[Nobody]

News
Scoop: Adobe to offer Web-based Photoshop
By Rafe Needleman – February 28, 2007, 11:40 AM PST


Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, in conversation with CNET News.com Senior Writer Martin LaMonica, dropped a bombshell this morning: Adobe will release a Web-based version of Photoshop within six months. See the News.com story, Adobe to take Photoshop online, for details.

There are other online photo editors already (see our coverage of Fauxto, Picnik, Pixoh, Pxn8 , and XMG), but an online version of Photoshop is sure to capture a lot of users due to name recognition alone. We hope the online product lives up to the standards that the traditional version has set. The service will likely be free, and have ads in it.

Photoshop online will not be a direct copy of Photoshop. Even though Adobe's Flex technology allows developers to deliver graphically rich applications over the Web, there is still much one cannot do over a broadband connection. The online product is more likely to be a consumer-friendly, de-featured editor, perhaps even less capable than Photoshop Elements, Adobe's editor for consumers.

It will be interesting to see how Adobe begins to blend online and offline image editing. Chizen spoke of "hybrid" applications that are part traditional software and part Web-based. He expects that Photoshop online will eventually compete with a hybrid version of Picasa, Google's photo editor and organizer.

Adobe recently released an online video editor, Remix, via partner Photobucket.

 

[robdamanii]

It'll be cool to see how well it works.

I love Adobe's products. I've got Premiere Elements, Lightroom, Photoshop and Acrobat on my machine currently.

 

[Toshi]

cool. the future is coming

ink:

 

[LordOpie]

I don't see how that's going to work.

Powerusers, if you will, won't have the patience and will likely already own a copy.

Rare users or newbies won't have even the slightest clue how to navigate the complex program.

The only way this will work is that it'll be a user friendly, options oriented interface without the complex processing capabilities of the real Photoshop. In other words, new program leveraging the brand name.

I approve, but it is misleading.

 

[BigMike]

I completely agree with you Opie. people that know the program already will have a 'real copy' and people that have no clue will need it to look like M$ Paint.

I sat my Fiancee down in front of PS because she needed to do some work on her roller derby teams' logo, and she was calling me over every 45 seconds to help her with what I think is easy stuff.

PS is way to complex and powerful of a program to run over the net, it'll be interesting to see what it actually ends up being.

 

[binary visions]

This isn't going to be Photoshop ported to Web 2.0. It's going to be, as Opie suggested, an entirely new interface that will take advantage of Adobe's brand-recognition in the Photoshop name.

Adobe isn't stupid. Photoshop wouldn't sell fifty copies ported to a web interface - who would buy a special copy of a $700 program so that it runs slower?

There will be, I'm sure, basic photo retouching options such as red-eye removal, contrast, cropping, etc. and I'm sure they'll toss in a handful of more powerful Photoshop features (like the levels function) to draw people away from things like Microsoft Photo Editor. This will be like using Picasa on the web.

 

[Nobody]

I use numerous different computers, PC, Linux and, of course, Mac.

Only myself of all my friends and family have a fully licensed copy of Photoshop. One other friend knows how to use it moderately well.

I would like a 'fall-back' of being able to login and do work at remote locations without having to drag my laptop around.

I have so far disliked Elements - it doesn't have the same logic in it's tools, so no matter who makes it, it's a different program.

So, I like the idea, as stated above.

Like, Emergency Photoshop - use a computer at the library or something.

just a thought.

 

[BigMike]

Like, Emergency Photoshop - use a computer at the library or something.

just a thought.

Good call

 

[PatBranch]

I use numerous different computers, PC, Linux and, of course, Mac.

Only myself of all my friends and family have a fully licensed copy of Photoshop. One other friend knows how to use it moderately well.

I would like a 'fall-back' of being able to login and do work at remote locations without having to drag my laptop around.

I have so far disliked Elements - it doesn't have the same logic in it's tools, so no matter who makes it, it's a different program.

So, I like the idea, as stated above.

Like, Emergency Photoshop - use a computer at the library or something.

just a thought.

That's what I was thinking it would be good for.