Adobe, the US-based corporation best-known for its ubiquitous PDF format, has today announced plans to launch a web-based version of PhotoShop, its flagship image-editing application.

Taking a cue from Google’s expanding suite of web-based programs, including Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets, the forthcoming Photoshop application will not need to be installed on the user’s computer and could theoretically be accessed from anywhere in the world.

This isn't Adobe's first web application. Earlier this year they announced Adobe Remix, an entry-level, internet-based video editing tool that enables users to assemble their own clips into longer movies. Lacking the ability to save the finished work means that it remains essentially a toy, and is unlikely to cannibalise sales of Adobe’s Premiere Elements package.

The web-based Photoshop program looks as if it will be more fully-featured, making it a viable replacement for Adobe’s Photoshop Elements (which is a locally-installed application) and a direct competitor to Google’s Picasa photo-editing and image sharing system. The application will be free to users, with revenue from onscreen advertising replacing a sales-based business model.

A browser-hosted verion of Microsoft Office, probably the most popular business suite in the world, has been rumoured for some time now but Microsoft's only current offering is the rather confusingly-named Microsoft Office Live. This is not a web-based office suite so much as a website hosting service in the vein of Apple's DotMac scheme.

A web-based version of a major application such as Photoshop, even in cut-down form, brings us all closer to a future in which we do not own the software we use, but merely rent it as we need it.