.