26 products left, but today Photopea

Hi friend 👋,

We've been living in a pre-Instagram, #nofilter era. The photos were the reason we got together. I recall gatherings with my family to go through photo albums (physical ones). As a child, I listened to my father or mother tell me the stories behind these photographs. They were sometimes debating about the year it was or where the shot was taken. But all of this was more significant than it is today. After all, I was learning about my parents and dreaming all these years. As you might anticipate, I shall not romanticize these years. It was difficult to snap pictures, and I don't have many from elementary school. I don't remember most of the folks from that time period, and I've basically forgotten about them. Meanwhile, my younger brother, who is roughly 11 years my junior, is still talking with his elementary school classmates. He remembers everything, and they have hundreds of photographs together. So technology connected us in some way.

It not only connected us, but it also altered our perceptions of what constitutes beauty. And we defined beauty as the removal of unexpected consequences. Remove everything if you didn't use the center of the picture, if the light is coming from the front so we don't see too many details, if there is someone on the scene who kills the symmetry, or even if you have a small pimple on your face. But I can't quit thinking about the editing process. You're having such a good time that you just want to take a picture. But how do you feel while you edit that photo? It's like changing the past, and every time I try to edit my images to make them more beautiful(?), I feel guilty. Anyway, I can't stop anyone from editing. I know there are a billion programs that accomplish this, but today I'm going to tell you a tool that is just next to Photoshop.

Today, Photopea is our product.

Photopea certainly doesn't give a crap about our SEO or landing page fetish. They made a fantastic service that can be accessed simply by entering their URL into a web browser. We're all aware of how sophisticated Photoshop is, and rest assured, Photopea has all the same advanced capabilities. Just drag and drop a picture file from your computer onto the interface to get to work. It can also read files created in Adobe's suite as well as Figma. When I was younger, I took a Photoshop course, and now that I see what it can do, I can't believe it. You don’t have to create an account if you work on a simple file. There is no “limited” features which makes you push to upgrade. It goes against all of our instincts, and seeing such a tool contradicts all of our assumptions.

Yes, I am aware that the technological ecosystem is oriented around growth hackers. All the products we are working on are not philanthropy; it's a business. In the meantime Photopea is an old tool, and I suppose they make enough money to be satisfied. They provide help through their Reddit channel, which is quite active, and there are zillions of organic YouTube videos from people all over the world in which they discuss how to use Photopea. They produced a product and excelled in the WoM game.

We’ll talk again tomorrow.

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