The main new feature of Photoshop 25.9 is the Adjustment Brush Tool, designed for making local adjustments to images. It combines existing workflows for selection, masking, and applying adjustments into one tool, allowing you to paint changes directly onto the image. The workflow doesn't affect the project; Photoshop automatically creates a new adjustment layer with a layer mask as soon as you start painting. You can explore available adjustments such as Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Levels, and Curves in the online documentation video.

In Photoshop 25.9, a new option has been introduced to automatically set the default font size for a document based on the document's resolution and zoom factor. This option is enabled by default. If it's disabled, the default font size for new layers is set to 12pt.

It's worth noting that Adobe has used the version number Photoshop 25.9 not for the first time. This version number was also used for a new beta build of the program released last month. However, the Adjustment Brush Tool is the only new feature from it that made it into the stable version of the program: new generative AI features, Generate Image and Generate Background, remain in beta.

Photoshop 25.9 is available for Windows 10 and above, as well as macOS 11.0 and above. In the online documentation, it is also referred to as the May 2024 release. The software is only available through subscription, with the Photography plan, which includes access to Photoshop and Lightroom, starting at $119.88 per year. The subscription cost for Photoshop as a single app is $34.49 per month or $263.88 per year.