Adobe has released its Photoshop Express as a public beta. Adobe Photoshop Express is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) allowing the software to deployed over the internet to anyone who wants to "store, sort and show off digital photos with eye-catching effects."
Photoshop Express is free to use and each account gets 2 gigabytes of images online for free:
During the public beta period, Adobe will solicit Photoshop Express user feedback on product features and functionality, which will continue to evolve over time. As the newest addition to the Photoshop family line, Photoshop Express has taken much of Adobe’s best image editing technology and made it simple and accessible to a new online audience. Photoshop Express allows users to store up to 2 gigabytes of images online for free, make edits to their photos, and share them online in creative ways, including downloading and uploading photos from popular social networking sites like Facebook.
“Photoshop is trusted technology that has changed the visual landscape of our world. Now, Photoshop Express allows anyone who snaps a digital photo to easily achieve the high-impact results for which Adobe is known,” said Doug Mack, vice president of Consumer and Hosted Solutions at Adobe. “Photoshop Express is a convenient, single destination where you can store, edit and share photos whether you’re at home, school or on the road.”
Around this time last year when Bruce Chizen Adobe's CEO at the time hinted at bringing Photoshop online. Then in September Adobe showed a sneak peak of the application at Photoshop World.
Adobe Photoshop Express is not a replace for its desktop cousin, As John Nack, Senior Product Manager, Adobe Photoshop said last year on his blog, "To set expectations properly, I think it's important to mention that by "Photoshop-branded" we don't mean the professional version of Photoshop. The tools being discussed here are targeted at the consumer market--especially all the people using social networking and media sharing sites."
Even though it doesn't provide all the capabilities of Photoshop, it does provide some common tools that will allow consumers to tweak their photos: red-eye removal, cropping, white balance adjustment, sharpening and others. A great part of the app is the ability to quickly share photos (as many in my buddy list have discovered as I send photos of my dog).
Discussion
By Peter Muir on Mar 28, 2008
It's All Ball Bearings Nowadays
In the 1985 movie "Fletch" Chevy Chase runs around in many disguises throughout the movie while he fulfills his job responsibility as an investigative reporter. When questioned about his proximity to a broken private jet in a hangar while wearing mechanics overalls Fletch responds, "Hey! It's all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads. And I'm gonna need 'bout ten quarts of anti-freeze, preferably Prestone. No, no make that Quaker State."
Well Adobe has done it and it's not with ball bearings. It was only a matter of time before Adobe put the world’s most popular bitmap image editing program into a browser based environment. This is not a "Follow Everyone Else" move but a blazing step forward in the old world of desktop publishing and digital prepress. Now it's Web Based Prepress and Video and Web site creation and on and on. I'm sure it won't be long beofre the other major softwares have a web based cousin to the desktop.
It took me only minutes to open an account, get some photos posted and try some of the features of the software. As they say, in its current state it's no Photoshop replacement...yet. But from a consumer level who wants to do some Basic adjustments, Tuning of an image or some Effects it gets the job done and then some. It even lets you post your images in galleries you can share. I can see a professional level in the future.
Check it out it's free for now! Let your mind wander about the possibilities and how this will further the on going ever present never ending change that is the world we live and work in. Try to enjoy it if you dare!
This move continues to bolster one of my oldest and best investments in my portfolio. Keep up the great work Adobe and thanks for sharing Adam.
By Eddy Hagen on Mar 29, 2008
From a technology point of view, it's interesting to see that software that is a bit more challenging in features and processing power than a word processor, is moving online. At this moment the features are not sufficient for 'pro' users, so they will not use it. And they should not use it! Why? Read the fine print...
Rob Gailbraith pointed it out in his blog (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9308-9358). Article 8 in the licence agreement, a thing that everyone has to agree with but almost nobody ever reads, states the following: "(...)you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed. (...)"
Do you want Adobe - or any other provider of a similar service - to use your pictures, for free, and even make money with them?
It seems to be that the wording of article 8 claims things that were not intended, as was shown in the blog of John Nack, a Senior Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop, who raised the issue with the Photoshop Express team (http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/03/a_note_about_ps.html). So probably article 8 will be changed, but it hasn't yet.
What did we learn? Read the fine print! Licence agreements are binding and can contain strange things... Sometimes they can be funny (Did you know that you need to be 18 to use Google and all its service? See: http://www.cnet.com/8301-13739_1-9902548-46.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5), but usually they contain very important information about the use of the software, of the service.
Regards,
Eddy Hagen
VIGC
By Bryan Yeager on Mar 29, 2008
Nice Helvetica. And Nice Dog.
By Adam Dewitz on Mar 30, 2008
Eddy, Adobe appears to be addressing these concerns: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2008/03/a_note_about_ps.html
By Eddy Hagen on Apr 06, 2008
Adobe has updated the terms of use (fast response from Adobe!). And it is really interesting to read. They are adressing all the issues one can have when offering an online service, with online content. Everybody should read it to become aware of the issues with intellectual property on the internet... If you don't want to read everything, just look at sections 6 and 7.
https://www.photoshop.com/express/pxterms.html
Regards,
Eddy
VIGC
Discussion
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