PhotoWalkPro

As you have probably already heard or read, Adobe released their new online version of Photoshop yesterday.  The product was designed to work hand in hand with sites such as Photobucket, Facebook, and Picasa.  This is a very easy to use program that has some very cool features which are very visual in nature.  If you are going to sharpen your image, they show you thumbnails with different levels of sharpness that you can choose from.  You just click on the one that looks best to you.  I like visual, it means less thinking on my part and lately, less thinking would feel great.  So here is my first peek under the hood of the new Photoshop Express.

First of all, I won’t complain at all that I am having problems running the program in my Firefox Ver. 3 Beta.  After all, running a beta version within a beta version isn’t really fair, now is it.  I had to download FlashPlayer Ver. 9 just to get the login screen to come up.  When I tried to upload images, it completely crashed my Firefox every single time.  Fear not, Safari to the rescue.  So far the program has functioned flawlessly using the Safari browser so I will stick with it for the rest of my tour of duty.

So here is Cool feature number 1, Adobe is giving all registered users 2GB of free storage space.  I’m not going to be storing a lot of RAW files there but I could squeeze a bunch of web sized jpegs into that much space (actually the truth is that you can’t upload raw files anyway. This program likes jpegs).

Cool feature numer 2 – The interface, it’s just slick as anything that I have seen come along in quite some time.  First of all, you can run it in a browser window or take it full screen! I don’t know how they do that but I don’t really care because it’s just really nice to use all my available screen realestate.

Cool feature number 3 – Sharing images was never so easy or visually cool as it is in this program (ok, maybe it was but Adobe really brings it all home together in one nice package).  First, there is the obvious method of emailing, but even this has been taken to the “no-brainer” level by removing any options, you just select an image, type in an email address, and add a message.  That’s it, no figuring out what size to send or opening a mail program, just pure simplicity (I am loving the simple life).

And here is the message that is received.

If you click on the “Click here to view this photo” link, it takes you to a full-sized version of the image in your web browser.  Very cool, very simple.

Sharing of your pictures can also be done by creating galleries that are visible by other Express users, or you can create links to your galleries by clicking the Link button which automatically copies the hyperlink for your album onto your clipboard where it is ready for posting to your web page or email or document.  You can also embed a gallery into your webpage.  An image and link are embedded and will take you directly to the Express page to see the full-size gallery slideshow.

Flowers

Also available is a nice slideshow feature that gives you flexibility in how you display your images, how large, how long, etc.  All of the features are just a single click away and are all straightforward and easy to apply and change.

The final way to share your images deals with Photoshop Express’ ability to deal with other social sites.  If you own a Facebook, Photobucket, or Picasa account(s) you can access them directly from within the Express window.  Not only can you access the image files that you have stored on these sites, you can also edit those images as well as add to them from images you have imported into your Express account.  Drag-n-drop doesn’t get any easier than this.

Cool feature number 4 -  Editing images just got so easy that your mother will actually enjoy it.  Now I am not talking about the pure power of CS3 or even Elements for that matter, but for Gen-X or Granny-X, this is probably as much as any general user will ever need.  It’s easy to forget sometimes that everyone doesn’t love Photoshop CS3 like I do and all they want to do is fix their picture a little and move on.  Well, the Edit mode is just what that segment of the population has been waiting for (and I think there are more of them then there are of us geeky types).

The Edit tools are broken down into three easy sections: Basics, Tuning, and Effects.  The Basics section contains the tools that let you fix the little things that you would want to fix first in an image, things like cropping and straightening, removing red-eye, lightening or darkening, make the colors brighter, or even fix a little imperfection (think healing function in the current version of Adobe Camera Raw).

Tuning is a little bit more in-depth  and adds that extra bit of image tuning that you would need but most often isn’t available from a basic editing program. Remember at the beginning of the post when I said it’s a visual thing, well check out the White Balance tool.

Just click the box that gives you the best white balance.  It’s that simple.  Each thumbnail will show you a different version, in this case, you get to choose from Auto, Sunny, Cloudy, Shade, Incandescent, Fluorescent, or Flash.  And as you pass your mouse over the thumbnail, it instantly applies the effect to your image so you can see it full-sized before committing to the change.  I am telling you this is really slick.  Now if you are feeling really bold, go ahead and click the Advanced Controls icon and now you can click on a neutral tone in your image and play with a Temperature and Tint sliders.

So as nice as those adjustments are, the tools that I really liked were in the Effects pallet.  Pop Color does some really wild stuff and the Sketch tool is like a fast Rotoscoping tool.  It does an amazing job of applying this popular effect you your images.  I wish that Adobe had included more of these effects filters and hope that maybe it’s in their future plans.  If nothing else, they are just fun.

Super Cool feature number 5 – So now here is the part that just really blew me away.  After you have done all of your editing and you save your changes….you can go back in to the edit function and undo them or change them (even after logging out and then logging back in again).  I was totally shocked that this feature would be in a free online image editor.  This is straight out of Lightroom.  Non-destructive online edits.  Well now I’ve seen everything.

So here is my bottom line, this is definitely aiming at a few key portions of the population, those that use social networking and image storage sites, and those that want to do fun stuff with their images but are intimidated by full-blown, expensive imaging software.  I can also see some great potential for bloggers that want to post images without all of the hassle of using several programs to get images on their sites.  This application is full featured enough to make it very usable but not to the point that you would ever confuse it with Lightroom, Elements, or Photoshop.  There are no layers, no channels, no Smart Filters, no plug-ins, just nice basic image editing that will satisfy the needs of a lot of folks out there.  So will I use it?  I am guessing that you will see content on my blog from time to time that has made its way into Photoshop Express because it’s just that good.  My hats off to Adobe for building one of the best online applications I have ever laid eyes on.

There is a lot more to this program than I have had time to go over but I encourage you to go check it out.  They even have a Test Drive mode so you can play without signing up.  Just click here to start your fun.

Related posts:

1. Adobe Updates TOU for Photoshop Express
2. Pixlr – What Photoshop Express Could Have Been
3. Does Adobe really want your images?
4. Buying a New Camera? Better Check Your Version of Photoshop
5. Photoshop Layers Book Reviewed

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 12:01 am and is filed under New Product, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.