Multimedia powerhouse Adobe Systems released on Thursday a public beta of Photoshop Express, which provides online tools for photos. Express, a free hosted application, lets users store up to two gigabytes of online photos at no cost and share them in a variety of ways, including uploading and downloading from social-networking sites like Facebook. It is accessible from any recent browser with a Flash Player 9 plug-in.

Pop Color, Gallery

Adobe Vice President Doug Mack described Photoshop Express as “a convenient, separate destination where you can store, edit and share photos” regardless of where you are.

Photos can be edited nondestructively, which means the original file is left intact, and they can be shared anywhere via a Web browser. Editing capabilities include removing blemishes and red-eye, converting to black and white, cropping, and resizing, among other things.

Pop Color is a tool that lets the user choose an object in the image, lessen the background colors, and

swap colors in the object so it stands out. With sketch effects, photos can look more like drawings, and a distort feature lets the user stretch and exaggerate faces and objects. You can additionally choose from a sample of photos that already have visual effects applied, and those effects will be applied to your photos.

For sharing functions, an online, Adobe-hosted gallery enables users to upload images and share them individually or as slideshows. One technique may become the contemporary version of the “blinking link” from years ago, suddenly popular and soon after abandoned as overused — animation that, according to Adobe, “makes photos drift and fly across the screen.” Denizens of social-networking sites and personal blogs can embed or link photos without exiting the application.

‘First Entry’

Ron Glaz, an analyst with industry research firm IDC, said the significance of Photoshop Express is that it is Adobe’s “first…

Orginal post by Top Tech News