Adobe unveiled free Photoshop and Illustrator for the web last year, albeit with limited functionalities. It’s more of ‘look and see’ for collaborations rather than a canvas all people involved can work on. Today, it was reported that Adobe is testing out a more functional free version of Photoshop in Canada.
Speaking to The Verge, Adobe’s Vice President of Digital Imaging, Maria Yap, has said that they wanted to make Photoshop more accessible and easier for more people to try out and experience the app.
People in Canada can use a free Adobe account to access Photoshop for the web. They will have a paywall sometime soon but plans on keeping features that they consider are the app’s ‘core functions’.
The end goal is to make Photoshop more accessible to more users and to guide them into the Adobe Creative Cloud system. In the Philippines, the app alone starts at around P1,046 per month, but has a ‘Photography Package’ that includes Photoshop, Lightroom Desktop, and Lightroom Mobile for only P498 per month. The difference in the packages lies in the included Cloud storage, which is negligible if you’re working with files mostly from your own local storage.
“I want to see Photoshop meet users where they’re at now. You don’t need a high-end machine to come into Photoshop.” Yap said.
The project says a lot about the landscape of digital apps for Adobe. They’re one of the first software companies that shifted into a subscription system in order to keep profits up, as piracy was very rampant back then. Lately though, there are other free options on the web that steer users away from their products like Pixlr and Canva.
There’s no timeline when this Photoshop with core functions for free will be available to more markets. Right now, current Adobe CC subscribers can go to photoshop.adobe.com and input their Adobe logins to use Photoshop for web with limited features.
