Adobe updates Revel cloud-based image service to v1.5

Adobe has announced an update to Revel, its cloud-based storage, editing and browsing service. Available as an app for Mac users and iOS device owners, version 1.5 offers the ability to organize your pictures into photo abums and share these privately with friends and family online in galleries hosted by Adobe. Images can now be captioned and the updated UI includes a 'Library' grid view for easier image browsing. Subscription pricing for the service remains at US $5.99 per month. Revel desktop software is available in Apple's Mac App Store and iOS versions can be found in the iTunes App Store.

Adobe is clearly pitching Revel as a family-friendly (read mass market) solution aimed at users who have little use for editing tools as robust as Photoshop Elements or similar software. One of the more useful features offered here is the ability to share photo galleries online with friends and family, neither of whom need to have a Revel subscription or app. And in keeping with Revel's sync-everywhere mantra, should you re-edit an image already hosted in one of these web galleries, the image will update to reflect those edits as soon as the page is refreshed.

Press Release:

Adobe Revel 1.5 Now Available

New Album and Captions Capabilities keep photo libraries organized on Mac, iPad and iPhone

August 23, 2012 - Adobe today announced the immediate availability of Adobe Revel 1.5. Available in the Mac App Store and the iTunes App Store, Adobe Revel is a photography app that marries powerful and intuitive organizing and editing tools with a cloud technology uniquely designed for photos. With Revel users have one place for all their photos, which they can access using their iPad, iPhone, and Mac.  And thanks to automatic syncing of everything a user does – importing and editing photos, creating albums – Revel is the only app that allows consumers to access and manage one photo library on virtually any iOS device or Mac computer.

My favorite things about Revel are having my whole photo library always with me and automated syncing,” said Gayle Vehar, blogger at Mom and Camera. “I love being able to make adjustments and manage photos on-the-go without having to manually sync when I get home—Revel just handles all of that for me. Revel is the perfect photo app for families because we’ll never miss a moment.”

New features available in Adobe Revel 1.5 include:

• Albums to organize photos – Create an album on one device and it is automatically updated and accessible everywhere
• Sharing albums on the Web – Share private albums with friends and family via AdobeRevel.com
• Captions – Add context to memories with text descriptions
• An updated all new UI makes the app more intuitive and easier to navigate
• Library grid view – Browse photos in track or grid view
• Sign in with Facebook or Google IDs – Eliminate the hassle of remembering another password by logging in with a Facebook or Google ID and password

Revel helps users keep their photo library organized with the ability to create albums and apply event tags. In addition, Revel makes it easy to create better-looking photos — users can crop, apply Looks (filters) or use sliders that control lighting, color and clarity. With effortless syncing and no limits to the number of photos that can be imported, consumers now have the freedom to use any device of their choice to play with all their photos anytime. 

Important information about Trials

Users with an expired trial as of August 21, 2012 will have another 30 days to try the new version. To start another 30-day complimentary subscription, users need to login with their existing Adobe Revel ID. Users will not be automatically charged at the end of their complimentary subscription; this applies to all users of the Adobe Revel 30-day complimentary subscription. 

Pricing and Availability

The Adobe Revel 1.5 desktop app for Mac is immediately available in the Mac App Store and the apps for iPhone and iPad is on the iTunes App Store.  Upgrading these apps is free for all existing customers. Subscription pricing for an Adobe Revel account is available for $5.99/month.

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Comments

Total comments: 20

By Francis Sawyer (9 months ago)

"Cloud-based"?

I guess they mean online. Yeah, we have a word for that.

2 upvotes

By rondhamalam (9 months ago)

No ANDROID ?

NO PROBLEM, we have Google Drive and Drop-Box.

And Picasa Web Album is better.

Comment edited 1 minute after posting

0 upvotes

By mermaidkiller (9 months ago)

I don't like clouds, but a clear sky. Local storage is cheaper, faster and safer. No companies which possibly scan your documents for advertising reasons, less (or none if you are not connected to the internet) risk for hacking and with the cheap and portable harddisks and SD cards or gadgets with multi gigabyte storage available everywhere also without a fast internet connection.

Comment edited 53 seconds after posting

1 upvote

By CameraLabTester (9 months ago)

The Cloud has landed.

It's somewhere here on Earth.

In fact, it's beside my home computer.

...and in the secret bunker.

.

2 upvotes

By MrPetkus (9 months ago)

I've been evaluating Revel and 3 glaring omissions are:
1) No Lightroom integration other than Publish. EXIF data is inaccessible to the Revel user. Therefore, it is impossible to view photo information or search by name, place, even rating. This makes use of Revel with thousands of images ungainly at best.
2) No DNG RAW support. I don't expect Adobe to support proprietary RAW files but why not DNG? As such, hopes that Revel could be a viable photo archive in the cloud are lost.
3) No way to recover images en mass from Revel. Oops, I lost 5 thousand images. Thankfully, I'm a paying subscriber - I can retrieve those images from Revel. Wait - I can only recover images one-at-a-time.

Fix these issues and Revel would look far more attractive.

0 upvotes

By borgein (9 months ago)

DNG is proprietary. A DNG RAW needs the same decoder routines as if you were decoding the raw file itself. DNG is simply a container format, nothing more, nothing less. The file within the decoder still requires the same proprietary software to be decoded.

0 upvotes

By gsum (9 months ago)

For online editing, it's far better to use PIXLR. PIXLR has all of Photo$hop CS's useful functionality and it's FREE. Also, the developers of PIXLR are keen to improve their product by listening to their users, unlike Adobe.
You can also use PIXLR for online storage (if you want it) - also free.
Who needs Adobe and their stupidly expensive ephemeral software?

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 5 minutes after posting

3 upvotes

By Danny (9 months ago)

Well... PIXLR is a funny tool for funny stuff, if you are not too serious about your work. It is of course not a replacement for a full featured CS package. But I do hope there will be a serious player on the market sooner than later. Pixelmator is looking promising, but is not there yet. Adobe's Photoshop is ripping people off for years. Every update I have done over the last years added very little functionality, and in most cases was more annoying. If it was not of Adobe's creepy upgrade policy then I hadn't upgrade from CS3 to CS5, which as fully expected, didn't had anything extra-special worth it's price tag.

Comment edited 1 minute after posting

0 upvotes

By gsum (9 months ago)

There's three flavours of PIXLR, fun, quick and advanced. The advanced editor is similar to CS4, unfortunately with some of CS4's failings, but I hope that will change as the software is developed. Combined with IrfanWiew (free version of Bridge), you have a near equivalent CS package.

1 upvote

By X Faktor Photo (9 months ago)

Adobe software has always been free, "open source". I have always had the latest PS and LR flavours. Not to mention the Nik software collection. Get with it.

0 upvotes

By Danny (9 months ago)

The advanced version of PIXLR is NO comparison to CS4. Try to work in high resolution and everything becomes sloooooow. Where is CMYK, 16bit? It's fun for funny stuff, but nothing professional or even 'advanced'.

0 upvotes

By Reg Natarajan (9 months ago)

I love PIXLR. Sure, it's not Photoshop. Who cares? It does 90% of what I want in a free online app. I have started using it constantly.

1 upvote

By rondhamalam (9 months ago)

Cool. Will try

0 upvotes

By gsum (9 months ago)

It's interesting that Photo$hop is considered 'professional' software because of its high cost. In reality, PS is nothing more than a few freebies cobbled together behind a flawed interface, backed up by a set of ancient tools that don't work too well. PS's raw converter, for example, is none other than the free RawShooter, purchased by Adobe about 5 years ago.
As for CS4 being 16 bit, well that's only partly true. And if you try editing D800 files with CS4 for any length of time, you'll find that the system grinds to a halt as PS doesn't relinquish its memory buffers correctly.
Sorry to let off steam but I'm a bit annoyed at myself for spending 100GBP recently on this rotten software.

0 upvotes

By amachaBrett (9 months ago)

Why even contemplate using the cloud given the possible effect of the DotCom situation on data I might have stored there. Inaccessible now, perhaps lost forever. My data is going to stay on my hard drives and other personal memory, no way am I trusting my data to a fickle cloud!

0 upvotes

By MrTaikitso (9 months ago)

Solution is to use DropBox, as I'm doing now. Your files are located in the cloud AND on ALL of your devices, or at least, those you install the DropBox app on. Not only great peace of mind (if they fold, you still have the images on your device(s)), but the browsing and sharing experience is simple, fast and convenient. Photos taken on my Android phone upload to DropBox automatically - but are also saved to my MacBook and other devices too! It's very clever and invaluable. And unlike other services, the files are saved in their original format. A full quality JPEG remains just that.

1 upvote

By Reg Natarajan (9 months ago)

Dropbox is a great solution as MrTaikitso said above, but really, whether you do cloud or local storage, you're going to need some backup solution. There's some fear about the "DotCom situation on data" and I agree with that and don't think it's trivial, but you should be equally afraid of your hard drive crashing at home. Whatever you use to back up your HD could easily be used to back up whatever you have on the cloud.

0 upvotes

By Jim Evidon (9 months ago)

Why would an Apple user be interested in McAfee ware? McAfee is designed for PC architecture and not Mac or its "i" relatives.

0 upvotes

By steelhead3 (9 months ago)

I just had an auto upgrade of flash and had to erase mcaffe from my system, sneaky company.

0 upvotes

By steelhead3 (9 months ago)

I can't wait to see what Adobe will charge for the upgrade in the future, complete with McAffe anti-spyware.

1 upvote

Total comments: 20