Adobe has decided to join the online photo editing and photo gallery brigade, and is offering a new service called Photoshop Express. It allows you to upload your photos, edit them using a basic set of Photoshop-style tools, and display them in galleries that you can make available to friends and family.
The available editing tools are:
Crop and Rotate
Auto Correct
Exposure
Red-Eye Removal
Touch-up
Saturation
White Balance
Highlight
Fill Light
Sharpen
Soft Focus
Pop Color
Hue
Black and White
Tint Sketch
Distort
I’ve done some quick playing around, and it’s not too bad, although the interface works pretty slowly. When you choose a photo and select it for editing, it can take the program a good 15-30 seconds to prepare it for editing. Similarly, when you finish editing and save the picture, it can take a good half a minute to complete. The editing process itself it reasonably intuitive, although again it can be a bit slow at times.
I’m not sure if the speed issue is a Beta bug, or if it’s a product of the technology itself. It’s not a function of internet connection speed, i don’t think, because you upload your pictures to their server before editing. Being an Adobe product, the interface for the site is Adobe Flash Player. I’m not a huge fan of the way Flash is used in lots of websites, but i guess that it makes sense for this type of application. The alternative, i guess, would be some sort of Java setup.
The Gallery section is reasonably intuitive, although again a bit slow in places. The photos can be easily placed into albums, and can be shared with other people. You get 2Gb of space. There are a few annoying things about the gallery, in terms of layout and options. It’s a bit limited, and i still can’t get it to place the pictures in the order i want them in the albums. The controls could do with some improvement and greater flexibility. They’ve gone for form over function, i think.
Here is a small sample gallery that i put up. There are only 7 pictures, but it should give you some idea of how it works.
On the whole, i really think that Photoshop Express doesn’t yet measure up to the convenience and ease-of-use that Google’s Picasa demonstrates. I like that Picasa has a standalone app that allows you to edit and arrange your images on your computer before uploading to the web, and gives you more control over the layout of the galleries. And i think that, for casual users who don’t need the range of editing tools offered by Photoshop CS3 (or even Photoshop Elements and Paintshop Pro), the editing tools in Picasa are just as useful as those in Photoshop Express, and a LOT faster to use due to the fact that you edit locally rather than using a web app.
Photoshop Express has potential, but i think it needs greater versatility and speed to become a truly great web gallery tool.