goldengod

Montmartre by John Cohen

Adobe has unveiled plans to offer a version of their famous Photoshop software as a browser-based online application. Adobe hopes to get a jump on competitors like Google with their stripped-down version of Photoshop that will be available online for free.

Adobe has already tested this market using Adobe Remix, an ad-supported video converter available to users of popular image storage site Photobucket. Like Remix, the new service will be free and supported solely by advertising revenue.

There are already a number of players in the browser-based image editing market, but Adobe is expected to crush most of them using their immensely powerful brand name. The question is whether they can retain the reputation for ultra-high quality editing while stripping out most of the features they want people to pay for.

I’m not sure how much more stripped down it can get than Photoshop Elements, but I already consider Elements to be Photoshop’s tragically quadriplegic younger brother. I’ve never had quite such a… limiting experience while trying to process an image before.

Not that Elements doesn’t have a market; sales show it’s got a pretty decent slice of one. I’m just not part of that market. I much prefer the power and control over a photograph that I can exert with the Real Thing. I have begun to work Adobe Lightroom into my photography workflow though. It makes an excellent RAW converter.

If you can’t wait until this comes out, try Picnik in the meantime. Let me know what you think, I haven’t had a chance to give it more than a cursory glance and it looks decent.