Scoop: Adobe to offer Web-based Photoshop

Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, in conversation with CNET News.com Senior Writer Martin LaMonica, dropped a bombshell this morning: Adobe will release a Web-based version of Photoshop within six months. See the News.com story, Adobe to take Photoshop online, for details.

There are other online photo editors already (see our coverage of Fauxto, Picnik, Pixoh, Pxn8 , and XMG), but an online version of Photoshop is sure to capture a lot of users due to name recognition alone. We hope the online product lives up to the standards that the traditional version has set. The service will likely be free, and have ads in it.

Photoshop online will not be a direct copy of Photoshop. Even though Adobe's Flex technology allows developers to deliver graphically rich applications over the Web, there is still much one cannot do over a broadband connection. The online product is more likely to be a consumer-friendly, de-featured editor, perhaps even less capable than Photoshop Elements, Adobe's editor for consumers.

It will be interesting to see how Adobe begins to blend online and offline image editing. Chizen spoke of "hybrid" applications that are part traditional software and part Web-based. He expects that Photoshop online will eventually compete with a hybrid version of Picasa, Google's photo editor and organizer.

Adobe recently released an online video editor, Remix, via partner Photobucket.