Adobe launches Carousel apps for iOS and Mac

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Adobe in early September announced a new online photo management service with accompanying apps and today the company released native iOS and Mac clients for the service named Carousel. The apps let you manage and sync photos across your iOS devices and Mac computers via the cloud and requires a paid account with Adobe’s online storage, a $99 a year value (or $9.99 a month). The storage subscription is available at launch for a discounted price of $59.99, or $5.99 a month.

The Lightroom for iPad, as we dubbed it, Carousel lets you perform non-destructive image editing which preserves your original photo, including fixing exposure, white balance and saturation and adjusting contrast, brightness and vibrance, among other features. You can also assign other people privileges to browse your library, favorite photos and more. Windows and Android versions are also in the works, allowing for the full cross-platform solution for photo management. The Carousel page at Adobe’s site lists the following features:

• Simply add photos to your Adobe Carousel photo library on your iPad, iPhone, or Mac, and you’ll instantly have access to them in Adobe Carousel on your other iPad, iPhone, and Mac devices.
• Easily crop, rotate, adjust exposure, and make other corrections, or lend your photos serious style with unique looks.
• Create a family photo library without the hassle of sending emails, handing off drives, and trying to figure out which photos to touch up or use in special projects.
• Simply invite family members to add photos to your library via their own Adobe Carousel apps, and let them flag their favorites so everyone can quickly find the best-loved shots.
• Share those moments that matter by sending your photos straight from Adobe Carousel to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.
• Snap new photos right from Adobe Carousel on your iPhone or iPad, and they’ll instantly appear in your photo library on all your devices.

Adobe Carousel is a free download from both the App Store and the Mac App Store. Another cool promo clip after the break…

Apple’s iCloud features a service called Photo Stream that stores up to a thousand photos and keeps them for 30 days in the cloud. By turning on the Photo Stream option on your iOS devices, the iCloud Control Panel applet in Windows and iPhoto on your Mac, Photo Stream automatically syncs every photo taken on any of these devices. Apple’s service has its drawbacks, such as the inability to control which photos go into your Photo Stream on a per-photo basis. Apple has also made it clunky to delete individual images from your Photo Stream. You can only wipe out the entire Photo Stream, which requires logging in to your iCloud account on the web at iCloud.com.

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