Wiredness is a new Web-based photo-editing tool. There are a ton of these out there now, and they just keep getting closer in functionality to their desktop counterparts. What makes Wiredness easy to use is its interface, which has file, edit, and tool menus you'd find on a desktop app like Picasa or Photoshop Elements.
For casual photo work flow, you can either upload a photo from your hard drive or pull it in from a URL. The max size for files is 5MB. The service handled my 7.2-megapixel test photo without a problem. There are tools for resizing, rotating, brightness, and contrast, along with some Photoshop-esque filters. The resize tool is probably the one "wow" tool, as you have an option to select exact specifications or use an easy slider that will show you a live preview of how big the image will be. It's total eye candy.
There's no service integration with sites such as Flickr or Photobucket for ferrying photos back and forth, but you do have the option to output any image to ImageShack or Glowfoto with zero configuration, which is good for quick sharing with family members.
Admittedly this service is young and missing some of the features you'd find on a competitors such as Picnik, Fauxto, SnipShot, or Pixenate. The key difference is that all those photo tools run in Flash and require users to install the Flash plug-in on their browsers. Wiredness and Phixr (which we looked at on Monday) are both managed with HTML and will work with any browser right out of the box.
One thing to keep in mind with many of these services is that they're not aimed at professional photographers. What they are good for is making quick edits and tweaks to photos while away from your home machine.
The Wiredness interface feels like working in a Windows application. You can also have multiple tools open at once.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
Phixr is a free, Web-based photo editing tool that celebrates its one-year anniversary tomorrow. If you're interested in tweaking a few of your photos (local or hosted), Phixr connects with nearly every popular Web service out there, and has some powerful tools to make your photos look better without your having to spend a dime on editing software.
Phixr gives users photo editing foundations like cropping, brightness, rotation controls, and red-eye removal. There are also some more advanced tools like pixel-noise removal and 14 Photoshop-like filters for adding artistic alterations to your shots. The pixel-noise remover takes a while to work its magic, but I got excellent results on some particularly grainy indoor photos.
Anytime you upload a photo either from your hard drive or popular Web services like Flickr, Photobucket, or Picasa, Phixr will store your shot on its servers for three hours. You can log out, come back a few hours later, and continue editing. When you're done, you can re-upload your photo to a dozen different services like Costco Photos, ImageShack, and LiveJournal. There are also options to export it as JPEG, PNG, GIF, or PDF.
One big downside of Phixr is its speed. Every time you make an edit, the page needs to refresh. It's aggravating, actually. If you intend on working with more than one photo it's just not worth your time. While there are before and after previews for any edit, it's all done in small thumbnails, which doesn't show enough detail to do the job. By comparison, Picnik, a Web-based photo service we checked out recently, shows edits in real time, and has a much more user-friendly interface for beginners. More screens after the jump.
Related: Adobe to offer Web-based Photoshop
Choosing one of 14 various photo effects, similar to 'filters' in Photoshop
(Credit: CNET Networks)
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