Over the next few week we will have video tips on the previously mentioned Smart Layers. These tip will showcase ways to utilize smart layers to extend the editing power of the applications. This weeks tip in on creating vector layer masks using Smart Layers.
[youtube width="560" height="349"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVwJTAdFIdU[/youtube]
Wizard World’s Big Apple Comic Con was a big hit! With more than 10,000 superheros visiting to get their comic fix, we were able to integrate the Comic Book filter from our Effects API into the event, to offer their attendees an additional level of interaction. Users were able to submit a fan photo and receive it back…Comic-ized!!! You can read more here.
We’ll be partnering up with Wizard World again, as they host the Philadelphia Comic-Con June 17th, 18th, and 19th. Visit their site to learn more about who’s coming and what to expect, or to purchase your tickets. Subscribe to our blog, or follow us on twitter to get the latest updates on all our comic adventures!
You can view the entire album at photo.wizardworlddigital.com. Here are the top 5 we thought ruled from the event. Scroll to the bottom to see the grand prize winner, who will be getting ‘Simpsonized’ by none other than Phil Ortiz! Continue reading
We’re more than excited to announce we’ve chosen a winner for the Aviary Developer Contest! If you’re not aware, we held our first-ever developer contest, allowing developers of all skill levels to participate in a 2 week hack-a-thon! The rules were simple – build something spectacular with our new Effects API.
After a week of debate, we’ve finally been able to choose the top 3 winners. Each application was graded on technical accomplishment, cleverness, originality, and of course, the value of the application. Bonus points were given for coming up with something completely unique! The top 3 winners will be showered with gifts, as well as being featured in our Apps Gallery (coming soon)!
Without further ado….the grand prize winner, taking home a brand new iPad 2, is…… Continue reading
Sooo… we’ve been getting a ton of tweets and emails and pigeon-delivered encoded messages asking if Aviary ever hired that guy Roanald. (Proper warning: Roanald’s application contains some mild profanity, so please only click through to it if you’re ok with that.)
The short answer is yes.
The long answer, for those of you who missed all the action, is that Roanald actually applied here way back in August. We obviously hired him on the spot when he rode in here with his team of trained eagles, but his story of success didn’t make the rounds on the internet until our buddy Jonathan joined us for lunch a couple weeks back and thought to snap a picture of Roanald’s application, which has been hanging proudly in our kitchen since the day it arrived in our hearts.
It was the cover letter heard round the world, and we watched with delight as the story was retweeted, liked, shared, and picked up by the likes of Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and even AOL. Heck, even Dwight Schrute himself tweeted about it. Roanald was especially tickled as he skyrocketed to fame, and we didn’t even yell at him when his productivity plummeted to an all-time low.
Anyway. We just wanted to assure everyone that Roanald is employed, and that you can all stop emailing him and offering him jobs – unless of course you can help him out with his ultimate dream of working in Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park as a wrangler for the African Safari. Then you can have him.
Be a part of the Roanald saga:
Follow @RoanaldDvorak on twitter Meet the rest of the Aviary flock Come work with us!
This week’s Blackbox will alter the color of your input image. The filter consists of a few film-inspired color modifiers and a set of color overlay filters, and it can easily be manipulated to give your images a vintage feel. This is a great filter to use with last week’s Border 1 blackbox!
Just search for “photo color” in the Blackbox browser (Go to File -> Import Blackbox) and start making awesome creations!
If you’re not sure what to do, check out this beginner tutorial on how to use Blackboxes!!
Thrilled by the possibilities of Smart Layers in our online image editors, which we’ve been covering over the past couple weeks? Get ready to be even happier. Our online audio editor, Myna, has Smart Layers too! Though this functionality isn’t exactly a layer, it works very similarly to the Smart Layers in the graphic editing applications. Myna has a function that will let you create and edit beats from our Music creator Roc from within the audio editor, so there’s no need to open a new window to create beats for your mix.
It’s very easy to make a Roc beat to add to your mix: just start by pressing the Beat button (the one nicely marked with a “New” banner). This will open the familiar Roc interface directly in Myna. Now you can create your beat just as you would in the standalone version of Roc. When you’re done and want to add the beat to your mix, press the “Add Beat to Myna” button. You’ll be prompted to save the beat before it adds it into the mix. You can also edit preexisting beats that you’ve added to Myna by right-clicking on them and choosing the “Edit Clip in Roc” option.
You will be warned if you try to add a Roc beat where a clip is already located. Just move the playhead to an empty location to continue.
Imgur, the simple image sharer, has integrated Feather, our simple image editor – could it be any more perfect??
Imgur allows you to quickly (and by quickly, I mean faster than 10 cheetahs on a spaceship) grab a link to any image to share with your friends across the internet. You can upload from the web via a URL or upload directly from your desktop. Imgur also offers the ability to merge all your images into a sweet album, and provides you with a permanent short URL, HTML links for blogs/websites, and more.
They even have an awesome (and by awesome I mean AWESOME TIMES ONE THOUSAND) Chrome extension that allows for instant right-click uploads. Seriously, go install it and try it, we think you’ll be quite impressed!
With the integration of Feather, Imgur users will now have the ability to quick-edit their photos on the spot before sharing them. Prior to the integration, users were only able to rotate and resize. Imgur users will still be able to do those 2 things, but now they’re just some out of all the options Feather has to offer!
To see Feather in action on Imgur, just choose your photo and then select “Edit” before clicking “Start Upload” (don’t worry, Imgur also gives you the ability to edit after you upload in case you missed it).
You’ll notice that crop and rotate remain on the top, giving users the ability to perform these common actions just as quickly as before. To launch Feather, click on “Advanced”.
You may notice that the editor looks a little different from our original design. We’ve worked together with Imgur to produce a customized skin, and it serves as an excellent example of how our editor can be customized to fit your site! We changed the color schemes to fit Imgur’s brand, and we changed the buttons from eggs to circles. If you’d like to look into customizing Feather for your own site, give us a hoot!
Edit as needed, and then click “Save” to advance to the final page. There you’ll find the option to edit the image again if you’d like (a new feature)!
The new and improved editing functionality includes the ability to:
We’re very happy to announce our partnership with Imgur. Our goal is to create a seamless experience for Imgur users, and we believe that Feather will do just that.
If you’ve integrated Feather (our Simple Image Editor) onto your site, or would like to inquire about custom stickers and skins, let us know at api@aviary.com. Our Simple Image Editor is free to use and free to implement on your site. If you’re a developer and would like to try out Feather, read the technical documentation or embed it on your site, visit our developer site to learn more.
This week’s Blackbox will add borders or frames to your input images. In this first set, the borders consist of photo style frames – but stay tuned for more next week! This Blackbox is a great way to add a bit of nostalgia or retro flair to your images. Try it out and have fun!
Just search for “borders” in the Blackbox browser (Go to File -> Import Blackbox) and start making awesome creations!
If you’re not sure what to do, check out this beginner’s tutorial on using blackboxes.
We’ve been working hard at improving our API and just wanted to share a few of our recent changes to our developer site with you.
First, we’ve added a new code library for……. Android! That’s right, our first mobile library is ready for your mobile applications. Use our Effects API to power your app’s photo editing, whether you’re looking to provide your users with fun filters or utilities like crop and red eye. You can find the documentation and code in the brand new Android section.
Here are 2 sample screenshots from an Android app built in house
Speaking of code, we’ve also moved our libraries to GitHub for easier code management by us and code downloading by you. You can check out our profile and libraries at https://github.com/aviaryapi. We’ve also linked to some user-contributed libraries for node.js and ColdFusion so if you write your own wrapper, please do let us know and we’ll add it to the list!
Lastly: don’t forget about our API contest, which ends tonight! Submit your apps while you still can!
May 21st – 27th
by Cobra405/Mizagorn/Redstar/Mpeutz
