My first impression of Photoshop Express would be a ‘mini’ version of the desktop image editing favorite – that is online. Having used Photoshop since its earlier versions, it is fair to expect some of the standard items such as layers, tools, actions comps in this newest member of the Photoshop family. Wikipedia defines Photoshop as: “a graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Systems…market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation…”

But what I got was a complete different thing. Instead, PE is nothing like Photoshop desktop version. It is a futile attempt by Adobe to enter online photo album sharing and collaboration in which established Flickr, Picnik, Picasa and more already dominate.

This article will focus on image editing aspect of PE – what Photoshop IS all about:

User Interface is self-explanatory and simple. Once your account is set up, uploading images and/or migrating from other websites is a jiff.

Once an image is uploaded – under Photo Options > Edit Photo. We enter – image editing mode.

The toolbar sits on the left hand side covers three main categories: Basics, Tuning and Effects. That comprises about 5 percent of the workspace in the desktop version:

What I liked:

1. with every feature, hover your mouse in the preview thumbnails and you see in an instant how it looks
2. seven quick preset values to pick from
3. occasional “advanced control” button or a slider more control on adjustments
4. Undo, Redo, Reset All and View Original buttons are always available
5. Zoom in and out buttons sit at the bottom for easy access
6. check boxes – for each feature you have used where you can check or uncheck each time to undo or redo what you did

BASICS: includes crop, auto correct, exposure, red-eye removal, touch-up and saturation

• Crop & Rotate – dragging abilities with a click, handle bars for rotating, undo and reset options – pretty impressive

• Touch up - I assumed that “Touch up” would be like to “airbrush” (got me excited). Instead, it turned out to be a dirty version of the clone tool and the healing brush combined. The difference is it is tough to manipulate. And even if was easy to manipulate – they made a major mistake in combining both functions in one tool. See, the healing brush takes averages of one spot to another in order to “heal” an image – mainly used on edges etc. The clone stamp on the other hand – is taking the exact spot and “cloning” it to another. The image below shows my boy’s eye – cloned into another area in black & white – the same as the surrounding background. Honestly, how will you utilize this?

• Saturation – quite useful. Converts your image from dull to vibrant or vice versa. Despite the preset values, an optional slider is available for more detailed saturation preference

TUNING: includes White Balance, Highlight, Fill Light, Sharpen and Soft Focus

• White balance: very useful. Kudos to Adobe for going a step further to include correction presets including: 1) Full auto 2) Correct for Sunlit, Cloudy and Shady conditions 3) Correct for Incandescent, Fluorescent and Flash lighting. In addition, “Advanced Control” for even more custom adjustments

• “Highlight” is to change the brightness of the brightest part of your photo while “Fill Light” is like adding flash. Both tuning features I am not going to talk about, but I see would be of use – depending on your image
• Sharpen and Soft focus – effects such as Orton method

EFFECTS: includes Pop Color, Hue, Black & White, Tint, Sketch and Distort

• Pop color – “a way to make one color really stand out”. Reminds me of the “Posterize” filter. Very limited and condensed, with no ability to fade the effect. Again, an effect reminiscent of the neon ‘80s era. Depending on your style – To me – its quite useless

• Sketch – at first I thought would have drawing abilities. i.e. Airbrush and , instead it is similar to sketch effect in the desktop version -“make your photo look hand-drawn”. A little too much effect in my opinion.

• Distort – This should have been left off the palette. If you have to really alter your images – then this might be useful. As for my boy’s photo – no use at all. He’s handsome as it is

• Other effects such as Hue, Black &White and Tint pretty much serve the same purpose with preference on which color to highlight and which to discard

ADDITIONALS:

• Previewing your final image is pretty straightforward – simply click the big check mark and decide to “reset all” and “cancel” or “save as”– (which automatically concatenates “_edited” at the end of the original image name) – saves to the library only
• If you decide to download a copy, email, link, embed the photo you just edited – this can all be done from the library view
• Other settings such as sharing, linking to facebook, flickr, photobucket and picasa is also available

Conclusion – As mentioned before, PE is an “OK” web application; though it is far from even considered a “good” one.

I would like to see:

And extended tool palette that includes:

• Drawing and painting with brushes – since PE backbone is built in Flash this doesn’t seem so unattainable. I have seen many Flash websites with the ability to draw and paint online
• Selection and extraction tools such as the Magic wand, and the Marquees
• Eraser Tools

Additional functions standard in Photoshop desktop such as:

• Layers - Very important! A fundamental must-have for image manipulation
• Shapes - custom and standard
• Color pickers
• Ability to add Text layers and Font collections (This feature is already available in Picnik)
• Frames and borders (also available in Picnik)

An “auto-save” feature – for instance you’ve been working on an image and your internet connection blew up. I would like a feature that auto-saves a “draft” copy of my image to go back to just in case

Consider that PE is its infantile stages, I wouldn’t be surprised if Adobe gradually shifts towards adding a lot more features. I mean c’mon – we’re talking about Adobe Systems here. For the mean time, I don’t see photographers, graphic designers or even photo enthusiasts replacing it with the desktop version.