March 20th, 2009
By Reymar

New Homepage Screenshot

Above is a screenshot of what the new homepage will look like by tomorrow (Saturday 20th March, 2009). Also you should notice a new link in the header, that is, Explore (Where you’ll be able to see what others are doing).

Other minor adjustments/bug fixes will be applied to the site as well during this mini-push. Don’t forget, if there’s any comments or suggestions that you have, just drop us a note on the contact us page. (We really listen!)

Oh yes, before i go, we’re on Twitter so follow us if you want to receive live updates or to send us a quick message:

February 6th, 2009
By Reymar

It’s only been about 4 days since we’ve put out the new site and the positive comments are just flowing in from our users. Looks like all the hard work has started to pay off already.

There still are a few bugs that need straightening out. Today we’ll be working on some of those, and over the weekend, we’re going to put out some help topics with videos to help introduce some of the new features, tips and tricks, and so on.

So stay tuned, oh and feel free to comment on our posts, we want to hear from you!

February 2nd, 2009
By Reymar

After months and months of promises and hard work, we’ve finally rolled out the new site. The decision really came after the last few days of problems, so we had no choice but to release it to reduce some of the problems that user’s have been experiencing.

Hopefully you should like the slightly new look and the loads of new features.

Some of the most notable are:

  1. An easier and more user friendly UI weather editing pictures, creating collages or animations.
  2. The new effects and adjustments. (Twist, Fish Eye, Border Shapes, etc.)
  3. Several new collages.
  4. The addition of Photobucket, Picasa Web Albums and Box.NET to our list of “Connect” services.
  5. Our “Upload By Email” service which is another tool that users can use to upload pictures when “on the go” directly from mobile phones (including the iPhone), iPod Touch or even from your favorite E-Mail client on your desktop computer.

The list of new features is really long, so we’ll post more about all of them in the coming days so stay tuned!

December 15th, 2007
By Reymar

small-logo  

Popfly is the fun and easy way to build and share mashups, gadgets, and Web pages. It’s made up of online visual tools for building Web pages and mashups and a social network where you can host, share, rate, comment and even remix creations from other Popfly users.

This is such a great platform and we thought it would be a great idea to create a “block” on Popfly, to give other users the ability to edit pictures “on-the-fly” via our API (Application Programmable Interface). This kind of functionality really shows the power of our service as well as how we are different from all the other online photo editors out there. Its simply amazing the kinds of mashups that can be created!

Below is a screenshot of the settings for our Block which is found under the heading “Images and Video”:

Picture2Life Block on Popfly (Settings View)

As you can see, our edit operation takes two inputs, namely url (which is the internet URL of the image that you would like to edit) and filters (which are the transformations you would like to make to the picture. By default we make the picture black & white and add a little contrast).

Below is an explanation of some of the other filters that you can use to transform your pictures on Popfly.

 

Black & White
This is the filter used in the example I provided and it would make the picture as you can imagine black & white.

grayscale:;

Sepia Tone
Applies a sepia tone to the picture, this filter takes no parameters.

sepia:;

Invert Colors
Inverts the colors in the picture, this filter takes no parameters.

invert:;

Adjust Contrast
Adjusts the contrast level of the picture, the max level is 100, the min level is -100

contrast:level(15);

Adjust Brightness
Adjusts the brightness level of the picture, the max level is 255, the min level is -255

brightness:level(50);

Emboss
Embosses the picture, grayscale parameter is boolean

emboss:grayscale(true);

Adjust Hue
Adjusts the hue degree of the picture, the min degree is 0, the max is 180

hue:degree(20);

Color Picture
Adjusts the colors in the picture, max values for each parameter is 255, min values are -255

color:red(90) blue(20) green(10);

Rotate Picture
Rotates the picture between 0-360 degrees, keepsize parameter is boolean and determines whether to keep the original picture size during the rotate or not. The backbrush parameter allows you to set the background color (currently white)

rotate:angle(45) keepsize(false) backbrush(solid(#ffffff));

Resize Picture
Resize the picture to a specific width and height

resize:width(300px) height(400px);

Resize the longest side of the picture to a particular length

resize:longestside(400px);

Resize the shortest side of the picture to a particular length

resize:shortestside(400px);

Resizes the width (only) of the picture to a particular length

resize:width(200px);

Resizes the height (only) of the picture to a particular length

resize:height(200px);

Drop Shadow
Add a SOFT drop shadow to the bottom RIGHT of the picture

shadow:color(#000000[75%]) backbrush(solid(#ffffff)) softness(4) distance(0px) imagex(0%) imagey(0%) ;

Add a SOFT drop shadow to the bottom LEFT of the picture

shadow:color(#000000[75%]) backbrush(solid(#ffffff)) softness(4) distance(0px) imagex(100%) imagey(0%) ;

Add a HARD drop shadow to the bottom RIGHT of the picture

shadow:color(#000000[75%]) backbrush(solid(#ffffff)) softness(0) distance(4px) imagex(0%) imagey(0%) ;

Add a HARD drop shadow to the bottom LEFT of the picture

shadow:color(#000000[75%]) backbrush(solid(#ffffff)) softness(0) distance(4px) imagex(100%) imagey(0%) ;

Opacity
Makes the picture opaque or semi-transparent based upon the level (max 100%) and the background (currently white)

opacity:level(75%) backbrush(solid(#ffffff));

Sobel (Sketch)
Applies a sobel sketch of the picture, grayscale parameter is boolean

sobel:grayscale(true);

Kuwahara (Painting)
Makes the picture look like a kuwahara painting, min block value is 1, max block value is 10

kuwahara:block(3);

 

How to use the filters on the Block?

You can combine any of the filters listed above to perform a transformation to the picture that you specified in the “url” field of the block. For example, if you wanted to apply a sepia tone and then a 60 degree rotation to the picture, the “filters” value on the block would be:

sepia:; rotate:angle(60) keepsize(false) backbrush(solid(#ff0000));

 

That’s about all the basic information you need to get started using our block, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to let us know via our contact page here.

December 14th, 2007
By Reymar

In the last update, we’ve made some major changes to our previous selection tool. The next time you either go to perform a crop, add text or a caption, blur or pixelate the picture, you will notice the new selection tool (UI). We used the Javascript Image Cropper UI, using Prototype & script.aculo.us over at www.defusion.org.uk. Many thanks to the folks over there for providing such a fantastic tool! It just works perfect and exactly how we wanted it to.

Below is a screen shot of our implementation during an image crop:

editor-011-a

To try it for yourself, next time you go to edit a picture, try using the Crop, Caption, Gaussian Blur or Pixelate tools.

Enjoy!

November 8th, 2007
By Reymar

We are currently looking for people to help us translate our site into your language, and what better place to start looking than here - our members!

Here are  the languages that we are really interested in so far are:

  1. Deutsch
  2. Español
  3. Français
  4. Italiano
  5. Português
  6. Chinese
  7. Japanese

If you speak a language that’s not on the list above and would like it made available, just let us know, all languages are welcome since we really want this to be a service that the entire world can use :-)

If you are interested in helping us, or know someone that can help us, click here to let us know. (be sure to leave your email address and state the language(s) you know)

November 5th, 2007
By Reymar

We’ve successfully moved over to our new server which is 100x times faster than before (really, its 100x faster).

Within the following weeks, we’ll also be rolling out some brand new features that will make using the site a whole lot easier as well as more one click samples, collages and for the first time, animation templates.

It’s really amazing to see how much the site has grown these last few months. Keep it coming!

October 21st, 2007
By Reymar

Hey guys, during the past week or so, you probably have noticed that we were in the process of upgrading our web site. Now, most of the upgrading process is almost done, just a few more things to be done, but for the most part, I just felt like it is time to share some of the good news with you, including some of the cool new features and stuff to look out for!

This is the biggest update to the site in about 8 months so we’re really excited about it. Things are still going to be a little buggy, so please bare with us as we try to smoothen everything out :)

Ok, so here’s some of the stuff that we’re really excited about:

Edit
Here are some of the changes made that you should note when you are editing your pictures.

More Room - The first thing you should notice is a newly designed editor interface. Things have been moved around and placed to give you much more room to work with.

Keyboard Shortcuts - There are also some keyboard shortcuts that allow you to get to some of your favorite tasks such as Save: Ctrl+S, Zoom In: Ctrl+UpArrow, Zoom Out: Crtl+DownArrow, and much more with ease.

Image Formats - We now accept and allow you to work with most popular image formats (Jpeg, Gif, Png). You can also switch between image formats while editing a picture. To do this, from the toolbar, select ‘Information’ and you can then change the current image format to Jpeg, Gif, Png or Auto which is the original format. When you save the current picture, it will also be saved in the current format. Remember, if you would like to make parts of the picture transparent, the image format has to be either set to Gif or Png since they are the only image formats available that support transparency.

Quick Fixes - We’ve put together and organized some of the most frequently used effects so you can access them extremely fast and easy.

One Clicks - Here are some samples that we’ve put together as well, that allows you to apply popular effects and adjustments to the picture with just a single click! If you want to find something cool to do with your picture, you can simply start here, there are hundreds of samples available for you to choose from and we’re sure you’re bound to find something you like. We update them often so be sure to check to see what’s new! 

My Effects - After you have made some changes to your picture, you can easily save them to My Effects so you can access them anytime in the future or apply them to some or all of your pictures with a single click! With this feature, you can basically define a style for your pictures and it allows you to easily apply that same style to any other picture you want. Its that easy.

All Effects - Here you will find a list of all the effects and adjustments you can do to your picture. We have some basic adjustments such as Crop, Resize, Rotate and Flip, some color adjustments such as Grayscale (Black & White), Gamma Correction, Colorize, Hue, Sepia, Invert, there is also cool picture effects such as Drop Shadows, Pixelate and some new ones such as Borders, Edge Effects (Round, Rugged, Shark Tooth, Fade), and there are also some cool artistic effects like Oil Paint and Kuwahara. You just have to check them out for yourself!

 

 

Collage
You can create collages from your favorite pictures, and we’ve made it even easier than before. Just select your pictures, and then choose from over 200 different collage styles!

When you are creating a collage, some of the things you should look out for:

More Room - Again, we’ve re-designed the collage creator page to give you much more room to work with.

Image Formats - You can also change the image format for the collage from the default Jpeg to either Gif or Png (for higher quality).

Preview Thumbnails - Now each preview will show exactly what the collage will look like, with the pictures that you have selected. This means that you can see a preview of what the collage will look like before you even create it! This is great because you can now browse through the many layouts until you’ve found something you like.

Categories - We’ve categorized the different styles of collages into three (3) different categories, namely, Picture Piles, Grids and Miscellaneous. With these categories, it should be easier to find a collage style that you are familiar with or like.

Customize - Almost every collage style can be customized to suit you. Whether its just to change the size, or you may want to change the background colors, disable repeat, etc. It can be done and its now even easier than before.

 

 

Animate
You can also create Animations or Animated GIFs from a set of your pictures. These are cool especially if you have a series of pictures that you can put together and get a little movie :). One good thing about these is it doesn’t use Macromedia Flash therefore they can be used on almost any web site as a regular picture, as a profile picture or just to show off to your friends. These are really great on sites like MySpace, you ever wonder how some people get their picture to change all the time or rotate several pictures all the time? Well, that’s because they are using some kind of Animated Gif as their picture.

Now, we’ve also re-designed this feature and here are a couple of things that you can look out for:

More Room - Again, the work area has been re-designed to give you much more room to play with.

Customize - Now we allow you to customize the delay times and positions for each picture in the animation. Also, you can define the size of the entire animation and set the loop count for the animation. Remember, its not a good idea to select too many pictures for the animation because this will increase the size of it and it will take forever to load. So you should keep them short and sweet and use about 2-5 pictures in them.

July 26th, 2007
By Reymar

Today, we’ve added about 14 new collage styles for you to have fun with. Now, its so easy for us to create collage templates for you to play with, you’ll be seeing us adding them much more frequently. Also, as a feature-to-come, you will be able to design your own collage layouts and share with the world if you want! So be sure to check back here often to learn more about that ;)

A special note about the collages: 
Remember you can customize almost everything, that includes the size (great for desktop wallpapers), background colors & patterns, toggle repeating, toggle clipping and so much more.

If you haven’t checked them out as yet, go play with them now.

Have Fun!

July 14th, 2007
By Reymar

Hey guys, we’re on Facebook! It took us about 4 days to put together a little application for Facebook since we were MIA since the launch of their new and exciting development platform. We finally released it on the 21st of June and we currently have about 2500 users.

So why wait? Click here to go check it out if you haven’t as yet. Currently you can only create collages from the photos in your albums or you can select photos of you on Facebook. Editing and other features will be coming soon.

We also connect directly to Facebook from our web site. It works similar to the Facebook application, except that you can enjoy all the features of our web site and save directly to an album on your Facebook. Go to the Connect page to learn more!

Here is our image for our Facebook Application: