Photoshop Express Beta

Hey guys, just a quick heads up, the open beta of Adobe Photoshop Express, the Flex based Rich Internet Application (RIA) has gone live today. For those of you who can't afford full Photoshop, or don't need all the features, the free, online based Photoshop Express is a kind of cross between Adobe Bridge and Photoshop Elements. All you need to run it is a browser with the newest version of Flash 9.

So what's it like to use?

I took a test drive this morning, and the features are well explained with good tool tips and it functions almost exactly like a offline application.

You get a gallery, 2GB of webspace and all the fun of the digital editing playground with none of the entry fees. Only caveat is its open to US users only, so here in blighty it runs a little slow, and you are forced to lie on the sign up form, since the only country you can select is 'United States'. But they aren't mean enough to block non-US IP addresses, so feel free to fib for Britain. Oh, and if you're struggling to enter your email address, its set up for US keyboards. The @ symbol is actually shift-2, like on an apple mac.

I've been signed up and using it for a while now, and the editing is fantastic, the integration with picasa, facebook and photobucket is seamless, and the galleries are great.

Small issues arise when uploading 8MP images from my DSLR, it takes a while (but thats hardy the programs fault, I need a faster upload speed, and could have resized the pics beforehand), but the upload dialogue is brilliantly intuitive, shows you the upload progress of the current image, and you can put the currently uploading block into a new album automatically. I'd make the recommendation to only upload images around 1MB each in size, it'll keep things quicker. Since this is going to be used for online distribution and galleries, I don't really see the point of any image bigger than about 1280x1024 (unless you plan to crop extensively), so resize to that using a bulk resizer, then upload for editing.

I'd really like to see the ability to work with photos that have finished uploading before the whole upload is complete. If you upload in a block you have to wait for the whole block to complete before going on to edit them, some kind of stealthy background uploader would be really nice for those of us with really big pics. Oh, and there's a nice 'total % complete' bar, but no ETA.

The editing is quick and easy, with very obvious buttons down the left hand side. Instead of sliders and numbers, the program works out some presets for your image, then displays each option as a thumbnail, allowing you to choose how much each effect is applied. Also, as each effect is applied, the editor puts a checkbox next to every effect you've applied, allowing you to turn them on and off to check combinations, much like the layer blending options in full Photoshop. If all you want to do is crop and straighten the tools are there, and work very well, with plenty of options for aspect ratio, and a rule of thirds grid. Rotation works well too, but it can be a bit laggy on big images.

Oh, and another reason to upload smaller files, the previews generate quicker and the effects take much less time to apply on smaller images, and the files open for editing much faster.

Try it out, and especially look at the facebook integration, its fantastic. Oh, and for that 'editing like a pro' feel, hit the fullscreen button top right, its almost like an app you had to pay for!

Oh, and the best part? I've got this blog entry running in one tab in firefox, and now Photoshop in another. This is real 21st century stuff.

https://www.photoshop.com/express/