Photoshop 2.0? Not yet, but damn close!

I know, I know... the current photoshop version is 10.something or so, i was referring to the web 2.0 remote computing style applied to photo editing. This is a solution that never convinced me too much but this morning I eventually stumbled on something interesting.

It is a web service called Splashup. Basically it is a web based photo editing application accessible trough a browser, much like Photoshop Express but with an interface more reminiscent of the classical desktop based Photoshop look.


The program allows to upload a photo from the computer, import it from a photo sharing service such as PicasaWeb or Flickr, or from just any web source trough an ordinary link. Once you have it there you can edit it applying a fairly standard set of tools (selections, crop, brushes and such), and effects (from the basic hue/saturation and brightness/contrast to some more advanced blur and glow).
What in my opinion puts Splashup head and shoulders above Photoshop Express is that, as opposed to a more amateurish "Picasa style" from Adobe, Splashup handles multiple pictures at once (thus copy-pasting from one to another and such), it has layers (yep, layers!) and allows different modes for them (such as multiply, screen, overlay and such).


The only thing really missing is a levels/curves panel, and I realize that some quick fix offered by Photoshop Express such as red-eye removal might be handy if you do not know how or do not want to do it yourself, but yet these are not big showstoppers for me.

One more thing, on my office computer (a crappy productivity oriented windows machine who has been around for more than I am) The GIMP runs really slow, and I was very disappointed to see that even Photoshop Express frequently freezes the whole box (that's right, not just the browser). On the contrary Splashup performances are snappy even on my prehistoric box, so now I will not have to loose an entire afternoon if I Just have to crop and adjust a couple of workshop machinery shots to send a warranty claim or the likes... That's it, at home I'm sticking with The GIMP (even if I plan to give Pixel a try one of these days, I know it is not free nor open... but I'm curious none the less) because I remain of the idea that local based solutions are still better, but as far as web based solutions go, I have finally found something that does not entirely disappoints me :-P