Adobe Photo Express on Beta

First time I heard of the new web-based Adobe Photo Express, I couldn’t quite figure if it were really a photo gallery trying to compete with Flickr or just an trimmed down Photoshop version for the web. Looks like it’s both.

I don’t have a Flickr account so I can’t seriously compare it with that but I’ve tried a couple of web photo editors for a while now (Snipshot). Adobe Photo Express isn’t a PhotoShop — it shouldn’t be since all we need for a web-based photo editor are the basic editing functions, corrective features/filters and some funky effects.

The checklist of features are good – crop, rotate, red eye removal, exposure, auto-correct, touch up, saturation, white balance, highlight, fill light, focus, sharpen. Photo effects include pop color, hue, b&w, tint, sketch and distort.

The Gallery section allows you to store and display your photos to the public at 2GB storage limit. It’s also integrated with your Flickr account, Picasa and Photobucket as well as the ability to email it straight, link, embed or simply download to your PC. Uploading is quiet easy too — there’s no drag and drop but the browse function allows you to select entire photo collection in a folder.

I’m missing some key functionalities though:

• Support uploads of more formats other than JPEG.
• Ability to convert/export file formats – GIF, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PNG, etc.
• Ability to optimize picture quality vs. file size.
• Copy screen shot from my desktop.
• Support for RAW camera format.

Over-all, it’s an impressive start and hopefully, they’ll add some more features in it soon. All they need to do is ask people around what they want in an online photo editor.