FOR those who get a kick out of zapping away acne scars, or instantly reducing the thickness of their thighs by half, Adobe has launched a new plaything to help morph Ah Meng look-alikes into dashing George Clooneys.

Meet Adobe Photoshop Express.

This photo-editing tool lets you edit images of yourself really quickly.

This newest member of the Adobe family is geared towards casual, snap-happy users.

These folk aren't going to drop some $900 for original Photoshop software, and may even hesitate to spend $100 for Photoshop Elements.

But Photoshop Express definitely has the right price tag to attract new users: It's absolutely free.

Simply power up the Net, log on to the site and you can start editing pictures using this Web application.

Ultra-easy to use, this site lets me adjust the brightness of my images or add quirky effects, with just a few clicks. Just select the effects that you want and the software will automatically edit it for you.

Although it doesn't have as many functions as the original Photoshop software - for instance, it doesn't let me merge two picture files - this application's image editing functions will meet the needs of basic users.

Some of the functions include adding swirl effects and changing the image colours.

One feature that got the most applause from me was its ability to selectively change colours in an image.

For instance, I could change the colour of a motorcycle without changing the colour of the background.

Curving straight lines was also very simple - just drag the cursor over the image and click onto the area that you wish to curve.

And where's the joy of editing images if you can't flaunt them to the rest of the world?

Photoshop Express lets you upload the pictures onto an online gallery to let others view and rate your pictures. Great for budding shutterbugs waiting to be discovered.

Alternatively, you could also upload the edited pictures directly onto social networking sites like Facebook, Picasa and Photobucket.

Or try e-mailing the link of your photo album to your friends.

My only gripe? The site was terribly slow.

Uploading one picture onto the site took a thumb-twiddling 10 minutes.

Very annoyingly, the software also doesn't support pictures that have more than 4,000 x 4,000 pixels, which is a tad inconvenient for professional editers.

Even worse, the application only supports JPEG file formats.

This means that users have to create a JPEG copy of their files if they want to edit a TIFF or GIF image.

FINAL SAY

The site has juicy features to meet the needs of basic users. Its easy-to-use interface also means that users who are not familiar with the original Adobe Photoshop software will find it a breeze.