Adobe Photoshop Online: It’s Real

A few days ago we mentioned Adobe’s delivery of Remix. It’s been offered first to Photobucket members, but the software maker plans to expand its clientele for the new video mixer in the coming months. The company also uncovered Flex a while back, an environment in which to create websites and web-based applications. Adobe calls it new, but reviewers seem to say differently. But, for the sake of product release dates and timelines and all that stuff, let’s just call it “new” in the Adobe realm.

Well, now that we’ve covered those two bases, how about we throw ‘em out the window for now? Why would we want to do that? Adobe Photoshop is going online.

Yes. That’s right. It is. If you were to have told me Monday February 26th that Photoshop, Photoshop, would be hitting the Web in all its image creation/manipulation/discombobulation glory, well… I would’ve argued otherwise. I would’ve been wrong to argue otherwise, but I would’ve done it. I’m thinking most of you would’ve done the same. So we would’ve all be wrong. Who would’ve thought that those small little unfounded rumors people have been denouncing since who knows when actually had some weight to them.

Now that the minority view has been vindicated, let’s celebrate.

It’s clearly great to hear that Photoshop is moving online. Everything eventually will (MS Office, iPhoto, Final Cut , etc), but most of us just figured it’d take a little while for Adobe to move its cash cow (especially when we’re just at the start of this web app “boom,” where serious Net-based software is getting good enough to replace their localized equivalents. See how I switched that around? Sly, eh?). Turns out they’re much farther along with the project than we thought.

I mean, we weren’t totally off base with our skepticism about a Photoshop Online, though, were we? The desktop application is massive, and not just in numbers of bits or anything. The volume of stuff Photoshop is capable of is tremendous; to the average [human] editor, it’s practically limitless. It’ll take you hours, days, weeks, years to discover everything underneath the hood, and to master it all? Like…never. You may think some things are missing – and there probably are a few little things people get nitpicky over – but just about any utility imaginable is there – made either by Adobe or a third-party developer. Whether out in the open, or hidden way beneath the surface, everything you may want or need is there, waiting to be clicked, dragged, and customized, all for the sake of creating.

So Adobe will have to forgive me and many others for disregarding any mention of “Photoshop Online.” But, again, it’s great that we underestimated the team behind Photoshop, because look: we now have some great news.

Of course, we shouldn’t expect to immerse ourselves in the vast world of Adobe Photoshop on the first day of the online version’s release. It’s most certainly going to be a far simpler variant of the original. There’s no doubt that even the desktop application, Photoshop Elements will have an upper hand on Photoshop Online.

Adobe’s CEO, Bruce Chizen, told CNET News that the service would be free, but ad-supported, so consider what that’ll entail. It’ll surely advised not to start up an eBay auction for boxed version(s) of Photoshop or Elements immediately upon the launch of the online version. But with time, give or take a few years, Photoshop Online will certainly have a leg up on any competing services. Well, actually, I’ll refrain from taking that line for now. In fact, it’d be thrilling to find a small independent software house giving Adobe a run for its money in the burgeoning sector of Web-based photo editing utilities and services.

But there’s no doubt that the hefty budge behind the Photoshop team does kinda put the odds with them. Still, we look forward to seeing what the first “beta” product is like, how it differs from the desktop-based mainstay, and even how it’s better than its “ancestor” in terms of social connection options that can really only be done best online.

A week ago we would’ve been confident in assuming “Photoshop Online” a mere figment, a dream app that was nothing more. Now that we know it’s real, and soon to be seen by private testers and then the public, we can skip ahead and start to pass along rumors about what the online version will have in store for us.