Continuing the tread on our conversation on branding issues, James Duncan Davidson provides some thoughts on Adobe’s plans to continue to stretch their venerable Photoshop brand. Adobe’s first foray into extending this brand was with a stripped down version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements. Lightroom, Adobe’s new software for the management of photo shoots, has come out of beta as Photoshop Lightroom. And now Adobe has announced they have a free online version of Photoshop in the works.

James presents some doubts that this is a smart move:

It’s the soft-drink and beer branding approach applied to software. Except that it’s a lot easier to understand that Diet Coke is the sugar-free version of Coke. They’re both soft drinks (or “soda” or “pop” depending where you’re from). Placing the Photoshop brand onto Lightroom is like calling lemon cookies something like “Coke Crunchies”. And putting the Photoshop brand onto a web-based too [sic] like like calling a pizza something like “Coke Cheesy”.

Give the whole article (it’s short) a look and determine your own opinion on whether this is a good or bad move for Adobe.