Submitted by Hoping to get a jump on Google and other competitors, Adobe Systems plans to release a hosted version of its popular Photoshop image-editing application within six months, the company’s chief executive said Tuesday. The online service is part of a larger move to introduce ad-supported online services to complement its existing products and broaden the company reach into the consumer market, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen told CNET News.com.
It’d be sweet if this works seamlessly with linux OS’s through whatever browser is of your choosing
Yes, but how are they actually going to do this, and at a decent speed? ActiveX, NSPlugin? And a web browser has reduced screenspace as it is, without ads on the screen too.
[Macro-]Adobe’s history of supporting linux and other Operating Systems / Arcs with NSPlugin has been, how should it be put? Less than stellar?
Speed’s definately the concern… what level of scratch disk are we talking as well. although it does state that it will be an ‘entry-level’ feature set of Photoshop, suggestive of ‘not much use really’. If they did try a full version online, I’d be wondering whether there’d be some kind of payment scheme for each CPU intensive function assuming all the work is done on their end e.g. “Apply Filter X for $0.40”
it does state that it will be an ‘entry-level’ feature set of Photoshop, suggestive of ‘not much use really’.
I know a lot of people who have (pirated) photoshop and all almost they do with it is crop, resize and (if necessary) rotate the image, apply auto levels, perhaps unsharp mask and sometimes print.
For all those users this could be very useful indeed.
It would be better to call it “Photoshop elements – lite”. There are a ton of tools out there for basic red-eye correction, cropping and resizing. Photoshop is designed for people like me. I edit LARGE images for the medical field. Adobe is doing itself a disservice lending their Photoshop name to this product.
AJAX would be my guess. Could also be Java or a sort of thin-client VNC-type deal. But probably AJAX.
http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9689909-2.html
As Remix was written in flex, I would put my money on a repeat performance.
Of course! Here’s me forgetting that Adobe owns Flash now
. D’oh! Okay, I’d say they will almost definitely use that then.
Err… why would someone use this? People using photshop to work RAW files and other big size files will rather have a local desktop version than a networked one with all the roundtrips back and forth.
If all Adobe wants is to launch some little online image editing tool, which will probably be based on Macromedia assets such as flash/shockwave to deliver the interface and functionality, then simply call it Adobe Photo Gizmo but photoshop, that thing will never be.
Chizen said that although hosted Photoshop is meant to be a low-end product, the company intends to ensure that it is of a higher quality than free alternatives.
Going from the article, this is not really Photoshop but a kind of online ersatz. In addition, Chizen’s statement portends a kind of online arms race that an outfit like Adobe cannot possibly win. The “free alternatives” – I am typing this on one – are of a pretty high quality already and that will only increase. Indeed, one of the really big boys – Google, Microsoft – could decide to turbocharge one of their existing offerings purely in order to knock Abobe out of the running. Besides, Photoshop alone isn’t really the thing: Photoshop + Flickr or Photoshop + YouTube or whatever might be.
The coming realignment around web services is going to be fascinating. But anyone who thinks “an el cheapo version plus online advertising = cash cash cash” is going to be in for a shock, or more likely an approach from a private equity outfit.
This is like the Google Docs stuff for me. It’s even worse. It’s not only a stripped down version of Photoshop, it’s probably very slow for people who have slow connections. And I’m sure it’s gonna be IE/FF only. Screw that!
// And I’m sure it’s gonna be IE/FF only. Screw that!
At least we will be able to use it under other OS than Windows/Mac OS… this isn’t bad.
Hmmm, personally I love Google Docs… 😐
But nevertheless, I’m wondering how Adobe can ever make it (Photoshop Online) fast enough not to be very frustrating.
Edited 2007-03-01 20:55
Is there a problem for you to install IE or Firefox and there’s no place for you to use a broadband? Or are you trying to say if 99.999% people on earth can’t use it equaly, the product sucks?
Mine or theirs?
Mostly theirs, I would think. If they just dump all of the executable code onto your PC for you to run, then you now possess the application and don’t need them or their website (or ads) to run it.
(Yes, I’m sure there are ways they could ‘bind’ it to the website, not unlike WGA for example, but somebody would no doubt circumvent that in no time.)
Probably they’ll keep the core code on their servers, but they can easily offload all the UI work to your CPU via Flash/AJAX/Apollo/whatever.
The thing that strikes me about that, is that the first thing you’ll have to do is probably upload the image, which makes you wonder what their filesize limit will be.
Edited 2007-03-01 20:28
What technology allow you to do image filtering on client side on browser? I just wonder what and how they implement.
Unless they are simply wrapping Photo Shop into a ActiveX plugin, and run the entire thing on the local machine. Basically an excuse to show ads
Has anybody ever used the “Create Adobe PDF Online” service, as advertised in the toolbar of Acrobat Reader? I’ve never had occasion to do so (/hugs Scribus) but always been curious how it worked.
Maybe we can look at this for some parallels?
I honestly have trouble seeing the value in online advertising. I don’t think I’ve EVER clicked on an online ad (maybe once,) and the only one that ever stuck out in my mind, and made me think of a product was Microsoft’s SQL Server ad with the helicopter and the batteries. My brain knows where on webpages they are located, and doesn’t even register them.
Other, more intrusive forms of online advertising just piss me off (flash ads inbetween paragraphs, and double-underlined words, I’m looking at you,) and make me actively hostile toward both the website hosting the ads, and put a strong negative association with the product in my mind. I STOPPED going to Tom’s Hardware because the ads were so intrusive. Google’s adwords are useless. Even though they are supposed to be targeted based on words in the page, they are largely irrelevant, because a large part of the ads are just spam.
I read an article about how advertising revenue for websites plummeted after the dotcom bust. No surprise to me. Perhaps I’m totally wrong, and online ads DO work. My only question is whether in considering the expected return from online advertisment, companies bank on copious amounts of stupid people who would punch the monkey for a free ipod.
I honestly have trouble seeing the value in online advertising.
It’s like telemarketing. Pretty much universally despised, yet inexplicably effective, otherwise the sellers would stop paying for it.
Look at the websites funded just from Google adsense revenue. Heck, Mozilla makes millions in Google backend dollars from driving eyeballs through the Google search in Firefox.
I have no idea who these people are that click online ads, but they’re the basis of a multibillion dollar business. Boggles my mind, but I can see why Adobe would want to try and grab a piece of it. They’ve probably developed a taste for the money just from bundling Yahoo toolbar with Acrobat Reader.
You’re absolutely right, I was never a fan on online advertisement thus I never ever feel like doing that as my business, but, just like spammers exist, if tiny amount of people click, then they get money for practically small amount of cost, because inserting couple of stupid text adds does not scale the cost with the amount of pages they dish out.
And places like Google works for selling ranks on the advertisement area of a search result. I rather think those ad(non)sense and adwords are supposed to catch people’s mind toward Google, because anyone can get a dozen bucks a month if they do put it on their web site (considering some amount of visitors are there) and people love free money.
But in the core of it, advertisements are targetted for brainless people not for intellectual surfers who only want content they’re looking for. In the end, if the core principle looks dumb, it won’t last long, but the sheer amount of web pages and users keep it going…
TV ads live, although way too intrusive to stop the TV show, people got used to it for a break and u can just bypass it totally, since the TV show and the ads aren’t mixed up. Web is dirty.