Adobe has taken the wraps off of Photoshop Express: a free, stripped-down version of its signature image editing software that will be available online.

The company first began development of the product early this year, and envisioned it competing with offerings from other companies such as Google's Picasa. It runs within the browser and is completely Flash-based.

Express will not replace any of Adobe's current products. "Rather, it's a new member of the Photoshop family that's meant to make Adobe imaging technology immediately accessible way to large numbers of people," Photoshop product manager John Nack said in a blog post.

Photoshop Express follows Premiere Express, which was first launched in February of this year. That program is meant to make creating online videos easy. Photobucket, MTV.com, and YouTube's TestTube already use the application.

Nack said that it is easy to make modifications to images by selecting the type of edit, rolling over the resulting previews, and then selecting the desired degree of modification.

Adobe has given no indication as to when Photoshop Express will be made available, only saying that it is still in development.