Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced Adobe Photoshop Express public beta, a free Rich Internet Application (RIA) available to anyone who wants to store, sort and show off digital photos.

During the public beta period, Adobe will solicit Photoshop Express user feedback on product features and functionality, which will continue to evolve over time. Photoshop Express allows users to store up to 2 gigabytes of images online for free, make edits to their photos, and share them online, including downloading and uploading photos from popular social networking sites like Facebook.

With Photoshop Express, digital photos can be uploaded and sorted anytime, edited non-destructively to always preserve the original image, and shared from anywhere, on any Web browser. Photoshop Express alows users to make standard edits, such as removing blemishes and red-eye, converting to black and white, cropping and resizing, and more.

In keeping with its one-click approach, Photoshop Express offers tricks like Pop Color which selects an object in an image, mutes the background color of the photo and allows the user to swap the object’s color so it jumps off the page. Sketch effects help photos look like drawings and the Distort feature allows you to distort facial features or objects within the images for a comical or artistic effect. Uusers with limited photo editing knowledge can simply select what looks best from a line-up of sample photos with visual hints showing different variations of the added effect.

Photoshop Express offers a variety of sharing options, including uploading and showing off photos and slideshows in your own online “Gallery” hosted by Adobe, or embedding or linking photos to social networking sites and personal blogs without having to leave the application.

Adobe Photoshop Express beta is available now for free via any Web browser at http://www.photoshop.com/express . Photoshop Express was created with Flex, Adobe’s free, open source framework for building RIAs. An Internet connection and an up-to-date Flash Player 9 are all that are required to experience Adobe Photoshop Express. In its early phases, Photoshop Express is available to US residents-only in English. Users may experience slow performance if accessed outside of the US. Future plans include availability in other languages and countries.