My friend was willing to let me post his picture on my blog so I could show off Photoshop’s Application on Android.  So let me start by thanking John.

Most of us have become accustom to hearing “oh that was Photoshop’d” however it’s no surprise that almost every picture sees some type of image editing process before it’s showed off.  What I haven’t seen, until recently, was a mobile platform for editing pictures on your phone. Surprisingly, this was a bare market, despite having most mobile phone cameras preform miserably.  So I welcome Photoshop’s Android application with open arms.

First thing I want to say, is this isn’t going to be a full featured image editing system, hell it’s FREE. Naturally, it isn’t loaded with all the tweaking tools that the full desktop application carries, however I think it’s enough to preform quick touch ups on photo’s before uploading to Twitter or Facebook while still at your party.

By limited functions, the application includes tweaking for exposure, tint, saturation and even soft focus.  The application also lets you rotate, straighten, crop and flip the image in case you got some funky angle and don’t want to look like you were preparing for a Myspace photo contest (you know who you are).  To me, this is more then plenty for a mobile device.  Frankly, I don’t think I have enough screen real estate at times for using Photoshop on my desktop, so what else could I ask for on my G1?

As Androidandme.com mentioned, the app runs in the background CONSTANTLY.  Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue for me, hell background apps are what make the Android awesome, however Photoshop doesn’t need to run in the background for any reason that I can imagine. Another frustration is that it is hard to take screenshots from inside the application so it’s hard to show you what was going on when I edited the pictures below.

Another issue I had was that you have to preform manipulation by touching the screen, this is a bit touchy so it gets in the way while trying to make fine adjustments.  I’d much prefer a wider range on the manipulation, as well as the ability to do so through the trackball instead of just using the screen.

Overall, I’d rate this application 8/10 as it keeps growing on me the more I use it.  Initially I was as skeptical as the next, but I found that it really serves its purpose and does so well.  I think if they removed the consistent running in the background and opened up the ranges for manipulation a bit, it would make the application a lot stronger.

Here are some images I manipulated in Photoshop: