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."

Ahoy

[Apoorv Khatreja]

Adobe is becoming smarter by the day, and this is one of the moves that would give them an advantage over the other competitors in the photo-editing market.

More companies

[sskagent]

I hope this leads to more companies following in Adobe's footsteps. Free, while toned down, versions of software has often led me to buying the full version later on.

I am VERY wary of online computing

[Ralph Spoilsport]

If I'm not directly involved with being online, I tend to not have the modem even on, and I find this kind of thing creepy and somewhat offensive.

RS

Re:Already Free

[calebt3]

Chances of prosecution go from infinitesimally small to nil. And those here with a conscience can set their minds at ease.

Terms of Service give Adobe unlimited rights...

[abh]

The scary thing which isn't getting much play is that the terms of service indicate that if you use their hosting/gallery service, Adobe has a royalty-free, unlimited license [hockleyphoto.com] to use your photos in any way they choose...

Re:Fucking Flash.

[Apoorv Khatreja]

So that excludes the people who would want Photoshop to go Web-based, the MOST.

I'm talking about people using Opera or Konqueror on Linux. The Adobe Flash Player 7 and even 9 Beta works very, very poorly with these browsers, on Linux, and doesn't seem to be improving at all. The only browser being given attention is Firefox.

Guess we Linux users will have to wait for a long time, before we really starting using the internet and get recognised by the world.

Re:Ahoy

[iamhigh]

Adobe is becoming smarter by the day

I wish they would put some of that smarts into the products they buy and ruin.

More on-topic, this is something we are going to have to get used to. In 10 years my guess is that all major software will have something like this and in 20 years MS Office, Adobe Acrobat and many others might be completely online, forcing (or attempting) to force you to purchase licenses for the software.

Re:Adobe Photoshop Express

[antikaos]

Yeah, this is NOT "Photoshop", just a simple photo editor, nothing revolutionary here. Not going to have any impact on PS usership, much less an effect on decisions to or not to switch to 'nix, Gimp is much much nicer than PS Express and I hate Gimp.

Doesn't work on Flash9-Linux

[sd.fhasldff]

I tried it, but it just says my Flash isn't supported and redirects me to Macromedia.com, which then directs me back to to adobe.com for a new flash download.

Flash 9.0 r48, Firefox, Ubuntu Gutsy 64bit.

Not sure if it REALLY wants a newer version of Flash or if the 64bit-ness is confusing it.

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

[Joe Decker]

I'm pretty annoyed by the way that licensing is hidden under a banner of "free". I charge for the rights to use my images, if I have to give those rights away to use a web site then, from my perspective, that site isn't "free".

Re:Already Free

[Ford Prefect]

Oh and GIMPs font rendering leaves a LOT to be desired.

Yes. Yes it does.

One image [hylobatidae.org], and another [hylobatidae.org]. One from Photoshop CS3 10.0.1, the other from The GIMP 2.4.4. Same font.

But which? Choose now!

Re:Already Free

[JohnBailey]

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.

The two missing features I'll give you. Although one is just a licensing issue, and the other is only relevant if you are working on images that are intended for print. I'd add the fact that Gimp only does 8 bit colour, while Photoshop does at least 16 bit which is much more important than the two omissions you mentioned.

But can someone tell me what exactly is so terrible about the Gimp interface?

This is a genuine question, as I've used both, and don't find either particularly difficult to get my head around. But then, I'm not a power user when it comes to graphics packages. No doubt the differences would be pretty important to someone using either one day in day out.. But I've never seen anybody actually cite examples of the terrible Gimp interface in anything but the vaguest terms as opposed to the silky smooth and obvious ways of doing the same thing with Photoshop.

Re:Already Free

[nametaken]

Well, I know you're waiting for some to say that it has a lot to do with what you're used to, and that's true, but Gimp can be pretty aggravating. Most of the functionality in GIMP is buried in right-click menus (nothing contextual about them), instead of visually obvious toolbars and top menus. I don't know if GIMP has a quick macroing feature like PS, but if it does I never did figure out how to use it. Photoshop's pathing is much easier to work with, IMHO. The tool boxes bother me... oddly large and rearranging them manually bugs me (compare with PS's arrangement options). Layer effects were borderline non-existent. All of the text tool in gimp should probably be thrown out and redone... and I'm pretty sure I could think of a few more with time. That on top of the previously mentioned stuff I guess.

I liked Gimp, but I like Photoshop better, and it seems people tend to agree.

As for this Photoshop Express thing, it doesn't even vaguely resemble photoshop. It's picassa done in flash, is all.

Re:Already Free

[gauauu]

Paint.net falls way short of the Gimp when dealing with large images. While any image editor will have slowdown with extremely large images, Gimp does a good job of remaining responsive, showing progress, etc when dealing with these images. Paint.net just freezes for long periods of time.

I found this out while my wife was trying to get into digital scrapbooking. They make these images that print to 12x12 sheets of paper, with zillions of layers. Paint.net failed the task miserably, while the Gimp did surprisingly well. Even more surprisingly, my wife, who is non-techy and hates learning new programs, had very little trouble with the Gimp's UI.