Adobe is planning to make Photoshop on the web free to everyone, according to a new report from The Verge, which spoke with the company and received new details regarding the online version of its premier graphics software. “We want to make [Photoshop] more accessible and easier for more people to try it out and experience the product,” Maria Yap (Adobe’s VP of digital imaging) said regarding Photoshop on the web, a slimmed-down edition of the application that lets users try out some of the standard suite’s core functions, including cropping and resizing of images. Adobe is planning to make Photoshop on the web free as a means of enticing more users into paying for the full version, which is available as part of a handful of subscription packages that include the Photoshop ($20.99/mo) and Photography ($19.99/mo) plans. The company also previewed a new AI-powered Neural Filter today for the standard version of Photoshop that can be used to quickly clean up older photos.
Adobe first released its web version of Photoshop in October, delivering a simplified version of the app that could be used to handle basic edits. Layers and core editing tools made the jump, but the service didn’t come anywhere close to including the app’s full breadth of features. Instead, Adobe framed it primarily as a collaboration tool — a way for an artist to share an image with others and have them jump in, leave some annotations and make a couple small tweaks, and hand it back over.
Adobe didn’t provide a timeline on when the freemium version would launch more widely. In the meantime, the company is continuing to update Photoshop for web with more tools, including refine edge, curves, the doge and burn tools, and the ability to convert Smart Objects. The web version is also getting mobile support for reviewing and commenting on images.
Source: The Verge