Adobe Puts Free Photoshop Online

Amit Agarwal writes "Adobe today launched a basic version of Adobe Photoshop available for free online. Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. According to Yahoo! News, Adobe says providing Photoshop Express for free is part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities. It hopes some customers will move from it to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that's in the works."

You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[New_Age_Reform_Act]

Read the ToS: [photoshop.com]

Section 8 (a):

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, 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.

Thanks I will stick with GIMP [gimp.org] instead.

Of course, if you need free stuff, there is always The Pirate Bay.

Not working properly on Mac

[Anonymous Coward]

Not able to register on Safari browser

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[The End Of Days]

...that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services...

Reading comprehension FTW!

Upsell? I think not!

[Bryansix]

Why would I want to move from this to Photoshop Elements. Elements sucks hardcore. It is hard to use while proporting to be easy to use. It holds your hand wand walks you right off a cliff. I'd much rather either have this simple express version or the full fledged CS3 version for many hundreds of dollars. It's as simple as that. If I wanted something in the middle I would use GIMP and Inkscape for free.

Sounds like Picnik

[Skidge]

Sounds kind of like Picnik [picnik.com], which provides free basic photo editing and is integrated directly into Flickr. It's pretty handy for doing some tweaks on your photos. Picnik has some advanced, paying-account-required features, though, so maybe Photoshop Express will be better in that regard.

excellent opportunity for FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently used Photoshop CS3 on an OS X Mac. While Photoshop used to be THE Mac application, it's still stuck 10 years in the past.

This is an excellent opportunity for Free Open Source Software. The GIMP's two biggest problems are: 1) butt ugly 2) poor color support.

OS X/Cocoa provide a nice user interface AND excellent built in CMYK color support. I think we should rewrite GIMP (or better yet, start a new project entirely) designed to take advantage of the Cocoa/OpenStep/GNUStep and kick photoshop's proprietary ass.

Well they already have serious competition...

[Anonymous Coward]

a.viary [viary.com] is in beta (but you can sign up for a quick invites) and offers a pretty impressive online image editing suite. I'm not much into image editing / manipulation but the things [youtube.com] people [youtube.com] are already doing with it [youtube.com] are pretty damn impressive.

Re:? Questions.??

[brunascle]

Why does it require my images to be uploaded to be edited?

because Flash doesnt have access to your filesystem. if it did, it would be quite a security issue.

Signed up to see what the fuss was about.

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

Here is what I have noticed so far.

Requires Flash 9. to install.
They have a notice that basically says
Account creation is heavy today it may take 60 minutes to recieve your e-mail.

Mine (done 4 min. ago) took about 1 min.

Super fast uploading! 1 3mb pic took all of 3 seconds to upload!

Very basic editing tools, but has a few cool distortion features. One neat thing to note is links to external sites such as Picassa, Photobucket and Phacebook! (er uh Facebook!)

Gallery and gallery sharing is neat, but slow (probably due to high use right now)
This won't come close to replacing your pirated versions of PS you all have at home. It'll be interesting to see if they add new tools or leave it as is.

Re:Adobe Photoshop Express

[Ford Prefect]

I think it's a great idea to give people a taste of what Photoshop is like.

... Except it's nothing whatsoever like Photoshop. At all.

I had a quick go at 'editing' a photo in the test-drive thing, and there didn't seem any way of actually drawing anything. I'd say it's much closer in concept to a drastically simplified Photoshop Lightroom [adobe.com] - it's even got the same colour scheme and vague general layout. Except where Lightroom will manage untold gigabytes of photos on your own computer, doing on-the-fly conversions and adjustments from raw format, Express looks more like an advanced, online photo management system.

It's definitely not Photoshop Photoshop.

Re:You will lose your copyright on your pictures..

[Anonymous Coward]

section 8b
"Publicly accessible" areas of the Services are those areas of the Adobe network of properties that are intended by Adobe to be available to the general public. However, publicly accessible areas of the Services do not include Services intended for private communication or areas off the Adobe network of properties such as portions of World Wide Web sites that are accessible via hypertext or other links but are not hosted or served by Adobe.

Adobe Online Productivity Office

[PortHaven]

Adobe's Online Office Productivity Suite:

Photoshop Express (Photo Editor)
https://www.photoshop.com/express [photoshop.com]

Buzzword (Word Processor)
http://www.buzzword.com/ [buzzword.com]

Sliderocket (Presentation Software)
http://www.sliderocket.com/ [sliderocket.com]

Blist (Spreadsheet)
http://www.blist.com/ [blist.com]

***

Did you buy stock? I did a while ago... :)

Beware license RIGHT GRAB

[future assassin]

This is on the Adobe website at https://www.photoshop.com/express/terms.html [photoshop.com]

Please pay attention to this - fully sublicensable license

8. Use of Your Content.

1. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, 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.

Re:Already Free

[chexy]

If your on a windows system why not use Paint.net http://www.getpaint.net/ [getpaint.net]

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Lobster Quadrille]

I'm in information security now, but I studied illustration in college and CMYK is definitely a must, if you ever want to send your work to press.

Gimp is an extremely awkward UI. Photoshop is nice and clean.

You seem to be complaining about the fact that people have legitimate reasons not to use gimp. I'm one of 2 linux users in an all-windows shop, and I hate non-open software as much as any /.er, but Photoshop is one of the few examples of absolutely phenomenal closed-source software.

Do I wish it was open? Hells yes. I have no doubt it'd be a lot better.

Re:Already Free

[blhack]

Gimp is NOT Photoshop, nor is it even remotely comparable. Inkscape, though a nice program, isn't quite up to the same bar as Illustrator (though it can most certainly get the job done). And InDesign is the best, with Scribus and Quark being in a close second.

Probably a flame, but I'll bite.
What specifically can you do in Photoshop that I can't do in Gimp? Its probably just a matter of what you're used to. I grew up on gimp. If you stuck me in front of a Photoshop rig, there is very little chance that I would be able to do ANYTHING with it.
As far as Inkscape, have you used version 0.46 yet? Its really really good. It just came out a couple of days ago, so I suggest you check that out. Honestly, people talk about firefox, or gimp being great examples of what OSS can do, but IMHO, Inkscape is one of the BEST examples of just how awesome F/OSS software can be.

As far as scribus goes: I use it EVERY SINGLE DAY. The ONLY thing that it can't do that commercial software can is Spot Colors out of the box. This is pretty simple to fix though, you just need to edit a config file. If you're a designer, you really ought to have a pantone book laying around, so just match up the colors you want, and put the names in the Config. Google it, its pretty simple.

Really, if this was more than a flame i would love to know. What really can you do in Adobe products that I can't do in OSS ones?

Re:Terms of Service give Adobe unlimited rights...

[glitch23]

So don't post your images to public areas of the service, otherwise they do not have the right to do anything with them. From their ToS [photoshop.com] which someone else already pointed out (emphasis mine):

Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, 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.

Publicly accessible areas of the Services are those areas of the Adobe network of properties that are intended by Adobe to be available to the general public. However, publicly accessible areas of the Services do not include Services intended for private communication or areas off the Adobe network of properties such as portions of World Wide Web sites that are accessible via hypertext or other links but are not hosted or served by Adobe.

Bottom line: just don't post your images to publicly accessible areas of the service and you'll be fine. For those who this is targeting, I doubt they would care. For anyone else, you wouldn't be using this service anyway and would already have Photoshop installed (legally or otherwise) on your workstation.

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a flame, but it is the dealbreaker he is talking about when it comes to GIMP vs Photoshop: GIMP's inability to do CMYK or something along those lines. So it is not professional grade (I may be simplifying it), not something you can turn in to a professional printing company, but for the hobbyist and/or FOSS fan, it's enough.

It's cropped up often enough in these type of GIMP vs Photoshop stories.

Re:Already Free

[wellmington]

Probably a flame, but I'll bite.
What specifically can you do in Photoshop that I can't do in Gimp? Its probably just a matter of what you're used to. I grew up on gimp. If you stuck me in front of a Photoshop rig, there is very little chance that I would be able to do ANYTHING with it.

CMYK, Pantone in particular but mostly it's down to the horrible interface that GIMP comes with. Gimp is basically a programmers idea of how a creative tool should look.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

By the way - as a supplement to the comment above, here is a simple example of the difference between 8 bit and 16 bit colour:

Benefits Of Working With 16-Bit Images In Photoshop, Page 2 [photoshopessentials.com]

Re:Already Free

[Ford Prefect]

I don't get it. I can tell they look different, but they both look equally good. I guess #2 is a little sharper; is that the GIMP one?

Nope, that's Photoshop!

The only change I made to the text rendering settings was to disable hinting in The GIMP - which is a single click in the checkbox just beneath the font size, so it's not a remotely hidden option.

Photoshop's got even more rendering options, and its text editor thingy is way more capable, allowing different styles in the same text (kind of like a word processor) - but the idea that The GIMP's actual text rendering is rubbish is just a myth...

Re:Why not just use The Gimp?

[Xabraxas]

It shouldn't be too shocking if there are a lot of people who need to do something that involves professional-level features. Anyone working in graphic design, advertising, or even a creative branch of some other kind of company might need some particular features (including CMYK). I worked for an engineering firm that wanted to send some presentation materials to a professional printer so they looked nice. Those needed to be in CMYK.

I work in a prepress job and I've noticed two things:

1. Marketing and advertising people know nothing about CMYK, color gamut, color seperation, or any of that. Just yesterday we were sent a screenshot of an art file made in Word to use for a poster and the customer wanted to know why the proof was all pixelated! We're sent all kinds of crap that takes a lot of effort to get into a state where it can be printed accurately. Most customers grudgingly give in and pay for us to transform their crap images into workable images. They just don't know anything about what it takes to print images made on a computer.
2. Photoshop is rarely used unless you are working for a magazine or something of that nature. Most things printed are vector graphics and text. Most design work involves logo design, color correction, and layout. Just as customers send us screenshots and things of that nature, they also just send us compressed jpegs when they send pictures. In a perfect work everyone would send us proper files that can be printed easily but they don't and its our job to get it to press.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

As a supplement to the parent comment, and just to vindicate support for your very relevant link, I will relay a section from near the end of that page:

[8 bit image]

Yikes! Just as with the gradient, the 8-bit version of the image suffered quite a lot of damage thanks to the edit. There is very noticeable color banding, especially in the water, which now looks more like some sort of painting effect than a full color photo. You can also see banding in the beach ball itself, and in the sand at the bottom of the photo. At this point, the 8-bit image is of little use to us anymore.

[16 bit image]

Once again, just as with the gradient, the 16-bit version survived without a scratch! It looks every bit as good as it did before the edit, while the 8-bit version lost a ton of detail. And it's all because the 16-bit version has such a tremendous amount of possible colors available at its disposal. Even after an edit as drastic as the one I performed, I was unable to make the slightest dent in the quality of the image thanks to it being in 16-bit mode.

Re:Already Free

[g00nsquad]

That's fine but off-topic. You asked what specifically Photoshop can do that GIMP cannot, I responded with two items, which you then attempted to bin by relegating them to the status of irrelevant. I shoot stitched panoramic landscapes and I would say the largest transition in image quality for me was when I made the jump from using 8 bit jpgs as my base exposures to 12 bit Canon RAW converted to 16 bit TIFF. 16 bit image support is very relevant to me, not so relevant to you, but its relevance to either of us individually doesn't negate its value.

Re:Already Free

[piojo]

Really, if this was more than a flame i would love to know. What really can you do in Adobe products that I can't do in OSS ones?

Primarily, I think it's the interface, and for me, it has to do with layers. When a tool is used in photoshop (like drawing a square or adding text), a layer is created that represents that addition. This layer is easy to move. When I create a text layer in the gimp, I have to click within a very small portion of the added text to move the layer. That's merely annoying, but it's just one example of how design is harder to do in the gimp. Another is that layers can't be grouped in order to apply effects to all of them. Also, these "ghost layers" seem to be created more often in photoshop than in the gimp. This makes design easier. (What I'm trying to substantiate is that photoshop feels easier, and I don't have very much evidence, I admit.) Here's another example: how hard is it to draw a circle or square in the gimp? Make a selection (the gimp has excellent selection tools, I know), then do "selection to path" then "feather path". I would really just prefer a few shape drawing tools.

These criticisms really just apply to design. For editing of something that already exists, I'm not sure photoshop has anything over the gimp. Also, the ability to script the gimp with scheme (or python, I think) is a big win--I've only used this once, but I would never have wanted to [resize, sharpen, adjust contrast] 600 images by hand!

Re:Already Free

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the Adobe Suite follows typographic conventions more strictly and defaults to a larger tracking than most OSS software. The other difference that will affect print output is that the default Adobe kerning is better, for example between o-t-o. GIMP handles the basics well and only needs a little more hand-holding (as PS also needs some hand-holding to get tracking and kerning just right) to produce a finished product. Unfortunately, when more advanced typographic features are wanted, they are more difficult to find in GIMP. (Such things as alternative stylistic sets and different number styles are often two or three clicks away in PS.) To go with the parent, even advanced typography is doable in GIMP--though it can take many extra steps.

Re:Already Free

[sydneyfong]

I'll give one. Not long ago using the Gimp crop tool involves selecting an area, and when you begin selecting the area a window pops up, sometimes obscuring your view of the image, and thus you have no idea what you are selecting.

To be fair they finally replaced that interface with a new one that's so much better. I have no idea how they do crop in photoshop though....

Re:Already Free

[Ferzelic]

I can't seem to find the ability to create layer filters that change based on the content of the layer.

Current versions of GIMP don't have filter layers. Valid point.
(Though they are only a convenience, in that you can achieve the same effects with regular filters, just not in a non-destructive way.)

I also can't find the slice

Image -> Transform -> Guillotine.
If you want it to create the HTML code for you as well, there are several plugins you can download (eg Py-Slice).

or save for web tool.
Where are the file optimization settings?

Save as -> GIF, PNG or JPG. Adjustments are in the save dialog.
Toggle the preview checkbox for lossy-compressed formats such as JPG.

How do you export as a PDF?

I'll grant you there's no built-in function for it, but I also can't conceive of a useful reason for doing so.
Converting a single bitmap image into a PDF is a grossly inefficient operation for no benefit.
(Where the file format can sensibly be exported to PDF, most open source software does provide it; eg Inkscape.)

Where is the ability to record actions and execute them on folders/files?

Instead of macros, GIMP is fully scriptable. Considerably less convenient, but much more powerful.
(Of course, in an ideal world GIMP would support both.)

How do I go to full screen with the ability to drag the canvas anywhere on screen that I want?

Uh, View -> Fullscreen? Middle-click drags the canvas.

Where is the ability to dock my tool windows?

Drag the dialog to a dock window. You get two by default: the main toolbox and Layers/Channels/Paths.
You can have one or many. Predefined sets are available under Dialogs -> Create New Dock

You actually send RGB files to print?

Another valid point. Lack of proper color control is a well-known deficiency with GIMP.
(It does now support color profiles, but it's a bit of a hack.)

I wouldn't use it for professional print purposes; but for my personal artwork, yeah, I have sent RGB for print. I've got a local print shop that does a really good job of converting screen-space color. Good enough for my needs, and it's not like my home PC has a color-calibrated monitor anyway.

Lack of CMYK support and 16-bit+ color are real legitimate complaints against GIMP. I'll grant you filter layers too, as they would be handy (and are in development). Most other complaints are just unfamiliarity with the interface.

Here are my three main gripes about Photoshop's interface:

• Why is undo (ctrl-Z) single-level by default? If I'm using a tablet, one pen stroke usually ends up as multiple steps. Why do I have to hold down ctrl-ALT-Z?
• Why am I forced to select something before doing most operations? If nothing is selected, surely it's logical I want to do it on the whole image.
• What is Photoshop's equivalent to "Alpha to Selection", which I use all the time? (I'm sure it has one but damned if I can find it)

Want me to go on?