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Web-Based Photo Editor Roundup

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shared-croppers dept.

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech has a roundup of 5 web-based image editing programs. The mostly Flash and AJAX-based webware ranges from simple touch-up services like Snipshot to the Photoshop wannabe Fauxto. They vary greatly in interface and extra goodies; some offer bookmarklets for getting images from a web page you're browsing, some offer artistic or goofy effects for you pix, but all fear the specter of Adobe's online version of Photoshop on the horizon."

19 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Re:For the love of God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    in using a web browser like some super whizz-bang do-it-all application framework.

    AJAX & Flash suck, but there's nothing wrong with the thin client idea. It's being held back by MS & bandwidth issues at the moment.

    If Netscape had won back in the day, maybe we would have a better web based thin client framework now, but to suggest that the idea is unworkable is ludicrous.

  2. Online with my CPU? by MosesJones · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Okay so while its nice to have some basic stuff on a website I'm really not sure how this makes sense given the rise and rise of multi-core CPUs (which are fantastic at image processing). Models like Picassa and others which have a download to the machine make more sense as they don't require you to buy a massive amount of server hardware to support your business model.

    Sorry I've just realised... its Web 2.0 bubble isn't it, it has to be in the browser because otherwise its not cool.

    --
    An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
    1. Re:Online with my CPU? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Okay so while its nice to have some basic stuff on a website

      Mosesjones, I'd like you to meet the vast-majority-of-the-world (tm) who only ever use the basic stuff. They're not going to buy photoshop, they're not going to download the picassa. Hell, they're not even going to ever launch the photo editing software that came with their camera.

    2. Re:Online with my CPU? by Aladrin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your statement doesn't apply to a single person that would use this website, then. So how does it have anything to do with this at all? If they aren't going to use the software that comes with their camera, they surely aren't going to sign up for a web-based service that does the same but is a lot more hassle.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    3. Re:Online with my CPU? by beakerMeep · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Just because you dont see a market for these types of products doesn't mean there isn't one. as an AC pointed out, though a bit harshly, there are people who want just a few features and would love a quick web editor to fix up some of their pics. In the article it mentioned how a lot of the programs offered easy integration with sites like flickr or some type of browser integration. Certainly there are people who would like this kind of feature -- although for me I prefer photoshop.

      Users have a funny way of deciding for themselves how they like to use technology, and that doesnt always mean the best utilization of multi-core processors. Sometimes it just means a few less clicks to get out the red eye from photos of your dog Floofly.

      /have to say too the incessant AJAX and Flash bashing is tiresome on /. sometimes. And no I dont have a dog named Floofly.

      --
      meep
  3. Re:For the love of God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    there's nothing wrong with the thin client idea

    There's nothing wrong with thin clients for certain applications. There is a lot wrong with the silly idea of using a damn web browser as the platform for a thin client. Javascript and XHTML are not an application framework. They're for drawing pretty web pages. Compare any Web 2.0 "framework" with a real GUI toolkit: even a retarded chimp can see just how terrible an idea all of this Web 2.0 stuff is. Really, what is the fascination with it? Even Java would be a better idea for this sort of stuff!

  4. Data intensive by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This seems like a silly place to use a web application, since your photos normally reside on your computer. Uploading a two-to-three megabyte file just to run some simple corrections that are handled by dozens of already available tools (including many free or preloaded ones like iPhoto and Picasa), then downloading it again...

    1. Re:Data intensive by Chris_Keene · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Places where I might want to edit a photo: my flat, my place of work (my office), my place of work (someone else's desk), parents house, friends house, internet cafe, conference.

      Places where I will just install software because I need it: my flat.

      All those other places, if I want (or someone else asks me) to edit a photo, an online tool would be great.

      --
      You will forget this sig before you next see it
  5. For gods sake why aren't photo editting in java by BlackTriangle · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Java would be the ideal solution if Sun would get off their asses and A)Make cut/paste work (even if it necessitates putting up a huge "warning this is a security risk" window before letting you do it the first time) , B)Make the allowable heap size MUCH larger for applets , and C)streamline the process of letting users save and load files to their computer (again with the whopping huge security warning windows)

    All of this WITHOUT forcing users to accept certificates to give applets carte blanche, which I never trust on websites.

  6. Re:For the love of God! by l-ascorbic · · Score: 2, Informative

    It makes more sense when there's an actual reason for it to be on the web. For example, CleVR stitches photos into panoramas, then uses a flash thing to display them and embed them in other pages, youtube style. It's like Apple's old Quicktime VR, but without the $500 authoring environments and plugin and embedding nightmares.

  7. Next: The Pedal-Driven Formula 1 Racer Roundup by Qbertino · · Score: 4, Funny

    itentionally left blank - see comment title

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  8. I would expect a bunch of geeks to get this. by Fross · · Score: 2, Informative

    Between this and the other threads talking about Photoshop moving "online", there is a hell of a lot of misconception that surprises me from this crowd.

    No, these clients don't do the image processing on the remote server. Yes, it would take masses of bandwidth. They use simple, easy to implement algorithms that run on the client machine. Most of these are written in Flash, hell, Photoshop Online will be written in Flex. Why bother making a heavyweight client app, then send the images to the server for processing each time?

    They're not.

    It runs on the client-side.

    This isn't difficult to understand.

    1. Re: I would expect a bunch of geeks to get this. by fyngyrz · · Score: 2, Informative

      HLL image processing is a joke. Plain and simple. It'd actually be better - and probably a lot faster - to hand the images to a machine that is running serious, efficient code, and get the job done that way. Flex... Aside from the name, which is actually a 6800/6809 CPU operating system from the 1970's, the Flex engine is just more crawl-ware to complement Java and the rest of the web 2.0 silliness. And Flash? Are you kidding? Just benchmark that sucker against a few cores (or even one!) running close-to-the-metal image processing and see how silly you feel. What's the line... oh yes: That's just how you feel when you bring boxing gloves to a gunfight. That breeze you're feeling is blowing through your chest cavity. :-)

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  9. As... by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...the head of an image processing and fx software company, I can tell you one thing with certainty: Online apps that transfer photos back and forth and process them online are the very last thing on our list of technologies to be concerned about.

    Why? Because nothing on the net will ever compare to an in-system, RAM-based, N-layer handling, real-time nondestructive effects engine written close to the metal with live geometric warp layers, masking and animation. That's on the application end.

    One the user end, these web based apps are meant for your grandmother. And at that, only on days when someone else in her apartment building or upstream on her cable connection isn't downloading "300" on bit-torrent, and there aren't 200 other people on the same server trying to process an image. The entire idea of "thin clients" for image manipulation is one that presumes bandwidth and server power that are not available at this point in time - it's silly, is what it is.

    You can buy a great image manipulation system for about $30 if you simply look hard enough. You'll be able to level photos, retouch them, or process the living heck out of very high resolution images if that's your intent, set people on fire, morph them, all manner of sophisticated things. Or you can use a web app and move a slider and wait... and move... and wait... and save... and wait... and finally get back your pic. Which you had better hope is what you wanted. When I say you'll get it back, I mean after that "300" download finishes, of course. :-)

    So here's what you should be asking yourselves: What is your time worth?

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:As... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You can buy a great image manipulation system for about $30 if you simply look hard enough.

      Or you can get GIMP for $0 without looking very hard at all, which is also perfectly capable of doing everything you mention and more.

    2. Re:As... by fyngyrz · · Score: 2, Funny

      Grandma, after that lesbian porn incident with grandpa and the visit from the department of elder services, I'm not so sure about this. How about a nice cup of tea instead?

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    3. Re:As... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Oh dear god! you aren't seriously talking about the heap of junk which is WinImages, are you?

      http://www.blackbeltsystems.com/kowMEfDEpics/wi_sc ap.jpg/

      The screenshot just about says it all, if your own website can't show examples that don't look like utter crap then what hope does anyone else have? I see higher quality output from MSPaint users, let alone GIMP and PhotoShoppers.

      Are your clients all interested in producing ultra low quality animated web graphics they're going to travel back in time to the mid-nineties to sell to web content producers?

    4. Re:As... by darjen · · Score: 2

      I think you're missing the point. Why should I have to download or buy software to get basic features like resizing and cropping? This web based stuff clearly isn't meant for heavy processing or filtering. Half the time all people want to do is resize a crappy pic taken with their phone. This works just fine for that. And no I'm not gonna use windows paint because it sucks ass even for that.

  10. Re:Think again, bub by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they don't want to do anything to photos, why are they using the online photo program at all?

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.