Cool Webdgets

January 12, 2007 by pmelcher.

For the upcoming week end, I thought I would share some links to a few web application I have been dying to play around with. Some are still in there infancy, others well on there way, but all our certainly a part of the evolutionary process of the FAWM project.
LightBox network : A very simple, yet efficient professional work flow management system. Mostly built for commercial stock, studio and assignment photography, this on-line application is widely used in to bridge communications between a photographer and an assigning editor. Speed, simplicity, extreme ease of use are some of the key aspect of this product that will certainly see many more releases in the future.

TrueColor: A freeware PHP based online photo editor that you can add to your website for non commercial usage. There are no specification of what you need to do to buy a license. Simple, to the point, quick, small, doesn’t replace photoshop but certainly simple and easy to use. Could be handy for a photographer on the road, using someone else’s computer, who need to do quick and simple adjustments.

Much more advanced is PIXN8 . One of the most horrible names in the industry but certainly one of the sexiest tools out there. A very advanced user interface that you can customize if you put t on your site, with a lot of option. The free trial versions has links to Flickr or Webshots to store images after you are finished, but I an sure you can change these destination to your favorite database.

FAUXTO has gone through great length to copy the user interface of Photoshop which obviously minimizes the learning curve for most users. No so sure what there business model is, if only to have an online paid version of Photoshop in the long term. again, simple, easy to use and does a what is says it will do. Nothing more, nothing less.

Thumbnail generator and Resizr : Two down and dirty simple , one function apps. Resizr can even be a firefox extension, which is useful for on the fly resizing.

One of my favorite, Myheritage.com who does a pretty good job at identifying faces. for a celebrity or spot news photographer, and with a lot of tweaks, this could be a great tool to automatically identify a subject and automatically caption an image.

All these Webdgets have one obvious drawback, is it that you have to upload your images. if you are stranded in a place with poor internet connectivity, you are all alone . Also, there might be some issues with copyright infringement as you are uploading images to some servers over which you have absolutely no control.

Finally, a great thank to one of my favorite website, Lifehacker.com who constantly post great info.

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