One of the best online photo editors is now completely free to use. Aviary has decided to offer its entire suite of online apps for free, including its popular Phoenix image editor.

The application used to cost $25 per year, and those who subscribed in the past 30 days can request refunds. While there has always been a free version of Phoenix, everyone can now save files privately on Aviary’s servers, watermark their images, and access the tutorials that previously required a subscription.

Offering the service for free should help Aviary better compete with Adobe, which offers its online version of Photoshop for free as well (up to 2GBs).

I wonder if (or when) online editors will rival traditional programs in terms of power and functionality. Any guesses?

(via Lifehacker)

If you’ve ever wondered just how much editing goes into a particular photograph, there’s now a super easy way to find out for yourself. Image Error Level Analyser is a simple web application that takes a URL to a JPEG photo and returns an image showing differing “error levels” in the image. Here’s an example they give:

After submitting the image on the left, they return the one on the right.

Error level analysis shows differing error levels throughout this image, strongly suggesting some form of digital manipulation. Areas to note are the lips and shirt, as well as the eyes. All are at significantly different error levels than their surroundings. Presumably, colours have been altered and areas brightened.

Thus, you can now investigate any JPEG you find on the Internet to see roughly how much the photograph has been edited or manipulated. The app even gives you a permalink to the resulting image comparison. Try it out, and post your permalinks in the comments to share your findings with us!

Update: Here’s an interesting article by Wired on how researchers use this technique.

SnapSort is a new web application that’s super simple but surprisingly useful. Give it two camera models and it will give you a side by side comparison of the specs, as well as pick a winner for you. In addition, it lists pros, cons, and similar cameras for each camera.

The service was created by a team of four — two programmers, a CS professor, and a “serial entrepreneur”. Here’s a screenshot of a camera comparison:

The website states that the service will eventually turn into a personal camera recommendation service. There’s no word on how SnapShot plans to generate revenue, but this type of application can do well with both advertising and affiliate sale business models (much like Flickr’s Camera Finder).

I’m pretty interested in seeing where this service goes, especially with such a large team behind it. If you’re currently in the market for a digital camera, give SnapSort a try!

(via Photojojo)

ffffl*ckr is a new Flickr web application that’s based around the idea that the people whose work you like probably also like photographs that you’d like as well. The app aims to make finding quality photography less of a chore:

Unless your idea of art is a painting of a hotrod on velvet, explore is useless. Groups aren’t much better, since they require people to self-promote. The interface for checking them is pretty useless too. Contacts are pretty cool except that it’s impossible to actually find new photographers.

The page starts with 20 photographs — these are either someone else’s favorites, or your own if you authenticate. Then you simply click a photograph to load the last 20 favorite photographs of that photographer. Once you authenticate your Flickr account, you can favorite new photographs straight from the app.

FlickrPoet is a neat little web-app built by Thomas Sturm that turns text into photographs using Flickr’s API. Though the concept is extremely simple and only somewhat novel, the results can be quite beautiful.

Feed it some poetry, song lyrics, or even random text, and watch the photographs begin to fade into existence. Here’s a screenshot made with the help of the quick brown fox (not a poem, I know).

The only change I would suggest to Sturm would be to provide permanent links to result pages so people can share their “FlickrPoems” with one another.

If you find any text that returns interesting results, please share it with us in the comments!

FlickrPoet

If you’re a tennis player in the San Francisco bay area, check out ahathereitis. This interesting new web application (though it lacks a logo and design) aims to find things for you through satellite photographs and image recognition technology.

If you’re nerdy and so inclined, you can read about how the technology behind the application works. The image recognition isn’t done real time, so you won’t be able to use the service yet if you’re outside the Bay Area (try 94704 for Berkeley, CA).

I think this is an interesting example of how the way we make, manipulate, and consume photographs will become more and more advanced as technology improves. As evidenced by the domain name and the “More coming soon” option in the drop-down menu, this app won’t be limited to finding tennis courts.

The question is, what other interesting things could it eventually help us find in satellite photographs? Any ideas?

Check it out here: ahathereitis