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Looks like the previously mentioned Photoshop Online isn't going to be Photoshop Online after all. Adobe senior product manager John Nack says instead that by "Photoshop-branded" we don't mean the professional version of Photoshop. The tools being discussed here are targeted at the consumer market-- especially all the people using social networking and media sharing sites."
So instead of a tool for serious amateur photographers or pros it's aimed squarely at a lower end consumer market. That answers a few of the questions I'd had earlier and really sets the stage for an interesting play for dominance in this market between Google's Picassa and the "Photoshop-branded" product Adobe is going to put out. Since both products are going to be free it seems like the definitions of success and the path to revenue will be very different for both. Will Google try a better/bigger system of getting people to order prints (a la Flickr's which allows you to choose having prints mailed to you or picked up by you at your local target), will Google try to grow Picassa's web album feature? Will success for the "Photoshop-branded" product be measured by how many users of the free online product go on to buy Photoshop Elements?
Hoping to get a jump on Google and other competitors, Adobe Systems plans to release a hosted version of its popular Photoshop image-editing application within six months, the company's chief executive said Tuesday.
Adobe to take Photoshop online from News.com
Photoshop online? It's a very interesting prospect. Does it mean doom for upstarts like Picnik? Possibly since the Photoshop online service is going to be free. Though will the online Photoshop be too bloated with features to work quickly and easily online or be so powerful that it's overwhelming for new and low tech users? A better question is perhaps what does this mean for Google's Picassa? Does the Photoshop brand identity give Adobe the automatic leapfrog effect over Picassa? It will really depend on who Adobe is hoping to target. In any case it's a boost to photographers for there to be good competition in this arena and it's going to be fun to watch developments.
Online photo editing app Picnik says "With Picnik you can quickly edit all your online photos from one place. It's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos. It's fast, easy, and fun."
The browser based application is quite user friendly and easy to use. It does require that your browser have the most recent version of the Flash plugin installed.
Monoslideshow is an extremely slick, extremely flexible Flash app for displaying slideshows on websites. All the heavy lifting is done by an editable xml file so even Flash novices should have no problem making impressive slideshow displays. Monoslideshow sells for $19.95.
The Microsoft Research department has a free piece of software available that allows you to stitch together multiple exposures of a group shot to come up with a composite image where everybody's eyes are open, nobody is mid-yawn or completely looking the wrong way.
MSR Group Shot helps you create a perfect group photo out of a series of group photos. With Group Shot you can select your favorite parts in each shot of the series and Group Shot will automatically build a composite image.
Of course Group Shot is for Windows only.
Flickrshow creates simple javascript slideshows of your Flickr sets. Simply put in the id number for the set (found at the end of the set's url), choose a couple of details and flickrshow spits out the necessary code and tells you were to put it within your site's html. Very simple, very cool and very useful.
Tags: flickr, photogrpahy, slideshow, flickrshow
Photojojo points out a really cool application for turning photos into huge photo mural posters that you can print on your home inkjet or laser printer. Upload your image file (jpg only) to Rasterbator (or download the standalone version), choose a few settings and presto you get a PDF to print your masterpiece from. Rasterbator has a gallery of cool user sent images of completed projects.
FilmLoop is free, downloadable program the creates and runs a stock ticker like photo strip across your desktop. Loops you create are automatically uploaded to the FilmLoop Network so you can share your loop with others. Or you can upload loops to your blog.
