The online photo editing space is getting as crowded as an Irish Pub on St. Patrick’s Day. Online photo editing and photo sharing sites like Picnik, Snipshot and Picasa are now rivaled by the top dog on the block, Adobe introduces Photoshop Express!
They call it Photoshop Express, they should call it Photoshop Air. This is a perfect companion for anyone using a MacBook Air, and even more for students. It doesn’t get anymore lightweight than software that isn’t really on your computer. Photoshop Express is Adobe’s ONLINE WEB BASED VERSION of Adobe Photoshop. You can login to your PS Express account from any computer that is running a modern browser with Flash 9 installed. It took me about a minute to signup, another minute to upload ten photos, another few minutes to through a filter on them, and another minute to share them. 10 Minutes and there you have it, one of the finest online photo editing suites available.
The graphical, Adobe Air-based user interface is both accessible and attractive. Building a basic slideshow is a snap, and sharing the slideshow is just as simple.
Here is an image that quickly used Auto Correct on, you can see the difference in the two photos taken at the same time, PS Express took about 5 seconds to complete the filter, it also saves your original so you can revert back at anytime, similar to iPhoto. When a filter is applied it shows a checkbox next to it so you can toggle that filter on and off.
Once an image is uploaded to your account you can simply double click it to apply one of 17 common filters including; Crop & Rotate, Auto Correct, Exposure, Red-Eye Removal, Touchup, Saturation, White Balance, Highlight, Fill Light, Sharpen, Soft Focus, Pop Color, Hue, Black & White, Tint, Sketch and Distort. These are the most common filters used by photographers in Adobe Photoshop CS3.
Adobe also made it easy for you to share your photos with other Social Networking Websites like Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa. I hope .Mac will be in a future version, unless Apple adds these only features to what they might call ePhoto or iPhoto Online.
Photoshop Express: Early Verdict
Photoshop Express is a simple and very easy-to-use online photo-editing tool. My favorite thing about it is the 2GB of storage space and easy upload methods, not to mention you can also upload to Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa
Its editing tools are somewhat basic, but that really could be enough for most users. However, in comparison to a fully baked online editing suite like Picnik, Photoshop Express just doesn’t have all the bells and whistles I enjoy. Adobe will, of course, be rolling out more tools over the next few months as the software is currently in an early public beta.
As you might expect, Adobe has big plans for the currently free Photoshop Express, which includes rolling out paid premium services and making it a platform to integrate with desktop products like Lightroom and Elements.
Final Comment: PS Express is pretty polished for a Beta Version, I look forward to seeing the final release when it comes out.
Check Photoshop Express and let us know what your thoughts are.
Stay tuned for our full review of Picnik. I never knew Picnik existed until I started reviewing Photoshop Express.
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