Photoshop Express set to change the universe

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 8:11am — Seth Weintraub

OK, perhaps that is a bit of an overstatement. But it is really cool. I briefly reviewed Photoshop Express for Computerworld and came away reeling at the possibilities. While we all knew this application was coming down the pipe, Adobe made great use of Flash and delivered a very polished product.

Facebook(!!), Picasa and Photobucket direct access shows the amazing possibilities this web application has. No doubt, more services will be coming soon. If you can give Photoshop Express access to your blog images directory, you could do all of your image editing inline - without having to upload or download between edits. How about Google documents or presentations? Editing photos inside the web browser would make those services all the more valuable. Oh, and move to another computer and your 2 GB library goes with you.

The downside? Adobe and Apple aren't getting along too well these days. Normally, Apple and Adobe products play very well together. However, since this is a Flash-based Web application it won't work on the iPod Touch or iPhone. Also, your iPhoto library isn't browsable since Apple, for whatever reason, decided to put all of the original photos in a Package which isn't accessible by the browser (needed for Photoshop Express). If you want to access your iPhotos, you need to export them from iPhoto. :( Lame

Hopefully someone is working on an iPhoto plugin at this very moment that allows uploading of photos to the Photoshop Express storage. The other work round would be to upload your photos to Facebook, Picasa, or Photobucket using the current plugins and editing in Photoshop Express from there.

Have fun!

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Comments

"your iPhoto library isn't

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 8:28am — Anonymous Coward (not verified)

"your iPhoto library isn't browsable"

Yes it is, if you're using Leopard. Just go to File > Open File... > Media, Photos and you can browse all of your iPhoto '08 Events, Albums and Smart Albums.

The web page file browser

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 8:46am — admin

The web page file browser dialogue doesn't allow you to open Packages like the finder allows you to 'Show package contents" Try it, you'll see

I just don't get it

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 9:11am — David Dugan (not verified)

I must be the only guy on the planet, considering all of the positive takes out there like this one, but I just don't understand the need for this product. Have people really been hankering to edit their photos in a web browser? What exactly is the big advantage here over Picasa or iPhoto?

Though you hold this up as a great Flash app, having the whole thing coded in Flash is an absolute deal-breaker for me. It loads slowly and completely eliminates all of the myriad ways you might normally navigate through this type of photo gallery sites, i.e. browser back buttons, arrow keys, mouse scroll wheel, etc.

I've fleshed out my initial impressions here, but I'm just not getting it. Can someone tell me why this is better than Picasa, iPhoto or Flickr?

because it works with all of

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 9:42am — Anonymous Coward (not verified)

because it works with all of them and it's easier to use that has similar effects like the original PS.

I honestly think that Lighroom is a better choice for simple edits of photographs

You don't need to open the

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 10:38am — Anonymous Coward (not verified)

You don't need to open the iPhoto Package Contents. You use Leopard's new Media browser instead, in the sidebar under MEDIA, which gives you access to all your iPhoto Events, Albums and Smart Albums.

a direct access to flickr

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 10:42am — Anonymous Coward (not verified)

a direct access to flickr would be nice, too

iPhoto's way of saving files

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 11:03am — Anonymous Coward (not verified)

iPhoto's way of saving files is simply retarded. Why the h**k is it saving into a package? and why it has this terrible "originals" and "modified" folders, so if you want to grab a folder and zip it, for example, you have to first export it from iPhoto?

I really, really do not like iPhoto.

As a previous Creative at

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 12:20pm — Aaron Allen (not verified)

As a previous Creative at Apple I can tell you why the put the iPhoto library in a package. The reason is because people who new to Macs or not very Mac savvy were going into their iPhoto Library folder and deleting, reorganizing, renaming, etc. their images and then when they would open up iPhoto their library would be going hay wire. Trust me on this one, I spent way to many hours fixing peoples libraries because they didn't know what they were doing.

Although I wasn't with Apple when iLife 08 came out, I still applauded the change for all my friends who still work there.