Adobe PhotoShop going online for free

Are you editing adult photos there Wil?

Originally Posted by DougEdey
Are you editing adult photos there Wil?

With graphics cards. :)

Nice pic there

Anyways, this would be great for my Sister who is doing design at school (High school/year 12) She wants Photoshop but can't afford it.

Having never used Photoshop I can't comment on any of its features, but would they all be in the online version? Or would the online version have most of the basic to advanced tools, but none of the expert ones?

This is a great move - it's a nod to the fact that piracy of PS is absoultely rife amongst casual users, and recognition that, with an online version, they could at least have Google AdSense-type adverts on there, making a few dollars back. Very sensible imho. :)

It's a way all software houses should at least consider. Maybe vista home basic free version would be a giant advertising space. For more functionality and no ads you have to pay

Sensible move there. I like Photoshop, but I'd never consider spending several hundred on buying my own copy. I might possibly buy elements when there isn't a queue of other things after my cash, but I'll gladly tolerate a few ads in the mean time - maybe even click one or two just to be nice.
Thanks Adobe!

this is awesome. i don't really see bandwidth being an issue at all - the photoshop interface can be downloaded to cache with code snippets being downloaded as required.

CS3 has MATLAB versions of all its filters and stuff. I wouldn't be surprised to see the web version using a reimplemented MATLAB engine.

did i mention this is utterly awesome? i am really quite excited about this.

I'm definitely liking this, I'll be sure as hell using it when it comes online.

However, I can imagine the people who actually paid for it will be feeling a little pissed off.

Originally Posted by plug_in_ross

However, I can imagine the people who actually paid for it will be feeling a little pissed off.

um, not really. the people who pay for it actually _use_ the thing. the people who don't, well, they don't really know how. plus, the online version _will_ be slower. there's no getting around that fact. add in colour management, printing, mastering, etc etc, and the offline package is still worth every penny to the people who need that.

Good move, but I wonder how influenced it was by the Open Source Gimp. For most home users Gimp offered just anything Photoshop did, at no cost. The only reason people still use Photoshop, is because it's trivially easy to pirate...I can't see anybody spending 300€ to erase "red eyes" from birthday pics.

It was either this, making a free, lite version, or ignoring piracy altogether, because had they enforced anti-piracy systems, people would have simply turned to Gimp or the new Vista photo editor.

Always thought it was overpriced, and never saw this happening!

As said, might stop a bit of piracy of it, might dent their sales of it to professionals, at 600 quid a time

Originally Posted by DougEdey
Are you editing adult photos there Wil?

hehe I remember that review....

Anyway, cool stuff I guess we shall have to wait and see how it performs. But a very cool move indeed!

Claire returns! ;)

Originally Posted by Swafeman
Always thought it was overpriced, and never saw this happening!

As said, might stop a bit of piracy of it, might dent their sales of it to professionals, at 600 quid a time

it's overpriced until you use anything else professionally for a while. I did web design for a bit, and tbh I fell in love with my pirated version that I bought the full deal.

If you're using it for business, software like this pays for itself - and this program was never marketed at your average joe wanting a couple images resized. Therefore, a slower flash-based version of the software will likely have no effect on professional usage - it just means that home users won't crack it anymore when they can get a legal, up-to-date version for free.

All in all, I think it's a wonderful idea, and almost a requirement for something that is industry de facto standard. To me it's a lot like when Alias Wavefront started offering Maya for free home use with a watermark - helps people who want to learn the skills have legal access to the program.

hee hee, I remember that photo the first time round.. I don't think we were ever told who it was in the shot?
Anyway, that's a pretty interesting move and will be great for casual users, though hardcore are likely to still stick to purchased, run on your own machine, type software.

A very interesting move. And makes it useful for an average consumer.

Photographers and the like can only use it if it will work offline without the requirement to send any data to Adobe itself. But the article does imply that it can work offline.

I will wait and see how this will work.

Originally Posted by Iago
I can't see anybody spending 300€ to erase "red eyes" from birthday pics.

I understand your point, but I would like to mention that Adobe does have a limited version targeted to home users. Photoshop Elements. For the casual Joe that wants to edit the red eye out of birthday pics, and do the occasional image resize, Elements works quite well.

Plus, Elements usually comes free as bundled software with various imaging products. Off the top of my head I know that I got one with my scanner and camera. I know I must have 3 or 4 versions floating around the house.

I think this is an attempt to curb the rampant piracy of the full Photoshop. A lot of students and beginning professionals pirate the program because it's so expensive. So many media employers want experience in Photoshop, but college courses don't offer much in the way of real experience. In order to really learn the program, you have to use it, and few people can afford to drop that amount of cash.

So they pirate. They play around. They learn. Then they get that job. Of course, by that time they've been using the pirated version for so long that they never bother to pay for the real thing.

-monkey

Originally Posted by Iago
Good move, but I wonder how influenced it was by the Open Source Gimp. For most home users Gimp offered just anything Photoshop did, at no cost. The only reason people still use Photoshop, is because it's trivially easy to pirate...I can't see anybody spending 300€ to erase "red eyes" from birthday pics.

I honestly doubt industry-leading software was influenced by poor quality knock-off versions. The GIMP is frustrating and barely does anything, whereas Photoshop is a professional tool for image manipulation - there's just no comparison imho. Even for home users, people don't want to have to hunt for documentation just to figure out how to resize holiday snaps.

It was either this, making a free, lite version, or ignoring piracy altogether, because had they enforced anti-piracy systems, people would have simply turned to Gimp or the new Vista photo editor.

No one would turn to the GIMP, because it honestly just isn't up to the standard of Photoshop.

I think this is a great move; it'll wipe out a lot of the casual piracy if Adobe manage to make it accessible and not frustrating to use online. :)

Originally Posted by DougEdey
Are you editing adult photos there Wil?

oh yea i rem the article with those pic ahah maybe u shud repost for the newbies

Thanks, Adobe, for understanding what the RIAA and MPAA have failed so spectacularly at understanding - you can't stop piracy, so you might as well use that knowledge for profit (ie, ad-supported free version). I figure it's either a) piss off your legit users with useless copy protection, doing nothing to stop piracy or b) try and make some money off the would-be pirates and causing much less hassle to legit users. C'mon Microsoft and **AA, you can do it too...

Of course, I don't know how well this will work, but the concept if nothing else is absolutely stunning.

Originally Posted by Firehed
Thanks, Adobe, for understanding what the RIAA and MPAA have failed so spectacularly at understanding - you can't stop piracy, so you might as well use that knowledge for profit (ie, ad-supported free version).

... radio? pandora? last.fm? hello?

so far all Ive really used photoshop was a little bit of image manipulation of some pics taken on my dads camera, namely because some were blurry or just bad

and re-saving pictures i take with my camera to bring the 20mb (well depends what mode your in) file sizes down to about 1mb
It has also come in handy once for compiling some textures for source (source a la hl2)

That's about it, its really not worth the £600 price tag (or whatever) so good on adobe, an elements is just a pain in the ass, Ive used it at college and its awful - although PS can be a bit daunting, and the menu structure makes it a little slow

Wow, that's freaking brilliant. I am learning PhotoShop at school, but I've always used GIMP at home, cause I can't afford PS.
Now Adobe has to get with the times in the 64-bit-linux-flashplayer area.

i am using gimp for small things and my less legal version for everything else..... hmmm i don't even have it installed.... as for this news... this is great, now i can use photochop were ever i want :D.