Adobe is testing a free version of Photoshop that runs on your web browser

[Daniel Sims]

Something to look forward to: As popular as Adobe Photoshop is, it's also notorious for its high entry price. Adobe may be trying to expand its userbase by lowering that barrier of entry with a free option for Photoshop's web-based version which is now trialing in Canada.

The Verge reports that Adobe is testing a free web version of Photoshop, accessible to any user in Canada with a free Adobe account. Currently, the app seems to be fully featured (for a web version anyway), including new functionalities Adobe just announced like Curves, RefineEdge, Dodge and Burn, and Smart Objects conversion.

Adobe is branding the tool as "freemium," and will eventually lock some features behind a paywall. It's expected that Photoshop's core functions will remain free to provide a more accessible entry point for the normally-expensive service, though for now Adobe hasn't revealed what those "core features" are, when the paywall will arrive, or when the free Photoshop tier will expand beyond Canada.

Photoshop's costly subscription has driven many users to free and cheaper alternatives like Affinity Photo, GIMP, or Pixelmator. The free version of Photoshop will have to compete with them when Adobe fully releases it, however, web-based Photoshop can meet more users where they are, like on Chromebooks. It will also receive a feature to let users review and comment on images while on mobile devices.

This week, Adobe also gave Lightroom some basic video editing tools and users can now copy and paste settings and adjustments between photos and videos.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/94946-adobe-testing-free-version-photoshop-runs-web-browser.html

 

[captaincranky]

I'm still sticking to "Photoshop Elements" for editing tasks. I only need versions new enough to work with the RAW codecs of my latest camera bodies.It's the only program Adobe still offers on DVD. I hope that continues. BTW, it already offers "smart objects".

I hope this nonsense doesn't replace it, since I'd prefer to do my editing, in private, at my leisure, and most of all, offline!

 

[yannus]

I used to use photoshop quite a lot and it was quite good. But I really think it's time for people to turn to gimp or krita, even though they're not quite as good yet. Blender in the CG space has really reached 3dsmax, maya an houdini's level. These software are open source which means that they really belong to us and also that we can fix them by paying someone to code it. And in the long term this is a great advantage. Autodesk for example is an expert at keeping bugs alive for decades. My conclusion is that Adobe, Autodesk and the like should be abandoned for the greater good.

And just imagining how would be the car or home appliances industry with open source hardware, that would generate a lot of jobs to fix, upgrade or recycle old appliances. We would have much better technology and sustainability.

 

[adamtony159]

There is already this website called Photopea Online where a single developer got a working advanced image editor that works completely on the browser and everything is done in local storage.