X

The Web-based drawing tool, LithaPaint

The Web-based drawing tool, LithaPaint

Rafe Needleman Former Editor at Large
Rafe Needleman reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business.
Rafe Needleman

Is there anything you cannot do in a Web-based application? We have word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation programs running on the Web. There are drawing applications and even video editors. And now there's the beginning of a free-form graphics creation tool, LithaPaint.

Don't throw out your Photoshop license yet. The service is still in early alpha testing, a lot of it doesn't work, and most of the LithaPaint tools help you draw and manipulate lines, which is not enough; a more complete tool would also manipulate textures and areas. But it's interesting to experiment with, if only to see how much can be done inside a browser window.

There's one thing that we have yet to solve, though, with all of these applications: data interoperability. Currently, you cannot copy and paste between Web-based applications like you can with desktop apps. You can export documents from, and import to, most of the apps, but that's a kludge that takes us back to the early days of personal computing.