No more disks?
October 24th, 2007 by Ian Pauly
From time to time I’ll wander the internet for something new and absolutely intriguing. Usually when this happens it hides behind account sign ups, which I’d probably forget the usernames and passwords anyway. If I like my latest discovery, I tend to research it and learn more about it only to bump into a few people over the weekend who shoot down the one I’ve picked in favor of something better, faster and easier than what I’ve stumbled upon. The way it seems to go more often than not as the speed of development and innovation continues so quickly it is hard to keep pace.
Recently I learned that Adobe was gearing up to move its full software line to the web. I was intrigued and began to investigate. There are a handful of companies trying to take Adobe like applications online and meet that challenge (Snipshot.com, Picnik.com, Fauxto.com just to name a few). Soon these startups will be beat or acquired by Adobe in its quest to move these applications to the web. Photoshop, the software on the lips of anyone doing image editing, is about to be integrated into a webpage. Well, to be fair “about” is a stretch I suppose. Rumor is that it will take up to a decade to make the full-blown version online, but within the year there should be a free version available.
This simply makes sense… the whole idea of having software sit online somewhere. This way the company knows exactly who’s using the software and when. No more pirated software, no need for updates/upgrades, and it pays for itself with advertisements! Yeah, I’m not too thrilled about that last part either, but I’d hope that if you subscribe to their program, you’d get those removed. Plus, it seems everyone has their pictures online somewhere to share with other people, why not fix them up a bit online first.
Now, Picnik and Snipshot are free so I’ve played around with their sites. They’re basic, but considering these applications sit within your browser, it’s amazing. Plus the average user does not need the wide spectrum of photo editing tools offered by a program with as much complexity as Photoshop. Fauxto’s site requires a sign in and going against my personal guidelines, I created an account. Now that I’ve tested a handful of these, I would say Fauxto comes the closest to Photoshop by providing layers and effects along with other goodies. I’d say check it out, but be careful before you go bragging to your buddies at the bar about your latest discovery… the next best thing is probably waiting just around the corner.