Culver City (CA) - Adobe is developing an online and free version of its popular Photoshop picture editing program. Within six months, basic users will be able to do minor edits to their pictures through the ad-supported service. But more advanced users will probably take some hefty convincing before they will use Photoshop online.

Photoshop Online (not really Adobe's official name for it, but our term) will have fewer features than regular Photoshop or Photoshop Elements because it is target towards beginners. Presumably it would be written in Flash just like its online video editing counterpart Remix which was launched a few weeks ago.

Beginners may be lured to Photoshop Online because of the attractive price, you really can't be free. Regular versions of Photoshop can cost several hundred dollars. Beginners also generally take smaller-sized pictures that can be uploaded quickly.

In contrast, most advanced users probably already own a full version of Photoshop and deal with pictures taken in high-megapixel or RAW format. Working with these large files over even the fastest of Internet connections probably won't be as fast as working on a local machine.

Adobe will be competing with other companies who already offer basic photo editing services online, namely Google's Picassa and Flickr. Picassa offers photo uploading along with basic color and exposure correction, while Flickr has basic cropping and resizing tools.

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