'Photoshop Online' for consumers, not pros

Stephen Withers
Monday, 05 March 2007 01:56

Business IT - Technology

The idea of a web-based version of Photoshop has attracted lots of attention. Media coverage has been clear that the software would be even simpler than Photoshop Elements, but so much of the surrounding chatter has missed that point that Adobe has provided further clarification.

"To set expectations properly, I think it's important to mention that by 'Photoshop-branded' we don't mean the professional version of Photoshop.  The tools being discussed here are targeted at the consumer market--especially all the people using social networking and media sharing sites",  said John Nack, Adobe's senior product manager for Photoshop, in his unofficial though Adobe-hosted blog.

So we stand by our original observation: The balancing act Adobe must manage is to exploit the strength of the Photoshop brand as it addresses the low end of the market, but without doing anything to harm that brand among professionals. So however limited 'Photoshop Online' is, it seems certain that whatever functions it does perform will be done very well.

Adobe's experience with web delivery - which comes largely from the ex-Macromedia side of the operation - means the company is well-placed to get the concept to work well from a technical perspective. Whether the advertising-based business model can work in this context remains to be seen, so Adobe's plan to offer a software-as-a-service version of Photoshop through a partner makes a lot of sense.