Adobe Adds New Features To Photoshop Express

San Jose (CA) - Adobe has updated its free online image editing and sharing service Photoshop Express (PE) with new features such as drag-and-drop image uploading, tagging, one-click resizing presets, improved printing options, music tracks, refreshed web galleries and an integration with an online photo printing service.

The PE resize tool is updated with a one-click resizing capability optimized for preset dimensions such as web, email and mobile. Users can now mark images with one or more tags to easily find certain photo via a search feature. Adobe integrated Shutterfly’s online printing service into PE, which allows users to select any image from a library and order prints.

A new download option enables users to download all images from another user’s gallery, if that user has given permission for download. Web galleries and slideshows now offer more attractive 2D and 3D viewing modes, with the ability to add music to a slideshow by choosing one of the prepared songs from a drop-down list found in slideshow’s Settings panel.

A sew compact application dubbed Uploader eases the pain of uploading images to the cloud. Similar to what has been offered by online photo printing services for some time now, users can drag-and-drop images from the desktop to the cloud. It also enables drag-and-drop image downloading from the cloud to your desktop. The combination of the new Image Uploader application, the updated Resize tool, free 2 GB of online storage for your images and PE’s ability to edit images stored on other online services can come in handy. For example, the Uploader can be used to send images to the cloud via drag-and-drop, apply standard image optimizations and then send edited images to Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa accounts.

The 2 GB storage limitation remains the big drawback of this service. In a time where mainstream image storage cards offer 2 GB of capacity, 2 GB may be a bit tight. But then it is obvious that Adobe is building Photoshop Express not as a replacement for Photoshop and not just because wants to be generous, but because such services promise to become a future revenue source. Common sense suggests that Adobe will be offering additional storage capacity in the not too distant future.