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Photoshop Online Within Six Months

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Mar 01, 2007 07:54 AM
from the first-one's-free dept.
Software IT
scobrown writes "Adobe is going to create a software-as-a-service version of photoshop that it will initially be offering for free. It should be available within 6 months. It is supposed to be ad supported... but we'll see how long that lasts"
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[+] Web-Based Photo Editor Roundup 106 comments
mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has a roundup of 5 web-based image editing programs. The mostly Flash and AJAX-based webware ranges from simple touch-up services like Snipshot to the Photoshop wannabe Fauxto. They vary greatly in interface and extra goodies; some offer bookmarklets for getting images from a web page you're browsing, some offer artistic or goofy effects for you pix, but all fear the specter of Adobe's online version of Photoshop on the horizon."
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  • Platform-independent, I hope (Score:4, Insightful)

    by darien (180561) <darien@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Thursday March 01 2007, @07:56AM (#18192846)
    So long as it's not written in ActiveX or anything dumb like that, this could be good news for Linux on the desktop. Can't install the latest version of Photoshop? Who cares, just use it online!

    • Re:Platform-independent, I hope (Score:4, Funny)

      by The Dobber (576407) on Thursday March 01 2007, @07:57AM (#18192854)
      I believe the correct phrase would have been

      "Can't bittorrent the latest version of Photoshop......"

       

    • Re:Platform-independent, I hope (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dankenstein355 (995487) on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:00AM (#18192876)
      Rather use GIMP to be honest. Anyway, performance will be way too slow for any image of a reasonable size over the web. Why bother? Or am I missing something here?
      • I'm guessing that while performance might suck for large images, anyone doing real graphic design and photography will have a real version of Photoshop. This is probably intended for people who want to be able to quickly design some small graphics for use on their website.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by GIL_Dude (850471)
          Actually I think this could be very handy for people who get sent a .psd file by some "designer" who doesn't even think to send you a jpg or png that you can actually VIEW. So you open the web app, convert the file to something you can actually view and you are done. That's assuming they make it useful enough to export to other file formats.
          • Im pretty sure GIMP on *nix, Preview on OSx as the sister post mentioned, and the freeware Photoshop Album on Windows can handle PSD

        • Re:Platform-independent, I hope (Score:4, Interesting)

          by Traa (158207) on Thursday March 01 2007, @01:24PM (#18196806) Homepage Journal
          I'm guessing that while performance might suck for large images, anyone doing real graphic design and photography will have a real version of Photoshop. This is probably intended for people who want to be able to quickly design some small graphics for use on their website.

          To illustrate that you are most likely correct consider that the lead artist that works on professional photo restoration at YellowCatDesign typically works with files many gigabytes in size. A simple 8x11 inch at 600dpi and 8bit per color clocks in at 100MB. Most images are scanned at higher resolutions at higher bitdepth (and I think in CMYK rather then RGB). Also I've seen our professionals use tons of layers (10-100) which can add significantly to the filesize. I just don't see that amount of data beeing transferred between a web-based client and a remote server in real time.

          Still, for smaller images having photoshop available online would be great.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by miyako (632510)
            Gimp handles a lot of the less common advanced tasks that photoshop handles really well- and does some things much better than photoshop. The problem is those 7 or 8 things that the gimp doesn't do that photoshop does are 7 or 8 of the most common things that you might want to do when doing some graphic design. Layer styles, decent drop-shadow effects, layer grouping, color channels as layers, shape dynamics, all of these are really common things that Gimp either doesn't do at all, or does so poorly that
      • I imagine, as in strongly suspect that your scratch file and image will be stored locally, with the tools to manipulate that image being hosted online.

        Likely there will be local instances of the tools spawned as needed, then destroyed when you're done with them.
        • And Photoshop-as-a-web-app won't be crap? I don't particularly care for The GIMP either, but it's a darn sight better than a web implementation of an image editing app.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tijmentiming (813664)
      [shameless]
      Hey I created some sort of javascript drawing tool. You can edit images other people created. And draw new ones:
      Here I blog about it: http://the-timing.nl/blog/2006/10/wiki-art-has-a-n ew-editor [the-timing.nl]
      This is the actual application: http://wiki-art.fokdat.nl/ [fokdat.nl]

      And it works in Opera, Firefox, IE and Safari!
      [/shameless]

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Arleo (16712)

      Photo editing services on the web already exist for several years. Years ago I played with a photo filter tool on the Nikon website. You could apply all sorts of funny filters on your foto's, like cartoon filters and so on.

      Now there are several (free) services available, like myImager [myimager.com], Phixr [phixr.com] and Pixenate [pixenate.com]. Image processing is done at the webserver. A preview of the image processing result is shown on the web page and the final image can be downloaded at full resolution. So no rocket science at all. Just som

      • What technology do you expect it to be written in then? I see ActiveX, Flash as being the only *real* options for pulling this off. Maybe a Java Applet.

        ActiveX and Flash are far from the same thing. The main problems with ActiveX is its windows only and its insecure. You also forget to mention java.

        As far as being windows only, Flash and Java have the problem of requiring closed source bytecode interpreters, but run on other platforms. They are both relatively secure as well. Both have interpreters available for linux so you will be able to run this on linux.

        I really hope this gets implemented as a J2EE delivered webapp with a flash frontend. Flash has the potential to be a platform of choice for rich web apps, and I think whatever R&D comes out of delivering photoshop as a flash app will translate into newer flash developer tools. I see this as the Flash equivilant of putting a man on the moon in terms of positive side effects.

        • Sun Java is in the process of going GPL, and there's also Apache Harmony, GNU Classpath, and GCJ. I wouldn't put it past Adobe to do a pure Java Photoshop. I've never known Flash to be a platform for intense serious work myself, though Adobe may know something I dont, given they own the thing

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by molarmass192 (608071)
            I've never known Flash to be a platform for intense serious work

            I was going to say you're bang on and that Java might be a good vector ... but then you reminded me

            (Adobe) own the thing

            and I suddenly saw a whoooooooole marketing vector for Adobe to leverage. I wouldn't at ALL be surprised to see a Flash front end for this. If they can put out a showcase app like PS in Flash, it makes one hell of a bragging right and would literally move flash into the "serious" class of programming languages. On tha
              • Keep in mind Adobe develops Flash. I've heard they're working on a .NET like stack with Flash, JavaScript, and a few other things. Another post mentioned it somewhere in this topic. They could have the Death Star* of web application stacks, and this is just Alderaan(sp?).

                *Let's hope they better protect the exhaust port

  • GIMP online 7 years ago (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tet (2721) <slashdot AT astradyne DOT co DOT uk> on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:00AM (#18192872) Homepage Journal
    This is nothing new. There was an online version of GIMP [slashdot.org] available 7 years ago. It wasn't a commercial success, but with today's hardware and bandwidth prices, and with a modern AJAX interface, would it stand a chance now? Adobe obviously seem to think so.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by grapes911 (646574)
      It might not be a new idea, but you can't possibly compare the resources of Adobe with the resources of GIMP.

    • Re:GIMP online 7 years ago (who cares?) (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Frosty Piss (770223) on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:06AM (#18192920)
      Whenever people Photoshop comes up at Slashdot, people mention Gimp. But Gimp is not a substitute for Photoshop as far as professional users are concerned. Gimp is like so many OSS projects, a rat's nest of messed up code, no real road map, and half-assed implementations "features".
      • Gonna have to call bullshit on this one. The one thing that GIMP is missing is a CMYK implementation (which will be in 2.3, they say). Then, it will be ready for professional printing.

        Granted, you will probably still need Photoshop to do glossy full color magazines, but the vast majority of professional printing is pamphlets, newspapers, and junk mail and other low quality bulk print jobs, for which the GIMP is just fine. In the future, Photoshop will have to target an ever-decreasing niche.

        Take care

        -mat

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Even if you make the assumption that seems to continually sink the FOSS crowd, that the proprietary app you are chasing will stand still while you catch up, I still think you are wrong.

          I looked at GIMP, again, somewhere around the unstable 2.3 release. It still does not have enough color management to be taken seriously by graphic artists. Layers aren't as well implemented as any Adobe product, they remain difficult to line up and as far as I could tell don't support non destructive effects. It is also limi

        • Re:GIMP online 7 years ago (who cares?) (Score:5, Informative)

          by Thundersnatch (671481) on Thursday March 01 2007, @09:57AM (#18194020) Journal
          There's a lot more than a "CMYK implementation" needed to replace Photoshop. You need suppport for ICC color correction, a lossless "base" color space (e.g. L*a*b), high-bit-depth support, monitor/scanner/device calibration support, 6+ color separation support, PANTONE color library support, and a hundred other professional-level features.

          GIMP is good for making JPEGs that target the web, where color fidelity is (lamentably) disregarded. And of course personal photo editing. GIMP's true competition at this point is Photoshop Elements, Paint.NET, Paint Shop Pro, and other "prosumer" tools.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Big Nothing (229456)
      You are implying that Gimp is Photoshop, or at least that Gimp is equal to Photoshop. It is not. This _is_ a big deal.

      [Trying to avoid Gimp-zealot flame: There are things that Gimp does better than Photoshop (the histogram comes to mind) and Gimp certainly is the best freeware graphics program out there, but Gimp is in general not as good as Photoshop when it comes to functions and usability]

  • Next business opp. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 140Mandak262Jamuna (970587) on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:01AM (#18192880) Journal
    Once it is offered, someone from the Third World would offer services to touch up the photos, clearing the background and adjust the color balance etc on the web using the free adobe photoshop. Already I have seen ads from people willing solve CAPTCHAs for less than a dollar an hour. Homework service for school children is also popping up. If only someone would invent a lawnmower that could be driven remotely via the net ...

    • If only someone would invent a lawnmower that could be driven remotely via the net ...

      Disguise it as a game, put it on the web in a flashvideo, call it LAWNMOWER EXXXTREME or something with lots of X'es. Kids love X'es. Market it on popular websites kids these days visit.

      Rules of the game:

      • you're not allowed to leave the lawn, or you insta-lose
      • if you finish under 10 minutes you get the bonus level "Backyard Wilderness Lawnmowing Extravaganza"
      • if you manage to mow down the neighbours cat who keeps poop
    • farm out all these tasks to people playing The Sims online, who will pay money in order to do them!

      Gentlemen, I think we have found the notorious Step 2 that comes before profit.

  • I can't wait (Score:5, Funny)

    by eclectro (227083) on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:03AM (#18192894)
    This means that Microsoft will follow by putting their much loved 'MS Paint' online.

  • Anyone remember Photo Deluxe? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dogtanian (588974) on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:05AM (#18192912) Homepage
    Didn't take reading the article to figure out that any version of Photoshop that was both online and ad-supported was more likely to be a very cut-down service and greatly different/simplified from the boxed versions.

    I used to use an app from Adobe called "Photo Deluxe". It was based on the Photoshop engine, but with the interface totally changed and cut down (more so than Elements). I wouldn't have considered that Photoshop, and I suspect that this online service will be even more simplified. Calling it Photoshop is likely just a branding exercise.

  • I don't get it... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Zeek40 (1017978) on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:14AM (#18192956)
    Seems like it will be an interesting experiment in software as a service, but media editing seems to be a bad fit for the "software as an online service" model due to the high bandwidth & processing demands. The math has to be done either on the user's end (which would be bad for folks with low spec systems, who i see as the primary target for this business model) or on Adobe's systems (which will cost them money, decreasing their bottom line). Anyone with experience in the field have any compelling reasons why one would chose to use adobe's online photoshop rather than just using picasa [google.com] or gimp [gimp.org]?
    • The math has to be done either on the user's end (which would be bad for folks with low spec systems, who i see as the primary target for this business model) or on Adobe's systems (which will cost them money, decreasing their bottom line).

      Not really, processing power is cheap. Bandwidth is alot cheaper than it used to be now as well.

      I have used photoshop a bit so I can offer some advice as to why people would use it too, the next version of photoshop may not run unless you have a legal copy and as many peo

  • Where is the CPU? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bjb (3050) * on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:19AM (#18192990) Homepage Journal
    OK, so I upload my 20MB PSD file and run a gaussian blur on it. Who's CPU is doing that? Unless it is ActiveX (Win32 only) or a Java plug-in (most likely not super efficient on raw CPU features), is it going to be hosted on their servers? Javascript won't handle it very well, I'd have to think.

    Probably not going to be a huge deal, but those real-time previews of CPU intensive filters are nice on the machine local installation; only hope those make it to the online as well.

    • Actually, Java is extremely efficient at low level functions like those required to apply filters to images.
    • As with Ajax, your local machine will likely do the work by one method or another (Java? ActiveX plugins?). "Online" in just a web delivery mechanism for their software, with a possible remote server backend for storage and configuration.

    • Re:Where is the CPU? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lpontiac (173839) on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:37AM (#18193128)
      This is Adobe. They'll write it in Flash. Expect an application that'll run locally in the Flash runtime (which will happily have optimised image composition routines to do stuff like a Gaussian blur), but with the web used to deliver the application inside a browser, and possibly with online storage and/or public sharing of your work tied in.
    • OK, so I upload my 20MB PSD file and run a gaussian blur on it. Who's CPU is doing that? Unless it is ActiveX (Win32 only) or a Java plug-in (most likely not super efficient on raw CPU features), is it going to be hosted on their servers? Javascript won't handle it very well, I'd have to think.

      Probably not going to be a huge deal, but those real-time previews of CPU intensive filters are nice on the machine local installation; only hope those make it to the online as well.

      I don't remember anyone said it sho
  • I'd buy it. I use OS X, and Photoshop would make a nice addition.

    For OS X is good, for Linux even better. But either way, just reduce the price and I'm sure they'd get more users.
  • Is this going to be a standalone application or is it going to compete with the hundreds of other online image editing applications?

    I say hundreds and I do not lie. There are hundreds of online java and javascript image editors. Some of them are quite fancy. I have usde one or two of them in the past when visiting family locations where they have no suitable software available.

    We do not need another online editor. I would be interested in downloading a small 50mb file to do basic functions though. Adverts o
  • I'm no image editing bod but surely this is a crap idea? Aren't most 'serious' photoshop images enormous and any stuff done to them requires big resources? This is not an ideal combination for a web app.

    There's the casual use I suppose but if you're not doing something uber-serious then you don't need photoshop - the gimp or similar will do just fine.

    Am I missing something?

    • Re:Surely a bad idea? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Hijacked Public (999535) * on Thursday March 01 2007, @08:44AM (#18193198)
      Photoshop has a solid identity in the market, even among casual photographers. Walk into a camera shop and mention GIMP to some random person looking at the point and shoots and you'll probably get punched in the eye. That same person almost certainly recognizes what Photoshop is and does.

      I'm a professional photographer but I am far less Photoshop oriented than most of my peers. But it is an indespensible tool. I've tried dozens of other apps, online and off, and even for my relatively simple needs Photoshop has no replacement. Not even other less expensive Adobe products like Elements or Lightroom. From the way the article reads this online version won't actually have the same features as a local version of Photoshop. My guess would be that it would be better named after Elements or Lightroom but neither of those have the kind of ubiquitous name recognition that Photoshop does.
  • The embedded ad images will provide the perfect raw material to deface when trying to come up with clever parody images to post on b3ta, Fark, Something Awful, and the like.
  • I somehow doubt they will be able to pack the full goodness of photoshop into an online site. One of the best ones I have seen so far is lunapic.com [lunapic.com]. It's got all the basic edits, lots of effects, and it's pretty fast too.
  • Sounds great for casual edits and what not, but serious users of Photoshop usually work with huge files, like 10, 20, 50, hell 100's of megabytes. Bandwidth, lag, connection reliability, etc. will be a serious issue for anyone doing serious Photoshop work.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pauljlucas (529435)

      Photoshop is great photo-editing software - the best.

      Photoshop is lousy photo-editing software. It's great for doing graphic-arts-type stuff, but is really lousy at editing photos. Photoshop is a pixel-painting application on steroids. It's 20-year-old (!) software and was made at a time when people just wanted to manipulate digital images. Notice I said "images" and not "photos." Photoshop, despite "Photo" being in the name, wasn't written with photographers in mind.

      By "editing photos," I strictl

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