Photoshop for Your Chromebook: Almost Here

You've heard the rap on Google's Chrome OS plaftorm: Sure, it's fast and boots up quickly, but there are lots of top-tier applications that won't run it, because Chrome OS does everything in the cloud. When Google first announced its cloud-centric Chrome OS platform, which primarily eschews applications that reside on the desktop for ones out in the cloud, people came out of the woodwork citing popular applications that wouldn't run on it. Among these applications, the Windows crowd made a big deal out of the fact that Photoshop wouldn't run on Chrome OS.

But in October, we reported that that is about to change.  Google and Adobe announced that Adobe's entire Creative Cloud software suite, including Photoshop, will soon be available for Chromebooks. Now, two months later, Google and Adobe are showing their Streaming Photoshop project, and making it available in the educational market.

As The Verge reports, Adobe will test streaming Photoshop for about six months in the educational market, then make it widely available. 

How will the streaming version work? It is designed to run straight from the cloud to a Chromebook. It updates itself and will be fully integrated with Google Drive, so there will be no need to download and re-upload files. You just save your art directly from Photoshop to the cloud. For IT administrators, it will ease some headaches. For example, installation won't be required.

A lot of Chrome users are going to be excited about this. While open source alternatives to Photoshop exist, it's hard to match the application feature for feature. Along with Google's efforts to bring Android apps to Chrome, it looks like we're poised to see Chromebooks become much more capable and flexible.  

If you're familiar with Photoshop, you know that it is an extremly powerful application. It makes sense that the streaming version needs testing for a few months before being unleashed, but it is coming. 

According to the announcement on the Chrome blog:

"Today, in partnership with Adobe, we’re welcoming Creative Cloud onto Chromebooks, initially with a streaming version of Photoshop. This will be available first to U.S.-based Adobe education customers with a paid Creative Cloud membership—so the Photoshop you know and love is now on Chrome OS. No muss, no fuss."