Review of Adobe Photoshop Express Beta

Adobe Photoshop Express Beta is an fantastic program for those new to photography and do not yet have photo editing (digital darkroom) software on their computers. It is also a great portal for image sharing and personal photo websites. The site makes few demands on the photographer's rights and offers a powerful array of display and editing tools. The ability to access images stored on other sites such as Photobucket and Picasa for editing is another huge plus.

The biggest drawbacks to this site are the slow speed (which will most like improve once Beta phase is over) and the resizing restrictions.

Pros

Cons

Adobe Photoshop Express Beta is a combination program that is accessed via Java. Since it works on Flash it is usable across platforms. The site offers photo storage, sharing, and editing with a nice variety of user-friendly tools.

Image Storage
Photoshop Express Beta offers up to 2 Gigabytes of storage for content at no charge.

Image Sharing
Images placed in photo albums can be shared via a public gallery. Images can also be linked and embedded to message boards. There is also an email feature built in to the program. The download feature is the only way to access the resizing options. If you click on download the image there are 3 choices, 256x204, 1024x819, and original. From that point you can chose to embed the image instead of download it.

Image Editing
Photoshop Express Beta offers a very nice variety of editing tools. These are non-destructive tools that can be used and changed in any order. Tools available are: crop, auto correct, exposure, red-eye removal, touch-up, saturation, white balance, highlight, fill light, sharpen, soft focus, pop color, hue, black and white, tint, stretch, and distort. Woefully lacking is the ability to resize an image to specific dimensions although the rule of thirds cropping grid with aspect ratio choices is a very nice addition.

Sue Chastain, the About.com Guide to Graphics Software, has a nice image gallery with screenshots of the new Adobe Photoshop Express Beta service.