Offering current users an easy way to transition

Aug 7, 2009 07:32 GMT  ·  By

Adobe Systems is killing the lowest offering in the Photoshop family, the company's line of image-editing software regarded as one of the best in the market, the free Photoshop Album Starter Edition. Instead it is encouraging its users to move to products up the latter or to its Photoshop.com site, the web-based image editor Adobe has been offering since 2008.

Photoshop Album Starter Edition was launched in 2003 as an alternative to the more casual users, offering basic image-editing tools and photo-organizing features. Six years down the line the product was discontinued, its use largely replaced by online photo albums and editing apps like Picasa and, of course, Adobe's own Photoshop.com.

“Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition software is no longer available. Adobe is discontinuing the product and ongoing technical support will end as of June 30, 2009,” the product's page now reads. “Adobe is committed to providing customers with a great free photo-editing service and has created Photoshop.com for your use. Upload, edit, organize, share, and back up your photos all in one place. It’s quick to get started with and easy to use.”

The company wants to make the transition as easy as possible so users can move their photo library online to Photoshop.com from within the software. All they have to do is select the photos they want to share and then go to the “Share” menu. They can create a new account if they don't have one, after which the photos will be uploaded to the site. They're out of luck if they have more than 2GB of photos, though, as they will have to move up to the paid version of the site.

Adobe is also offering customers the option to move up to Adobe Photoshop Elements 7, targeted mostly at the same type of users, which goes for $37. There's also the possibility to buy it with a one-year membership to Photoshop.com Plus, with the bundle offered for $90.