Steve Weinrebe's Mode Studio

Adobe today announced Photoshop Express (Public Beta), an online photo editing tool that may well revolutionize photo editing for hobbyists, amateurs, and anyone looking for a simple, intuitive, and free application to edit their photos with. You can upload, edit, and then download or share photos with – I have to say – incredible ease. The tradeoffs are that you need a fairly speedy internet connection, and Photoshop Express only works with JPEGs. Also this is a “Public Beta” which means that the interface of Photoshop Express may change based on user opinion and requests. Fortunately because it is an internet application, and doesn’t reside on your computer, you do not have the issues that a beta program might have on your computer (namely crashing your computer). However I suppose it will be possible for Photoshop Express to crash your browser; though I haven’t experienced that and it worked quite smoothly on first try.

I set up an account in about a minute, clicked a link in a confirmation email, and uploaded a photo to test. The interface is extremely basic, as expected, with limited options and capabilities, but there are some surprises as well. One tool I didn’t expect is the Touchup tool which is basically the retouch tool from Lightroom or Camera Raw; you know, the little dumb-bells that “heal” a little circle from the area beneath the connected circle. It is very limited, but will have its uses and, for free, well, it’s a pretty powerful tool for free. iPhoto doesn’t even have a retouching tool (yet), and of course Adobe is targeting non-Mac users that don’t have iPhoto to use.

Cudos to Adobe for putting out a simple, cute, and fun app to edit photos. I won’t be using it myself, but I’ll be emailing a few friends that are seriously photo-impaired and could use Photoshop Express. Check out the “test drive” or sign up for a Photoshop Express account here.
Posted by Steve Weinrebe