In an effort, the company explains, to, “reach out to the new generation of consumers who are beginning to edit, store ad share photos online,” Adobe announced last week that they will now offer a basic version of their wildly popular image editing program Photoshop for free online.
The free online version will be dubbed Photoshop Express an is available at HYPERLINK “http://www.photoshop.com/express” www.photoshop.com/express. Adobe explains that the new Photoshop Express is a far more easy program for consumers to master than the much more robust, newer versions of Photoshop CS are. is easier to learn. However, like the new CS versions, the company said that user comments will be taken into account for future upgrades .
Adobe added that Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers.
Google Inc. and Microsoft are already major players in this game so this move by Adobe had been anticipated by many for quite some time. Adobe explains that offering Photoshop Express for free online is “part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities.” The company is hoping some of these new customers will move from the free Express version to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that’s in the works.
