Webware

The new image-editing tools on MySpace.

(Credit: MySpace)

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's also a way to keep users on the MySpace domain.

The News Corp.-owned social network has been eclipsed by Facebook in worldwide traffic, but relatively recent ComScore statistics have shown that MySpace users stick around for about twice as long on each visit.

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.

Photobucket users can now edit shots without leaving the site using FotoFlexer.

(Credit: Photobucket Inc.)

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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 exposure. There's also a new feature called "smart scissors" that resembles the magnetic lasso tool found in Photoshop, although it uses FotoFlexer's "Predictive Pixel Partitioning" technology to determine the object's borders without user input.

One feature that may useful to people who use the service often is a new preference saver. It will automatically tune itself based the tools used on a regular basis and have them set the next time the user logs in. It's easily comparable with Photoshop's workspace preferences, letting users adjust what tools they want open each time they start editing a photo.

In addition to the pro-oriented tools, FotoFlexer has also added new color effects (like Photoshop's filters), along with a new way to add borders to photos that makes the process require less clicks.

I'm still partial to competitor Picnik when it comes to online photo editing because of its deep level integration with Flickr and Box.net, but FotoFlexer definitely remains one of the best online editors, especially for users who don't want to shell out the $25 a year for Picnik's pro offerings.

The new smart scissors feature lets users pick out someone from a photo like they would with Photoshop's magnetic lasso, although with a little more ease.

(Credit: Arbor Labs Inc.)

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.

Undo and redo buttons are now standard.

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.

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 effects to play with, and there are now plenty to choose from. My personal favorite is the new "cross process," which emulates the real-life technique of developing photographs in the wrong chemical solution. In most photos, the effect is just stunning.

Premium effects are denoted by a premium tag. For some fun, check out the HDR-ish and night vision filters.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

As a value-added feature to users, Picnik will be releasing one or more new effects every month. I asked Sposato if premium effects would eventually make their way into the free version as a result of this, and the answer is yes--although not right away.

The second biggest user request is annotation, which the service has addressed with a brand new feature called shapes. Shapes offers things like speech bubbles, geometric shapes, and even licensing shapes in case you want to add watermarks as part of a copyright or trademark notice. To complement the feature, the text tool is getting "super fonts." Premium users will soon be getting a much larger library at their disposal. Sposato thinks it's a great hook to get power users who expect a similarly large repository of fonts to choose from when comparing Picnik to a desktop photo app.

Also new are three ways to frame your shots, which is the third most requested user feature. Two of these are new since the open beta, with the coolest being a faux Polaroid creator that lets you fake the look of the iconic instant photographs. There's also a museum matte tool that puts a slick-looking two-colored frame around your shot.

Besides the new premium features, Picnik is now connected to Photobucket to let you edit your shots, or those of other Photobucket users. You can do the same thing with Facebook. I originally saw this functionality on Fotoflexer (hands-on), and there's really nothing more fun than being able to browse and edit your friend's shots, especially if they're a good photographer.

So is $24.95 a year worth it for a Web photo editor? I think so. The free version should be just fine for most folks, but if you're looking for a little more power and versatility, the Premium service is a pretty good offering--especially considering you'll be getting additional features on a monthly basis. If you store your photos on Web services like Flickr, and now Photobucket, Picnik is great for editing them without having to edit a local copy, and then reupload it. Likewise, the service is fast and a whole lot of fun to use.

If you want to give the premium service a spin, Picnik is offering users a one-week free trial. Starting tomorrow, you'll be able to sign up for it on Picnik's front page.

Picnik's new premium service offers a handful of cool-looking, and actually helpful ways to tweak your photos.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

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.

Fotoflexer's liquefy bulge tool is a lot like Photoshop's, except free.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

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.

Add captions or thought bubbles to your photos. Nearly every effect happens in realtime, so there's no waiting to see the result.

(Credit: CNET Networks / Micah Pepper)

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