14 DAY TRIAL // Chromebooks have often been criticized for their inability to provide access to productivity apps. Well this dogma is slowly changing and soon Chromebooks will be able to let you do whatever you desire, such as serious editing.
Google and Adobe have just announced that Photoshop can run on Chromebooks, but there are a few caveats to take into consideration before jumping for joy.
Non-US residents won't have access to Photoshop on their Chromebook
For starters, you might own a Chromebook, but if you’re not located in the US, you won’t be among the lucky ones who get to use Photoshop on their Chrome-OS lappy.
But living in the right geographical location is not all you be needing to jump onboard with Photoshop on your Chromebook. You’ll also have to be an Adobe education customer and to have paid for a membership for Adobe Creative Cloud.
So as you can see, the scheme ultimately involves you paying some money to get access. Anyhow, if you don’t meet the requirements we have talked about in all the above, don't despair, as you still have a chance.
An Internet-based alternative for Photoshop exists
You can go ahead and apply for the Photoshop Streaming beta project. If you’re granted the green light, you’ll be able to go ahead and use an Internet-based version of Photoshop which apparently offers the same features as the native desktop version of Photoshop, plus a bunch of extra features on top.
The software sits neatly in a cloud-based location and is updated permanently, so users won’t have to worry about performing any software updates.
Furthermore, it is available with Google Drive integration, which means your ongoing work can be saved in the cloud storage, so you can access your files from any machine.
Well, if you are not a US resident and you don’t feel like paying for a membership for the Adobe Creative Cloud, nor do you feel like waiting to get an approval to join the ranks of the Photoshop Streaming beta project, you can also go ahead and get an online editing tool like Pixlr.
Traditionally, Chromebooks have been thought of as standard laptops to be used for basic tasks. But this is about to change with the advent of the new era in Chromebooks, which includes models taking advantage of the NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor or Intel Core i3 platform.
As we have witnessed first-hand at IFA 2014, the NIVIDA Tegra K1 Chromebooks offer excellent performance and shouldn't have any problems running demanding apps like Photoshop.
A report from not long ago claimed Chromebooks taking advantage of Intel’s new Broadwell platform will make a debut on the market in 2015, so Chrome OS notebooks are getting more and more powerful.