Adobe launched its Photoshop Express in public beta, a free Rich Internet Application (RIA) which allows users to store, sort and show off digital photos with eye-catching effects, the company announced today.

"Photoshop is trusted technology that has changed the visual landscape of our world. Now, Photoshop Express allows anyone who snaps a digital photo to easily achieve the high-impact results for which Adobe is known," said Doug Mack, vice president of Consumer and Hosted Solutions at Adobe in a statement.

"Photoshop Express is a convenient, single destination where you can store, edit and share photos whether you're at home, school or on the road," Mack.

The company hopes that it will lure customers into buying its more powerful versions of Photoshop, which offer professional-level features and performance. The cheapest version is the $99 Photoshop Elements. Photoshop Express offers 2GB of free storage on Adobe's servers. The well-designed interface is based on Adobe Air and is made to be accessible to new users of Adobe products.

However, Adobe enters a crowded market. There are several strong online photo-management sites such as Flickr, Shutterfly, Picnik and Photobucket. In early 2007, Adobe also announced Adobe Premiere Express, an online video editing and mash-up tool available on partner sites such as MTV and Photobucket.

Adobe Photoshop Express features the most widely used photo effects, such as removing blemishes and red-eye, converting to black and white, cropping and resizing, and much more. It can also embed or link photos to social networking sites and personal blogs without having to leave the application.

Released in February, AIR 1.0 (Adobe Integrated Runtime), is a runtime environment based on an open-source technology that constantly updates Web information based on the user’s routine and makes it accessible anytime, anywhere, without requiring a Web browser. Adobe AIR is a cross-operating system combining HTML, Ajax, Flash and Flex to bring rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop.