fotoflexer

Photo editing service Fotoflexer on Friday announced a new partnership with dating network eHarmony. Users of the online matchmaking service will now find Fotoflexer's editor built right into the site, where they can edit their profile photos in an attempt to better their chances at luring potential mates.

Fotoflexer may be best known for some of its more drastic editing tools that include the capability to warp and distort images. However, not all of these have been included in the eHarmony build. Instead, it's limited the selection down to simple things like making a crop, or fixing red-eye … Read more

MySpace has brought on board some Web-based image-editing tools from FotoFlexer so that members can fool around with the photos they've uploaded to the site.

It's no Photoshop. But FotoFlexer can perform basic editing tasks (cropping, resizing, flipping, red-eye removal), as well as distortion, color effects, and some decoration and "bling" features (always important).

So far, FotoFlexer on MySpace is available only to U.S. users. The tools will roll out internationally soon, however.

This move makes sense for MySpace. Not only does image editing tie in nicely with its longstanding express-yourself, customize-anything vibe, but it'… Read more

FotoFlexer is a free Web based photo editor that offers one-click tweaks, and some advanced tools on par with desktop class photo editing software. Users can edit photos with a simple graphical interface, and pull in photos from all over the Web, including popular social networks like MySpace and Facebook. Once you've found a photo you want to "flex," the application will jump you out to a full-screen editing canvas, where you have quick tabbed controls for all the usual editing goodies such as rotation, a cropping tool, and a resizer. You'll also find some fun … Read more

Despite having a working relationship integrating Adobe's media editing technologies on videos, photo hosting giant Photobucket isn't waiting around for Adobe to release Photoshop Express, and instead has partnered with FotoFlexer to serves as its de facto editor. Starting tomorrow, users will be able to edit any photo right inside Photobucket using FotoFlexer's editing tools. Edited photos can replace or be stored alongside existing shots.

In many ways this is an answer to what Flickr has done with Picnik, a move that has cross pollinated both services with new users, and given a hefty boost to Picnik's traffic and premium service subscriptions (see more on this). FotoFlexer has a "professional" service of its own, although it's completely free, unlike competitor Picnik, which charges $25 a year for access to advanced editing tools that later trickle down to free users.

I got a chance to talk to Alex Welch, CEO and co-founder of Photobucket about picking FotoFlexer over building out an in-house editing tool. Welch said that editing was the No. 1 user requested feature on the service, and that choosing an outside company's technology was the better choice given the time frame they were looking at. He said building an in-house editing tool would have simply taken too long.

In regards to the company's relationship with Adobe, going forward Welch said they're sticking with FotoFlexer as the integrated editing tool and that the upcoming Photoshop Express looks to be more of a "finishing tool" than what users were looking for. Welch said FotoFlexer provides more of what "our demographics really want."

The functionality is scheduled to go live early tomorrow morning. In the meantime we have a couple of screenshots of the new functionality after the break.

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Web based photo editor FotoFlexer has been given an update this morning that's specifically designed to accommodate the needs of advanced users. The company is calling it "pro," although it's not quite a full replacement for traditionally "professional" photo editing applications such as Adobe's Photoshop. It's also not going to be a pay service, despite the pro moniker.

Among the major additions is the inclusion of curves and high resolution editing, which let users work with large pictures in their native resolutions. The new features also let users adjust coloring, contrast, and … Read more

Molly Wood and CNET TV's Insider Secrets takes you through a tripartite of free alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Although Photoshop's a great program, for some users it provides way too much editing power and it's way too expensive. Try one of these freeware substitutes, and also check out our series on building your own Adobe Creative Suite using top-notch freeware applications. Part One; Part Two

Fauxto, the Webware for photo editing that looks a lot like a desktop application, has a new look and feel. It's relaunched as Splashup and has added several new features that in many ways bring it closer to Fotoflexer, one of its main competitors. This was an interesting product for me to come back to, mainly since it was one of the first Web-based photo-editing apps I got to look at after starting at Webware, and since then the genre has seen tremendous growth.

The real draw to the app has always been its use of layers, which give you a very powerful way to manipulate and create new images using bits and pieces from one or more original photos. Up until a few months ago, other Web-based photo-editing apps didn't have this functionality.

The biggest change since I looked at the service late last year is the addition of undo controls that let you go back a step in case you make a mistake. It's also gotten much better at linking up with places where your photos might reside, such as Facebook, Flickr, and Picasa. Similar to how other Web photo-editing services have handled this, you simply need to authenticate Fauxto to each service by logging in, then you can freely browse all your albums. Originally you were limited to whatever was on your hard drive, or a URL. Likewise, saving is now far better, and you can save locally (in multiple formats) or export the shots back to the site or origin, or whatever supported sites you've given login credentials.

There are also some new tools that are aimed at the higher-end user such as a lasso and cropping tool, along with a tool that lets you take any selected imagery and copy it into a new layer. For grabbing quick shots of your face, there's now a built-in Web cam tool that will take a quick snapshot, although it's nowhere near as advanced as Fotoflexer's iteration that does on-the-fly filter and liquefy effects. … Read more

Picnik is launching a new premium subscription service tomorrow morning. $24.95 gets you a year of access to a slew of advanced effects and fonts. Many of the premium effects have been available during the service's beta testing period, but there are some new ones that do a pretty incredible job of taking a drab photo and making it look special.

The biggest thing premium users will notice is over a dozen effects that aren't available in the standard version, and seven brand-new ones. According to CEO Jonathan Sposato, the No. 1 request from users is more … Read more

If you've ever used Picnik (review) before, you have an idea of how far online photo editing has come. Similarly, there's Fotoflexer, a user-friendly photo editor that offers one-click tweaks, along with some advanced tools on par with desktop class photo editing software. The service has been around since late last year, and is launching version two this morning.

Like several other online photo editors, Fotoflexer integrates major services like Flickr, MySpace, Picasa, and Facebook to pull your photos down for editing. Short of MySpace (which doesn't have an open API), you can send your edited photos back to all of them if you've plugged in your login credentials. Once you've found a photo you want to "flex," the app will jump you out to a full-screen editing canvas, where you have quick tabbed controls for all the usual editing goodies like rotation, a cropping tool and a resizer. You'll also find some fun distortion effects similar to the liquefy tool in Photoshop (as seen in the screenshot below). This is probably the most enjoyable of the bunch, since it processes the effect in real-time.

The real claim to fame however, is Fotoflexer's Smart Cutout and Recolor effects, which can help you cut out various pieces of a photo, or recolor them to match the tone of your choice. The cutout is the more useful of the two, and lets you cut people or objects out from a shot without having to trace their outline. If you've ever used Photoshop's magnetic lasso or masking tool, you'll know full well how tedious a process this can be. Instead, you use a small paintbrush to "tag" objects you'd like to keep or remove. One click later, and the app will do its best to single out those parts of the photo. If it makes slight mistakes, you can then go back in and remove or replace bits and pieces manually.

Once you've got a cutout, you can add it into another photo, or bring another shot in to the workspace. Fotoflexer lets you have as many layers as you want, and you can move them up and down, or merge them by simply right-clicking. Again, it's probably one of the few Web apps for photo editing that offers contextual menus.

Despite its beauty, there are a few snags here and there. For one thing, even in full screen, the editor remains the same size, which looks and feels very odd if you're using a wide screen monitor. The feature is being added as early as this week according to the Fotoflexer team, although in the meantime, if you're working with a landscape shot, things feel a bit cramped. There's also a lack of some of the advanced editing controls on the quick color effects. For example, clicking the "stamp" button will do its best to make your shot black and white shot with an excess of contrast, however there's no slider or option to tweak it. You either like it or you don't. Luckily, if you know what you're doing, you can achieve similar effects by using the advanced options to recreate each effect manually.

All in all, Fotoflexer is a really well put together app that could make a solid piece of standalone software. The fact that it's free and runs in your browser makes it even better.

See also: Picnik, Pikifx, Phixr, Wiredness, Fauxto, Snipshot, and Pixenate.

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