Familiarity with the Adobe Suite of products has become a prerequisite in any sort of creative field and now it seems that Adobe itself wants to open its software up a bit more.

There is reportedly a free-to-use version of Photoshop being tested on the web according to The Verge.

The product is still in the testing phase in Canada and there are, unfortunately, plans to gate off some features for paying subscribers.

Why offer it for free at all?

Well once users are familiar with the platform and require more from it, they could be tempted to upgrade and purchase an Adobe Cloud subscription. A version of Photoshop for free on the web also means that institutions such as schools could have access to the software without having to pay exorbitant rates.

“We want to make [Photoshop] more accessible and easier for more people to try it out and experience the product,” vice president of digital imaging at Adobe, Maria Yap told The Verge. “You don’t need a high-end machine to come into Photoshop.”

There is no word on when or rather if Adobe plans to roll this free-to-use version of Photoshop out to more countries but we suspect that if the firm is making a noise about this, there are plans for a wider launch.

Now to see how many features Adobe gates off to paying subscribers.

On that note, we’d me remiss not to mention Photopea. This web-based application is almost identical to Photoshop, except it is completely free and functionality isn’t locked behind payment. Photopea supports a number of file extensions including .PSD, .AI, .XD and even .XCF files from open-source image editor GIMP.

Whether you want to edit photos or videos, solutions such as a free Photoshop, Clipchamp and others really do make content creation in 2022 far more accessible.