Adobe has decided to tackle services like Splashup and Flickr/Picnik head-on and also take a side-swipe at Picasa. The new “product” is an online photo editor and storage site called Adobe Photoshop Express. I don’t know if the site is hosed or Mac-unfriendly, but neither the test-drive nor sign-up applications currently work with Mac Firefox 2.0.0.13. By “not work” I mean that I get a terminal plain gray page with a “Transferring data from fpdownload.macromedia.com….” message that never finishes … or goes away.
Adobe’s service offers sets a new bar for free hosting: 2 GB. Google allows 1 GB on PicasaWeb (and Picasa is an offline editor). Flickr’s free service allows members to add only 100 MB a month …but until December, there was no photo editing going on at Flickr. That’s when Flickr integrated Picnik tools into the Flickr interface.
I prefer editing photos on my computer, where response time is more immediate and network connection not critical. That said, for a quick edit from a computer that has no image editing software, Picnik is sweet! And it allows you to save images to your hard drive or to your Facebook, Flickr, Picasa or MySpace account. All without setting up an account. =:-0
Adobe is the 600-pound gorilla (well, so is Google) in this game. And some day, we’ll be connected to the Net like we’re breathing air today, or so the science fiction writers envision. Until then, watch, play and wait.
