image-editing posts

WordPress 2.9 to get a built-in image editor

by Brad Linder Sep 14th 2009

This summer the folks at Automattic asked users what features they'd most like to see in the next version of the popular WordPress blogging client. one of the most popular suggestions was image editing, and now it looks lke the developers are beginning to add image editing capabilities to WordPress.

The image editor will be baked into WordPress 2.9 and won't require a plugin. The editing functions are pretty basic. You'll be able to crop, resize, and rotate images. Don't expect support for advanced effects, layers, or other features, at least not right away. But the ability to upload your images before editing them should make blogging a bit faster and easier for many users.

[via Life Rocks 2.0]

Tags: image-editing, wordpress, wordpress-2.9

Filed under: Design, Windows, Linux, Open Source

GIMP 2.7 beta released

by Brad Linder Aug 27th 2009

The folks behind the open source GIMP image editing application have released the first beta build of GIMP 2.7. The application is available for Windows and Linux, although the download server for Gimp 2.7 beta seems to be a bit fuzzy at the moment. You can get the source code from a mirror, or download the Windows installer from Filehippo.

As you can see from the screengrab of the installer, this is not a stable release. And it crashed on me a few times as I tried out some of the new features, including the new on-canvas text editor. But here are a few of the changes in GIMP 2.7:

GIMP resources such as brushes and patterns are now taggable.
Save as and Export functions have been separated. To save a file as anything other than an XCF file, you need to use Export.
Enhanced size entry widget
Refinements to the layer mode menus
Status bar feedback for keyboard changes to brush patterns

You can read more details in the release notes or changelog.

Tags: gimp, gimp-2.7, gimp-2.7-beta, image-editing

Filed under: Design, Web services, web 2.0, Web

Aviary launches Falcon, web-based image markup tool

by Brad Linder Jun 17th 2009

Aviary has added a new tool to its suite of online image editing applications. The company is calling Falcon an "image markup editor" as a way to differentiate it from Phoenix, which is Aviary's online "image editor."

Basically, Falcon was designed to power the new Talon Firefox add-on I mentioned last week. It offers basic image editing tools without all the bells and whistles found in Phoenix. The utility is less than 90k in size, which means it loads much faster than Talon, letting you edit images found on the web or uploaded from your desktop almost immediately. Today Aviary released it as a standalone tool that will work in almost any web browser.

Falcon doesn't support layers like Phoenix. And the tools are all much simpler to use, which could make Falcon attractive to anyone intimidated by fuller featured image editors like Phoenix, or Photoshop.

Tags: aviary, falcon, image-editing

Filed under: Audio, Design, Web

Aviary launches Firefox plugin for image editing, audio editor coming soon

by Brad Linder Jun 10th 2009

I got a chance to catch up with Aviary today at a CEA event in New York, and the first thing I wanted to know is when the company will be ready to launch its web-based audio editor. Aviary makes web-based image editing tools, but the company purchased online audio editor DigiMix in March with the intention of launching its own audio production tools. And with the recent announcement that music community site Indaba Music would be updating its web based audio production suite, I was wondering what Aviary had up its sleeve.

So here's the deal. Sometime this summer Aviary will launch its digital audio editing application. It will let users create and mix audio using a web interface. There will be a variety of sounds available to work with, or you'll be able to upload your own audio tracks. At launch you won't be able to record new audio tracks using the web interface, something Indaba Music's new suite is expected to offer.

But while Indaba music's site is built around a community of users who share and talk about music, Aviary is building an application that will have an open API that the company hopes will be used across the web. In other words, if all goes according to plan, you won't just be able to edit audio at Aviary.com, but also on other sites making use of the tools.

In the meantime, Aviary is continuing to move ahead with its image editing tools. The company recently launched an Firefox add-on that lets you right-click on any image in your web browser to edit it with Aviary. The company hasn't begun to promote the add-on yet, because it's still experimental. But it's already been downloaded over 5,000 times.

Tags: audio-editing, aviary, image-editing

Filed under: Design, Utilities, Web services, Web

Free Twitter Designer offers custom Twitter backgrounds

by Jay Hathaway Feb 23rd 2009

If you've been on Twitter for a while, you've probably seen someone with an elaborate background that's designed to work around the text elements of the Twitter layout. Maybe it's got a photo and some contact information on the side, or maybe it just frames the main text field in some creative way. When you want to make your own, though, how do you work around the layout and get the spacing right? That's where Free Twitter Designer comes in.

It's a web-based image editor that lets you view the basic layout of a Twitter page transparently, so you can figure out where to position any photos or text you want to add. You can import photos into Free Twitter Designer, and add some predesigned shapes, shadow or blur effects to your design. The text tool has a handful of different fonts to choose from, and of course you can customize the colors. While I take issue with a site that claims to produce the same results as a professional designer -- pay your designers well, guys! -- it's a simple way to get around some of the challenges of making a Twitter background.

Tags: background, free-twitter-designer, image-editing, twitter, wallpaper

Filed under: Design, Web services, Beta, web 2.0, Web

Aviary online image editor leaves the roost, launches public beta

by Brad Linder Dec 19th 2008

Aviary provides a suite of web-based image editing tools that are pretty impressive when compared to the competition. Like Picnik, Fotoflexer, and others, Aviary lets users upload images and do some basic cropping, resizing, drawing, and color correction. But Aviary also has a web-based screen capture utility, a vector graphics editor, and filter and color management tools.

The site offers access to the basic image editor, called Phoenix, for free. But you'll have to pay $9.99 a month for a Pro account if you want unlimited access to some of the more advanced tools.

Aviary also incorporates a number of social elements. In addition to being able to import files from Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook, you can share files with other Aviary users, comment on images created by others, or even remix them.

We first looked at Aviary earlier this year when the service was still in private beta. But the service is now open to the public.

[via Somewhat Frank]

Tags: aviary, fotoflexer, image-editing, picnik

Filed under: Design, Linux, Open Source

GIMP 2.6 open source image editor launched

by Brad Linder Oct 1st 2008

The developers behind open source the image editing application GIMP have released a major update. GIMP 2.6 includes a number of changes to the user interface and tools and plugins. There are a also a few important changes under the hood.

One of the most noticable changes is that the main menu items have been moved from the toolbox window to the image window so that you can access most options in one place. Another major change is the ability to pan beyond the border of an image. The free select tool has been tweaked so that it now supports polygonal selections, and there are new brush dynamic options that let you tweak the size, opacity, pressure, and velocity of brush strokes. GIMP 2.6 also uses GEGL for processing most color operations.

You can find a complete list of changes in the release notes.

GIMP 2.6 is available for download via FTP. It's not yet available in the Ubuntu repositories, and there's no Windows installer yet, so you might want to wait a while before installing GIMP 2.6 unless you're comfortable compiling applications from source.

[via Slashdot]

Update: The Windows version is now available for download.

Tags: gimp, gimp-2.6, image-editing

Filed under: Design, Windows, Freeware

IrfanView 4.20 released, gets a minor facelift

by Brad Linder Jul 18th 2008

IrfanView is a light-weight, but powerful Windows tool for viewing and editing pictures. Version 4.20 is out, and it has a slightly new design, a bunch of bug fixes, and some new features.

At its heart, IrfanView is an image viewer with some editing functions thrown in for good measure. Nobody will mistake it for PhotoShop anytime soon. But you'd be surprised just how much you can do with this free utility.

First of all, IrfanView can handle pretty much any image file type you throw at it. But second, it includes a ton of basic options for editing images, including cropping, resizing, rotating, and applying effects like sharpen, blur, and red eye reduction. Version 4.20 includes a ton of updates, including improved relative zoom, an "auto crop borders" feature which removes outside lines of the same color, and a shiny new icon set.

Tags: image-editing, image-viewer, irfanview, irfanview-4.20

Filed under: Design, Internet, Photo

Twins Visions: Advanced image manager and editor for Windows

by Brad Linder Apr 12th 2008

Twins Visions is a new desktop image manager and editor that's sort of like Picasa if Picasa had image editing capabilities, prettier visualizations, and the ability to occasionally crash your computer. Let's start with that last part first. Twins Visions is beta software, and while it works fine most of the time, we did see our first BSOD in months while testing it out.

But if you're okay with installing buggy beta software on your PC, Twins Visions is worth checking out. The program lets you do all the usual things like sort and display your images or play slideshows. But it also features a nifty 3D picture viewer that lets you sift through images in multiple folders and even drag and drop images from one folder to another.

Twins Visions also features basic image editing tools like resizing, cropping, or adding effects like grayscale, pixelizing, or embossing images. You can also enable Flickr integration for viewing and editing your images saved on Flickr.

The public beta expires on October 1st. We're going to go out on a limb and guess that at that point you'll either be able to pay for a commercial version of the application or download a new beta. But for the next few months at least, you can try out Twins Visions for free.

[via Go2Web2.0]

Tags: image-editing, twins-vision, twinsvision

Filed under: Design, Internet, Web services, web 2.0

Picnik offers premium image editing features for free

by Brad Linder Feb 27th 2008

Online image editor Picnik has always offered two tiers of service. Free users could access most of the popular image editing tools, while paid subscribers got a few extra bells and whistles and access to early beta features. But up until this week, there were no ads on the site whether you paid for an annual subscription or not.

Yesterday, Picnik decided to take all of the editing tools that had been available only to Premium members and offer them for free. This makes Picnik one of the most advanced free photo editors around, and puts the company in a good position to compete with FotoFlexer and the upcoming Adobe Photoshop Express.

But Picnik isn't getting rid of paid memberships altogether. You an still shell out $25 per year to get early access to new features, the ability to edit in a full screen mode, and an ad-free interface.

[via Mashable]

Tags: advertising, fotoflexer, image-editing, photoshop-express, picnik

Filed under: Web services

Online image editor Picnik launches API

by Brad Linder Jan 22nd 2008

Ever want to add a powerful image editing application to your web site, but didn't have the time or expertise to develop your own? No problem. Picnik, which recently announced a partnership with photo sharing powerhouse Flickr, has launched an API which should make it possible for pretty much anyone to integrate Picnik's online image editing application with their site.

Using the Picnik API, you can let visitors to your web page load, edit, and save images using the Picnik interface, all without leaving your site. You can also build web applications around Picnik. For example, Better or Worser is a site that challenges users to use Picnik tools to improve upon images uploaded by other users.

[via Mashable]

Tags: api, flickr, image-editing, image-editor, picnik

Filed under: Design, Internet, Web services

Splashup: one of the best online image editors we've seen so far

by Brad Linder Nov 4th 2007

While you're waiting for Adobe to release Photoshop Express, you might want to take a look at Splashup. This web-based image editor has all your usual features like resizing, cropping, and some basic effects like sharpening, blurring, and pixelizing. But there are also some pretty advanced color controls and you an even use layered effects.

Splashup runs in Flash, so you should be able to use it with any web browser on any operating system. Unfortunately we were unable to get it to load an image properly using our new Eee PC (pictured above). That's a shame, because when you've got a portable web-enabled Linux computer with only 4GB of flash memory, that last thing you want to do is bog it down by installing applications. For now we'll just have to keep using Picnik and Snipshot to do our image editing on the go.

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: image-editing, photoshop, picnik, snipshot, Splashup

Filed under: Design, Open Source

GIMP 2.4: First major update in three years

by Brad Linder Oct 25th 2007

If you've been thinking it's been a while since GIMP 2.2 was released, you're right. It's been three years since the GIMP team has pushed out a major update to the open source Photoshop alternative. This week, GIMP 2.4 was released, with a new icon set, and a whole slew of other features:

Redesigned crop, selection, and align tools
Scalable bitmap brushes
Reorganized menu layout
Improved display when zooming in or out
Support for more file formats
Full support for color profiles
Improved printing
Auto red eye removal tool

There are a ton of other new features and updates. You can read about them in the release notes.

[via Slashdot]

Tags: gimp, gimp-2.4, image-editing, the-gimp

Filed under: Design, Internet, Web services

Flickr to let you edit photos using Picnik

by Brad Linder Oct 21st 2007

A few months ago we got a chance to talk with Picnik co-founder Mike Harrington (with an H) about the online photo editing application. He mentioned that the company was working out deals to place an "edit this picture with Picnik" button to online image websites. Now Techcrunch's Mike Arrington (without an H) reports that Picnik has landed one heck of a deal: Flickr will be adding Picnik integration soon.

Picnik already lets users import pictures from Flickr. But Flickr currently has a much, much larger user base than Picnik. The deal will give Flickr users the ability to do some advanced photo editing, while it will give Picnik a huge publicity boost.

Picnik comes in two flavors. There's a free version with a limited feature set (although you can still do all the basics like cropping, resizing, and applying many digital effects), and a subscription version that will set you back $25 a year.

Tags: flickr, image-editing, photo-editing, photo-editor, photos, picnik

Filed under: Design, Freeware

IrfanView 4.10: simple image editor gets even better

by Brad Linder Oct 17th 2007

You don't need a tank to drive down the street. And sometimes you don't need Photoshop to edit a photo. IrfanView is one of our favorite light weight image viewing/editing applications. Need to open an image, view a slideshow? Check. Want to crop, resize, pixelize, blur, or brighten a photo? Check.

This week IrfanView released version 4.10. The latest update includes support for even more file types and comes packed with new editing features:

New paint plugin that lets you draw lines, circles and boxes on an image (just hit F12 to bring up the paint menu)
Support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF files
Lossless JPG Crop added
Support for FLV files
Auto adjust colors on selected portions of an image
A bunch of other bug fixes, tweaks, and new features for editing, opening, and viewing images and multimedia files.

And best of all, you can open and close IrfanView a few dozen times in the amount of time it would take you to load Photoshop. Oh yeah, and it's free. That's nice too.

Tags: image, image-editing, irfanview, irfanview 4.10, Irfanview4.10, photo

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

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