San Francisco — Just in time with the availability of the Motorola Droid and the HTC Eris at Verizon Wireless stores today, Adobe Systems on Friday launched a new Photoshop app for Android users that enables them to edit photos from their phone, as well as access their online photo collection on Photoshop.com and Slacker Radio for music fans that powers for Android lovers.
Adobe just last month in the US released Photoshop.com apps for Apple’s iPhone and iPod, which quickly became the top free application in the App Store and seized a million downloads within a week of its release, and now the company has rolled out the “Free” app on the Google OS.
Adobe’s Photoshop.com, which offers simple image editing tools and photo-sharing capabilities, seems similar to the iPhone version which was introduced earlier in October.
Photoshop for Android looks similar to its iPhone/iPod sibling, but has a few less editing effects. (Credit: Adobe Systems)
The application works in association with a Photoshop.com account, and lets users to sync up to 2GB of photos with the Photoshop.com site. The best part of this combination with Photoshop.com is that Android users can access their entire online photo library from their phone.
The most basic features of the program allows users to crop, rotate, and flip photos; including ways to correct color exposure, saturation, tin, white and black; filters that apply sketching or soft focus; as well as effects such as vignetting, borders white glow and so on.
Most of the features are enabled with one touch, such as dragging your fingers across the screen to crop and rotate photos. Users can also make their edited photos the wallpaper for their Android handset.
The app also gives users access to their Photoshop.com library. The new tab-based user interface empowers users to view local and online content. Also, the Android Photo Browser makes maneuvering through photos fast and convenient, bringing users’ complete photo collections right to their pockets.
Nevertheless, it has some sticky features too though: Android users are getting a slightly-less featured version than those who use it on iPhones or iPods. The Android version is lacking a whole menu full of filter effects, which can be one of the most enjoyable aspects of using the app. Also missing is the sketch tool, which can add a neat cartoonish effect to photos.
For the music fan, Slacker Radio, meanwhile, is also available, a day in advance of the Droid launch. Slacker is already available for other smartphone platforms such as the iPhone and BlackBerry OS. It allows users to take advantage of their phones’ data connections to stream custom radio stations. Once you create a (free) account online, keeping your preferences and music in sync with your device is a snap. Loading Slacker allows access to a widget, however, which puts the audio controls on the home screen.
Photoshop.com Mobile for Android sounds like a great way to take advantage of the 5 megapixel cameras that are in both the Droid and the Eris. Users can also avail a Pro version for $3.99 per month, which eliminates the unobtrusive ads and adds unlimited song requests and skipping, plus lyrics.
Photoshop and Slacker for Android are both available now, for free, via the Android Market. As with the iPhone app, the application is currently available in the US and Canada only.