When Adobe launched Photoshop Express last week, we were so excited to try out the powerful online image editing application that we didn't read the fine print very closely. But one of our readers was kind enough to point out the fact that Adobe reserved the right to do some interesting things with your photos.
Specifically, Adobe's terms of use stated that the company could "use, distribute, derive revenue or other renumeration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate" and use your images "in any format or medium now or later developed." Now, while it makes sense that users need to grant Adobe some non-exclusive rights to their images so Adobe doesn't get accused of any wrongdoing by publishing your images on the web, the whole making money off of your images even after you remove them from your account thing seemed like a bit much and led to a few complaints.
Now Adobe has revised its terms of use. And while the company still has the right to display and distribute your content, the new terms clearly state that Adobe does not have the right to sell your content or to use it at all once you remove it from your account. And if you want to prevent Adobe from displaying your image publicly in the first place, all you have to do is refrain from clicking the share option.
Okay, just admit it. You know you want to. We can admit it, so we're sure you can. You want us to do it for you? Alright then, here it is:
You suck at Photoshop.
See, it wasn't so bad, was it?
The truth is, most people suck at Photoshop. But most of us also wish that we sucked a little less at it. Luckily, if your ego can handle it, Donnie Holye has created a hilarious and educational series of Photoshop tutorials titled You Suck at Photoshop.
These videos aren't for the faint of heart. Donnie has been known to use more than the odd bit of profanity, and some of the subject matter might be off-putting to our more sensitive readers. But if you have the fortitude for it, You Suck at Photoshop is an entertaining way to pick up a new Photoshop technique.
It turns out that Madonna had it wrong: instead of living in a material world, we are increasingly moving to a digital one. One arena in which that is particularly true is photography: digital cameras have slowly replaced traditional cameras, digital images replaced real prints, and digital manipulation has replaced traditional editing means.
Today we're going to look at six programs for the Mac, all designed to help you edit and manipulate your digital images. These programs vary widely in price, skill level, and features. Know this: whether you simply want to remove red-eye without having to pull out that felt-tip pen (we're not the only ones who did that, right?), or would like to insert Bigfoot into a picture of scenery, we've got you covered.
Sure, Flickr is a great place to find and share images. But wouldn't it be nice if you could also edit those images online? Now you can. OK, you've been able to for a long time, using online photo editing sites like Picnik and SnipShot. But now Flickr and Picnik have added an "edit photo" button to that makes the process pretty darn easy.
We first heard that Flickr was partnering with Picnik back in October. At the time, we half suspected that all you'd see is an "edit with Picnik" button on each photo that would let you load up an image on Picnik's site. But the service that launched today is far cooler than that. You can access Picnik's powerful photo imaging interface without leaving Flickr at all.
That means you can crop, resize, adjust exposure, contract, color saturation and other aspects of your images with just a few clicks. You can also apply effects like converting color images to black and white. if you have a Picnik Premium account, you can access some additional effects like Infrared, Night Vision, Tint, and Invert.
In order to edit a photo, you'll need to login to your account and select an image you've uploaded. You'll should see an "edit photo" button in the toolbar above your picture. For now it doesn't look like there's any way to edit images uploaded by other users.
While you're waiting for Adobe to release Photoshop Express, you might want to take a look at Splashup. This web-based image editor has all your usual features like resizing, cropping, and some basic effects like sharpening, blurring, and pixelizing. But there are also some pretty advanced color controls and you an even use layered effects.
Splashup runs in Flash, so you should be able to use it with any web browser on any operating system. Unfortunately we were unable to get it to load an image properly using our new Eee PC (pictured above). That's a shame, because when you've got a portable web-enabled Linux computer with only 4GB of flash memory, that last thing you want to do is bog it down by installing applications. For now we'll just have to keep using Picnik and Snipshot to do our image editing on the go.
Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen says within 10 years, the company will be offering all of its applications online. His remarks come at a time when we see more and more companies offering online applications as an alternative to desktop products.
Google Docs, Zoho, Picnik, SnapLayout, Zude, just a few of the many successful online applications that can be accessed anywhere without the large cost of boxed versions. There might be some features missing, but this new breed of application has much to offer the user with free, portable, cross platform, accessible with no upgrades needed as a few of the benefits.
Major software development companies like Adobe are starting to take note and recognize their shrinking market share. The likes of Picnik and PikiFX are emerging and growing the free online image editing space and have forced Adobe to quickly rethink their software strategy pushing them to develop a version of their popular Photoshop for online usage. Adobe still has no release date for Photoshop Express but realizes that the future of software lies with online versions and is working to deliver all of their applications via the web. Chizen says he believes that these new online applications will only appeal to a younger generation of users that would never think of paying $400 for a packaged software product. Dear Adobe, we think this will appeal to all users, young or old, just as long as they, along with the rest of the world will have access to broadband in 10 years. After all, what good is an online application if it can't be accessed properly?
Photoshop Express is flash-based and runs inside of a web browser. No surprises there. And also nothing particularly unique. The online image editing space is getting pretty crowded. But while PikiFX, Picnik, SnipShot and Fixr each have tools that let you manipulate images online, none has the name recognition of Adobe.
As the name suggest, Photoshop Express might not be as powerful as the desktop version of Photoshop. But the web version looks like it should have just about anything the amateur photographer would need to make snapshots look better. You can rotate, crop, auto-correct, reduce redeye, and selectively change one color without affecting other colors in the image.
Adobe hasn't announced a release date for Photoshop Express. But to tide you over, CNet's Webware has a short video showing a few more features.
Paid subscribers get access to extra editing tools, effects, shapes, and fonts. The free service also got an update this week, with Photobucket support. Here's some of the new features available to paid users:
Photobucket support - edit photos from Photobucket and/or save your images to the site
Effect painting - choose certain effects and apply them with brush strokes
New effects including invert, pencil sketch, and pixelate
Add shapes, symbols, or speech bubbles
Touch up tool for whitening teeth or removing zits (from photos, not real life)
New image frames
$25 a year seems like a pretty decent price to pay when you consider how much professional editing software like Photoshop can set you back. And because Picnik is completely web-based, the company can continue to roll out new features for paid users without asking you to upgrade.
Eventually some of those new features will probably make their way to the free version as well. But you get what you pay for, and Picnik will most likely be using its free site to promote its paid services.
Photoshop Express won't be a Photoshop replacement, or even clone. Rather, it will have some of the basic functionality of Adobe's flagship image editor in an accessible online package.
There's a really cool video that's been making the rounds on the interwebs for the past week or so. It shows a next generation image resizing method that lets you stretch or shrink a picture without greatly altering its composition.
One of the guys behind this technology is Shai Avidan, a former staff member of the Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories. Adobe's John Nack writes that the company has hired Avidan, which we hope means we'll be seeing this sort of image resizing in Photoshop and other consumer applications soon.
We're pretty certain that if Adobe hadn't snatched up Avidan, Match.com would have done so. Just imagine the potential for tweaking profile pictures in personal ads. A little too short, or a little too round in the belly? Go ahead and make yourself thinner and taller with just a click of the mouse.
Looking for a conference to polish your year off? If you are a regular user of Adobe products like Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator, the Adobe MAX event could be for you. But you have to empty your pockets first.
Adobe MAX is an event targeted at Adobe users that aims to connect them with other users, discover what can be done with the applications, and inspire others to create. The conference will being an opportunity to meet other users and grab some sneak peaks at what's coming out of Adobe next. There will be training on Adobe's products and solutions, and networking events. Speakers for the North America event include Grant Skinner, Mike Chambers and Erik Natzke.
MAX will be held in North America, Europe and in Japan, and cost a fortune. $1,295 US for general attendance, so make sure your company will spot you. Students, there is an educational discount, but its only $200 off. A one day pass can be purchased for $595, which is still rather pricey.
You may recall at the start of the month that MIcrosoft had achieved some recognition of its HD Photo specification, something that has raised eyebrows amongst those of us who don't use WIndows as our Operating System. Much to its credit, however, Microsoft does seem to be working hard to ensure that the format is cross platform, and that patents are freely licenced to ensure the format is adopted. Today sees another step in the pushing of HD Photo, with Microsoft releasing beta (pre-release) versions of HD Photo plugins for AdobePhotoshop CS2 and CS3. Whilst HD Photo is far from prevalent at the moment, if you want to experiment with the format, or a burning desire to work with it, these new plugins will come in handy.
The beta release of the plugins are available for both Windows and Macs, and expires after December 31st 2007.
We've not mentioned Pixelmator before, but our colleagues over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) have. Pixelmator is arguably one of the intriguing looking Mac applications in a while, and whilst the user interface looks great, so does the feature list.
Layer-based editing, an array of selection, painting and editing tools, real-time filters and a metric ton of file formats with which it's compatible (thanks to its under-lying ImageMagick base) make this a very attractive addition to those of us unable to afford, or unwilling to budget for, Photoshop. Unfortunately, that is as much as we know at the moment, as the program has been kept strictly under wraps until today. The good news is that a closed beta test is now going on to fix any bugs that are in what would appear to be a complex piece of software so hopefully it won't be too long before everyone can enjoy the features this baby-Photoshop-esque application has to offer.
We caught up with Picnik Co-Founder Mike Harrington at last night's Digital Life press preview and asked him a few questions about the online photo editor.
In a nutshell, Picnik is an online image editing program. It won't do everything that Photoshop does, but it has many features that are missing from other online applications. Because it's flash based, image editing takes place in real time. You don't have to send a message to a server and wait for a reply. Of course, if your browser crashes, you may lose your work, but backups are saved online. And since Picnik is web-based, you can start working on one computer and finish on another.
Picnik is completely free while in beta. When it officially launches, there will be two tiers: a free service for basic image editing, and a premium version with more features for $20/year.
SiliconUser has a short article detailing how Adobe's venerable Photoshop was born. The story briefly describes the work done by the Knoll brothers starting way back with a Mac Plus. The program began life as a command-line utility that would render images on the black-and-white only display of the Mac Plus.
Sometimes everyday objects or products have very different histories than we might think. Have a look if you'd like a bit of insight into Photoshop.
Okay, just admit it. You know you want to. We can admit it, so we're sure you can. You want us to do it for you? Alright then, here it is:
You may recall at the 
We've not mentioned Pixelmator before, but our colleagues over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) 
SiliconUser has a short article detailing how Adobe's venerable 
