Adobe has just announced the launch of public beta testing for its free Web-based Adobe Photoshop Express photo editing service & community. Photo enthusiasts will now be able to edit their photos online with Adobe. It’s anticipated to be a competitor for similar services, such as Phixr, Splashup and Picnik.

Adobe Photoshop Express includes editing options like crop & rotate, auto correct, exposure, red-eye removal, touchup, saturation, white balance, highlight, soft focus, fill light, sharpen, hue, black & white, sketch, tint and distort. Apart from its various image adjustment as well as filtering tools, this service also includes photo sharing and online galleries. It also links to social networking & photo sharing sites Photobucket, Facebook and Picasa.

This service offers up to 2 GB of online storage. It limits upload to 10 megabytes and 4000 pixels in height & width, which is not so desirable for professional Photoshop CS3 customers. This service clearly seems to be targeted at photo hobbyists, at least for now.

Adobe’s new online Photoshop Express requires Windows XP or Vista, or Mac OS 10.4+; a minimum screen resolution of 1024×768; 512 Mbytes of RAM; Internet Explorer 6 or 7 (Windows), Safari 3.0.4+ (Mac), or Firefox 2+ (Mac or Windows); and Adobe’s Flash 9.