Aviary Blog

Quick, creative, visual communication for brands, thanks to Aviary and Percolate

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Tobias Peggs

Today we’re announcing an exciting new integration with Percolate , a technology platform that helps brands create content at social scale.

Together we’re helping brands communicate authentically and visually on social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. We love the way that Percolate helps its many brand clients quickly create great content to interact with social web natives. Aviary’s photo editing tools fit right in with that approach.

Percolate also announced a partnership with Getty Images today. This means their clients can now access millions of royalty-free Getty Images in the Percolate workflow, and can then use integrated Aviary technology for quick creative customization of those images. This way, every image can be contextualized for each specific social engagement within minutes.

With this partnership, we’ve also added a little something special. It’s the first time that the Aviary photo editor has been integrated into another platform to edit photos specifically for brands. Each of Percolate’s clients will be able to easily enhance images with their brand logos and other assets so that content is always in-line with brand identity.

There’s no doubt that brands are rapidly adapting their communication strategies to reflect the scale, pace and pattern of consumers’ engagement with images on social platforms. Today, through this partnership with Percolate, brands can now produce great-looking images for themselves at the speed and scale of social.

Percolate identified the top four editing features that cover nearly all the use cases brands need to make the biggest impact with their photos in social. Aviary provides all of the features to:

Add logos/brand assets
Add filters
Add custom text
Crop images

So, what does it look like? Here’s a brand’s image inside the Percolate workflow with Aviary’s editing tools:

We’re really excited for this Percolate launch, and we’re looking forward to seeing how brands get creative with our combined tools.

~Tobias

NOTE: All images are from Percolate

Posted in Aviary, Partners, Web widget | 1 Comment

Partner Spotlight: Bloom*, the app that turns your iPhone into a source of inspiration

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Nam

Having trouble organizing your life and/or figuring out new things to do?

Bloom’s got you covered. With over 300,000 downloads, they’re 100% focused on making your life better, one step at a time. Bloom inspires you to live every day to the fullest: Reminders to make healthy choices, stay connected with others, manage stress, strengthen your spirit, save money, advance your career, and enhance your creativity.

1 of the ways you can do so is by creating / combining your favorite photos to help visualize that reminder. With the latest integration of Aviary’s iOS SDK, users can now rest assured their “Blooms” are beautiful and stunning.

Download for free here:

“Unlike any productivity-type application we’ve seen, Bloom basically makes achieving what might be usually considered an ordinary thing quite an extraordinary digital experience. ” – Lifehacker

Posted in Aviary, iOS, Mobile, Partners | 2 Comments

Calling all Bay Area Devs! Register for Aviary and Facebook’s Photo Hack Day 4!

Posted on March 21, 2013 by Ari

In the words of the late, great wordsmith Notorious B.I.G., “we’re going, going, back, back, to Cali, Cali.”

That’s right. Photo Hack Day is back, and it’s better than ever!

Developers and designers, register for free now.

Join us on April 6-7 for Photo Hack Day, this time in partnership with Facebook and hosted at their Headquarters in Menlo Park, CA! We couldn’t be more excited for the biggest, best Photo Hack Day yet.

We’ll have all the goodies that our Photo Hackers have come to love: free food and beer, awesome API’s, and thousands of dollars in prizes and money. But this year we’re upping the ante. Come out for:

Some killer design firms will be on hand to help attendees add a sharp visual flair to their amazing apps. Many thanks to Monkey Republic Design, Method and Yeti!
Way awesome catered meals, courtesy of Cater2.me
Over $15K in cash and prizes including iPads, some kick-ass cameras, iPhone lenses, a killer Lego set, and more
The chance to have an Aviary filter named after you (rewarded to the best use of the Aviary API)
Lots more from our amazing sponsors – Facebook, Walgreens, AMD, Shutterstock, Filepicker.io, Dropbox, Getty Images, Cater2.me, Fujifilm, Chute, Sincerely, Tumblr and Foursquare.

But that’s not all! Our friends at Chute are hosting the Official Pre-Party for Photo Hack Day sponsors and attendees! This will be the perfect opportunity for hackers to meet the people behind the API’s, start forming teams, and start brainstorming hack ideas for the main event. Register here for an amazing night of food, music and drink courtesy of Chute!

New to Photo Hack Day? Read more about it here.

Posted in Aviary, Event | 2 Comments

Aviary Launches Windows 8 SDK with 6 Partners

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Archie

We’re proud to launch Aviary’s Photo Editor SDK for Windows 8, specifically designed for apps on Windows 8 tablets and PCs. This new SDK joins our existing SDKs for iOS, Android, HTML5 & Windows Phone 7, collectively used by our 3,500+ partners.

We worked closely with AMD and Microsoft to build this SDK from the ground up, optimizing our photo-editing technology by leveraging unqiue AMD APU architectural advantages.

We’ve achieved significant performance improvements by implementing filters and effects through the new heterogeneous compute language C++ AMP. Computations are performed on the highly parallel graphics processing unit (GPU) cores inside the AMD APU instead of the more serial central processing unit (CPU) cores. Applying CAMP allows for processing of our complete range of filters and effects instantaneously – on average 16x faster than comparable processors, according to benchmark studies conducted by AMD.

Launch Partners

But don’t just take our word on how well the Aviary SDK performs. We’ve partnered with some old and new friends for this exciting launch, all available for download in the Windows Store this week!

Rowi

Whether you are a serious Twitter user or just a beginner, this is a wonderful app! Rowi has a simple, streamlined, easy to use Metro interface.

Memorylage

This app features a beautiful new way to view your photos in Windows 8. You can also create custom collages from your favorite photos, or from new ones that you take with the Photo Booth feature.

Volet by Volevi

VOLET offers a diverse selection of frames that allows you to easily create unique photo collages. With the addition of a seamless integration of the Aviary SDK – VOLET users can apply a variety of edits and effects to their photos before creating their collages. Upon completion of your collage, VOLET allows you to share directly to Facebook.

MyFrames

MyFrames helps you combine multiple photos into eye-catching frames. With thousands of adjustable frames, borders, patterns and a customizable background, your photos will all have a completely unique look. MyFrames turns you into an instant expert in combining photos.

Photo Annotater

Photo Annotater browses, searches, sorts and allows you to annotate photos in almost every format. You can also take new photos via webcam and apply various image processing techniques to touch up your photos. The Overlay feature supports combining up to 4 images over one background image – with complete control over how they overlay each other.

Selektiv

Selektiv is a simple yet very clever new photo editing experience. Instead of applying filters to the entire image, Selektiv gives you the creative freedom of applying effects, well, selectively! By simply painting over the area you want to affect. This allows you to easily make the subjects of your photos really stand out and opens a world of new and amazing possibilities for your images.

Every effect is precisely adjustable yet the interface is minimalistic and intuitive so that you are always in full control of the result. And once you are done creating, sharing your results is just a few clicks away. Bring new life to your pictures, with Selektiv.

Windows 8 developers – you can download and use Aviary’s SDK, available immediately here: http://aviary.com/w8

If you’d like to try out the features and functionality first, download Aviary’s Photo Editor app for Windows 8 from Microsoft’s app store.

And mark your calendars for Aviary’s Photo Hack Day 4! We’re inviting hundreds of developers to join us at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park, CA for a weekend of photo hacking fun, inspiration and prizes. For those who are new to the Windows 8 experience, our friends from AMD will be on hand with brand new Windows 8 devices and technical resources to help get you started.

Posted in Aviary | 14 Comments

Partner Spotlight: Framies, your one stop photo creation shop

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Nam

Quotes on quotes on quotes!

Framies is your all-in-one photo creation tool if you’re looking for a quick and simple way to express yourself. Pick and choose your favorite quote to slap on any photo (they have 1000′s to choose from) or get extra creative and make your own. Stylize your photos with dozens of filters with Aviary’s editor and share it across your social networks.

Download the free app now:

Not satisfied? Framies seriously has all your favorite photo tools all in once place:

Split pic – Combine your 2 favorite images
Use frames – Capture the entire moment with this collage tool
Create a Vote – Have an opinion? Get answers
Change your Facebook cover photo – Updates are always necessary
Swap faces – Find out what you’d look in an alternate universe
Photo Timer – Selfies! More selfies!
Color splash tool! – Change the context of any photo.

I’m sold. You should be too.

Posted in Aviary, iOS, Mobile, Partners | 4 Comments

Celebrate St. Patty’s Day with Aviary’s Shamrock Stickers!

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Mike Mignano

Shamrock Stickers

Happy (early) St. Patrick’s Day! To celebrate this great, green holiday, we’re announcing the release of the Shamrock Sticker pack in our iOS Showcase App. It’s available now for a limited time only, so grab it while you can.

Aviary Showcase users love seasonal sticker packs. Our Holiday pack, which we put out back in December, became one of our most popular sticker packs ever. So, we decided it’d only be right to continue the holiday sticker tradition, and thus the Shamrock pack was born. It features all the St. Patty’s day stickers you’d expect like a four-leafed clover, pot of gold, rainbow, lucky horseshoe, and other green goodies. Plus, you can even dress your friends up like a Leprechaun with a hat, glasses, pipe, belt buckle, and some orange facial-hair.

Have you tried out the Shamrock pack? Show your Irish spirit by sharing your Shamrock photos with us on Twitter!

Posted in Aviary, iOS, Mobile | 4 Comments

Aviary’s New Android Showcase App is Here

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Mike Mignano

Focus

Today we’re announcing version 2.4 of our Showcase App for Android, which introduces a brand new tool and improves a few existing favorites. Go ahead and grab it from the Google Play Store to check it out.

The first thing you’ll notice about 2.4 is the new Focus tool. This has been one of our most requested features for a while now so we’re excited to finally be able to offer it in our Showcase App. Focus is our take on a tilt shift tool, which selectively adds a circular or rectangular blur to any photo. This is perfect for drawing attention to a particular part of a photo or going for the classic tilt shift effect that turns photos into miniature-looking scenes. Tried the tool and have some feedback? Let us know. We use this Showcase App as a vehicle for testing out new features before releasing them to the thousands of developers who use our photo editing SDK, so your feedback is incredibly valuable.

We also updated the incredibly popular Splash tool to make it way easier to use. It’s now even better at selectively adding color back into any photo. Lastly, we’ve reworked the Effects tool under the hood to be faster. We’ve got a lot of great new effects coming soon, so be on the lookout. Just click the ‘Get More’ button inside the Effects tool to see whats available.

Have you tried 2.4 yet? The brand new Focus tool? Hit us up on Twitter to show off your work!

Posted in Android, Aviary, Mobile | 4 Comments

Aviary at SXSW ‘13

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Ari

We’re packing up our bags this week and getting ready to fly south to escape this never ending NYC winter.

Photo by Dan Nguyen on Flickr

We’re not trying to make a big splash at SXSW this year, but we’ll be going to as many panels, meetups, hackathons, parties and bar crawls as is humanly possible; we’ll be hanging out with some old friends and meeting some new ones. Here’s a bit of Aviary’s agenda:

Inject some Aviary magic into Artist’s Hack at Raptor House on Sunday the 10th -> Integrate Aviary’s SDK, and you could win an awesome canvas print from CanvasPop!
Attend every developer event that comes our way, like this, this, this and definitely this.
Spread the good word on the Mobile and Web photo space and bounce ideas of all the smart people we meet.
Chat with some awesome hackers! Right now we’re on the prowl for amazing Android and Javascript developers.

If you’re going to be at SXSW this year, we’d love to buy you a drink, or stand next to you in line for a free one and hear about the awesome things you’re working on.

Get in touch:

Ari Fuchs | @arifuchs | API Engineer and Evangelist
Vijay Vachani | @vvvachani | Business Development

Posted in Aviary, Event, Fun! | Leave a comment

18 Months. 3 Billion photos edited.

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Tobias Peggs

18 months ago, we launched our SDK and announced the first 30 partners to integrate Aviary photo editing technology into their apps. Today, we’re pleased to announce that over 3,500 additional apps and services have joined their ranks, and their users have used Aviary to edit over 3 billion photos.

There’s no doubt that those numbers have surpassed our wildest expectations. In our first year, users edited 1 billion photos. In the past 6 months, they’ve edited 2 billion more. Our active monthly user count is now over 35 million people strong, and they have collectively spent 3,804 years editing photos with Aviary. This is how the past few months have looked:

There are a lot of global forces at play here: increased mobile bandwidth, smartphone penetration and higher quality smartphone cameras have all contributed to a dramatic increase in photo-based communications. Aviary provides simple-to-use but powerful tools to make those communications better. Our mission has always been to democratize creativity – to give everyday content creators the tools to express themselves fully. This mission still drives us everyday.

Our photo editing experience has now been incorporated into Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, Walgreens and thousands more. Supporting ever more developer partners, and their users, remains our primary focus.

With that mind, we’re excited to invite developers to come hack with us! Aviary will be holding its Photo Hack Day #4 on April 6 – 7 at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park. Previous events have witnessed a total of more than 800 developers creating over 170 new apps, and we’ve been honored by keynotes and hack judging by luminaries like Alexis Ohanian (founder of Reddit, Hipmunk and Breadpig), David Karp (founder of Tumblr), Ben Huh (CEO of Cheezburger Network) and Lucas Buick (founder of Hipstamatic). PHD4 is shaping up to be another packed day of coding, creativity and inspiration, and we hope you’ll join us. Keep an eye on the website for more details as they emerge.

~ Tobias

Note: All numbers are exclusive of any Twitter data.

Posted in Aviary | Tagged milestones | Leave a comment

5 Hot New Apps using Aviary for Photo Editing

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Archie

If you’re a developer, you should already know that we at Aviary strive to provide the best cross-platform photo editor SDK to power your already amazing applications. This week, we’re thrilled to highlight 5 awesome applications who have recently joined the Aviary Partner Network.

Kloudpics

By combining an intuitive UI with innovative design, Kloudpics created a truly unique social photo sharing experience. The app allows you to view and manage photos from all of your social networks, making it a powerful tool for shutterbugs on the go.

Highlight: Aggregates your social feeds so you can view all of your content in one place.

Get Kloudpics for iOS.

Rocklive

Rocklive allows you to connect with your friends and fans via great features, including geo tagging and photo sharing. While Rocklive is a social network on it’s own, it also has tight integration with with other networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, giving you the best of many worlds.

Highlight: The ability to create video posts right from your phone.

Get Rocklive for iOS.

Moped

Moped is a unique mobile communications experience that focuses on private messaging. Moped integrates a handful of APIs in addition to ours, including Spotify’s, which allows users to playback shared tracks.

Highlight: Login using Twitter and make use of hashtags and @replies.

Get Moped for iOS & Android.