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The Photoshop.com Mobile beta lets people with Windows Mobile phones view and upload photos.
(Credit: Adobe Systems)Adobe Systems has gradually extended its Photoshop brand from its beginnings as high-end image-editing tool to its Elements consumer-oriented photo software and its Express online photo-editing site.
Now, the company has begun taking the next step with Photoshop.com Mobile (see previous coverage). The software is the "easiest way to upload, view, and share photos online from your Windows Mobile phone," according to Adobe.
This software lets people upload photos from their phones to Photoshop.com and view photo albums stored online, according to the site. The beta software, a free download for people in the United States, works on several Windows Mobile-based handsets.
If your device isn't supported, Adobe recommends using Shozu mobile phone software, which lets people upload photos, among other things.
Personally, I'd like to see a mobile phone app that could perform some really basic adjustments--cropping or auto-fixing exposure, for example. But, so far at least, this isn't that application. However, Photoshop itself is about to enter its 11th major version, CS4, and mobile phones are getting more powerful all the time, so the possibility is there.
But more likely, Adobe sees this software as a tool to increase its customers' online activity. Photoshop Express can be used for those sorts of adjustments, although even high-powered phones such as Apple's iPhone can't use it yet. But with gradually increasing network capacity and mobile-phone processing, this market will become much more mature in a few years.
For a few cautions and further details about Photoshop.com Mobile, see the release notes.
Update at 8:23 a.m. PDT: Shozu sent out an announcement of its own, saying its software lets 350 different cell phones upload pictures to Photoshop.com. The software also works with Facebook, WordPress, and Google's Blogger, and can send photos to multiple e-mail addresses.
Adobe Systems on Monday let loose its plan to reinvent its image-editing software: the convergence of desktop, Webware, and mobile photo applications.
In late September, Adobe will update both Adobe's Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements with version 7, rebrand Photoshop Express as Photoshop.com, and debut a mobile Photoshop (of sorts) for Windows Mobile.
Syncing with the new Photoshop.com
Whereas Photoshop Express (review) began life as an experimental, Web-based offshoot of the Photoshop brand, Adobe's new strategy to automatically sync photos from desktop to Web to phone and back again now gives Photoshop Express a starring role on the Photoshop playbill, albeit using a different alias. Don't let that fool you--although the product will now be Photoshop.com, it will retain its editing features and the ability to post photos to Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, and Picasa. The bigger difference is that the new Photoshop.com will sync with the two Photoshop Elements applications and the new mobile software.
A sneak peek at Adobe Premiere Elements 7.
(Credit: Adobe)To sweeten the deal for existing users, and perhaps to lure new ones, Adobe is bumping up the free, basic membership plan from 2GB to 5GB of storage. However, Adobe is no doubt hoping that users will get hooked on online storage and go with the Plus membership, which will dish out templates and tips in addition to serving up 20GB in locker space for photos and videos. The 'Plus' plan is sold on its own for $50 per year or bundled with the desktop software for $140.
New Photoshop Elements
Phase two of Adobe's photo-syncing project is to update the desktop-bound Elements applications to make them compatible with the new Photoshop.com. They'll get a few additional features and enhancements along the way. For instance, Photoshop Elements 7--which is expected to sell for about $100 or $80 if you're upgrading--will automatically back up photos online, deliver new templates, and will contain new image-enhancement tools. CNET Senior Editor Lori Grunin has an in-depth preview and her own take on Adobe's efforts to stay relevant.
Premiere Elements 7 will see the bonus features in Elements 7 and raise them with new movie-making tools, support for AVCHD, and automatic video upload to YouTube. Grunin weighs in on that update, too.
You'll be able to upload, share, and view photos, but not title or caption them from Adobe's beta mobile app.
(Credit: Adobe)Photoshop on the phone
Adobe's mobile presence has so far been restricted to utilities--a mobile PDF-reader and Flash Lite for playing Flash videos on the mobile stage. To that end, Photoshop.com Mobile beta is Adobe's first attempt at creating a mobile version of one of its consumer offerings, although the app will primarily remain a vehicle for simple uploading and downloading to and from the revamped Photoshop.com.
Based on the Flash Lite Player, Photoshop.com Mobile beta will let you upload all the photos on your mobile phone to Photoshop.com, which will then automatically sync to either Element 7 app, if you have one. The preview build we saw is divided into three rudimentary actions. The first is to upload select phone photos to Photoshop.com for sharing with friends or for using as a backup. The second has you viewing thumbnails of all the photos in your online gallery, and the third lets you peruse any albums you've created on Photoshop.com and Elements 7. There will be no photo-tagging, titling, or captioning in the initial release, and we admit that's a letdown, especially when competing photo apps can already do this on multiple mobile operating systems.
That's a competition to which Adobe can't help but be attentive. Traditionally a publisher of desktop software, Adobe has been slow to adapt for the two fastest-growing software platforms--mobile and the Web. While we expect a bare bones Photoshop.com Mobile beta, the app's ability to connect with the Photoshop.com hub gives Adobe more relevance for existing users. We're skeptical that folks using Picasa, Photobucket, and Flickr will abandon them for Photoshop.com, but the ability to quickly post from the phone to those sites, from the Web to the desktop, and from the phone to the desktop via Adobe's servers, may keep users of the Elements desktop apps from bailing in favor of a competitor.
Like Adobe's other releases, Photoshop.com Mobile beta will be available in late September, first for Samsung Blackjack I and II, Moto Q 9h and 9m, and Palm Treo 700 w/wx and 750, with support for other Windows Mobile phones expected to follow.
Adobe's VP of Hosted and Consumer Services refers to Photoshop Express as "the on-ramp to the Adobe digital-imaging franchise." Next exit Photoshop Elements? Construction delays? Slippery pavement ahead? The mind reels with metaphorical possibilities. With its familiar-looking organizational tools, slick Flash-based interface and robust retouching algorithms, Express embodies Adobe at its potential finest--this is a newborn beta, after all, and we should expect bugs. (If it should reach senior betahood, like Gmail, we will cease to forgive.) But there are also a few potholes in this on-ramp to beware.
The good: Slick, attractive interface; useful retouching tools and well-done interface for using them; most operations relatively fast.
The bad: Doesn't support photos from 12-megapixel or higher cameras; some unnattractive Terms of Service; no filtering or keywording; no printing options.
The bottom line: Though there's a lot to like about Adobe's first stab at online photo editing and sharing, you probably want to wait until the company fixes a few problems with the beta--and de-fangs its terms of service--before uploading scads of photos to Adobe Photoshop Express.
Ratings:
Design and ease of use: 8
Features: 7
Performance: 7
Policies: 5
Overall: 6.8
Photoshop Express is two things: a photo-sharing site targeting the millions of snapshot photographers who think software such as Photoshop Elements is too difficult, too disconnected or just too much, and a platform from which Adobe will serve partner sites with editing tools. At beta launch, Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa comprise the short list of partners; Flickr will be next in line, though a date has not been announced.
As a sharing site it's simultaneously pretty and functional. And it succeeds as a proof-of-concept that Flash and Flex allow you to create robust online applications that look and feel like local ones. For sharing, the feature set is pretty typical: it lets you upload photos into albums (up to 2GB), organize them, make them public for sharing or share them privately via email links, and generate and email nice-looking self-contained Flash slideshows. There's lots of dragging and dropping to organize, and a free vanity URL.
For editing, it delivers a better-than-average experience. In addition to a more-than-sufficient set of tools for adjusting exposure, color and sharpness and touching up artifacts like red-eye and fixing blemishes, it also supplies a basic set of specifial effects that let you turn bad or boring pictures into something a bit more interesting. The application also displays a snapshot history of your edits, which is a nice touch missing even from Adobe's desktop products. Most of the tools operate relatively quickly; only Distort left me singing the not-so-realtime blues. (For a discussion of the interface, click through the slide show.)
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Photoshop Express has a timeline below the image that lets people view and undo changes.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET News.com)Update: we have added a video of the Photoshop Express demo.
CHICAGO--Adobe Systems gave a public viewing Tuesday night of an online version of Photoshop, its popular image-editing application.
During a sneak peek session at its Max 2007 developer conference, Adobe product manager Geoff Baum gave a demo of Photoshop Express, the Flash-based image editor that runs inside a Web browser.
The application is aimed at consumers, rather than professional developers, and complements existing versions. Baum showed how people can quickly make changes to images with the program. ... Read more
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