I have heard Tom (our creative director) say on a few occasions, "Sorry there is no design button". Of course if there was such a button, Tom would need a new career and there would be no such thing as an ugly Web site. But on a more serious note, this is an issue that many organizations face after launching a new Web site. The Content Management System may allow users to upload images but that doesn't mean it will style them. Now I don't think anyone expects there to be a 'design button' but site managers would appreciate the ability to resize, crop or make minor changes to an image without fighting their IT team to install expensive software or worse struggling to make Windows Paint act like a cheap version of Adobe Photoshop. Years ago we used to recommend that clients purchase Adobe Photoshop Elements, a much cheaper and limited version of the software our designers use. This was a nightmare... Project BIG fish became Adobe support and that was no fun for anyone. However since that time many new online (and many free) services have been released. These allow users make quick modifications to images from within their standard Web browser without installing software or paying a designer to complete a simple task. All of them offer the ability to resize or crop an image but many of them get much more sophisticated than that and if a user was so inclined, could do many of the things done in the software version of Photoshop online and cheap (or free).
I think this video is a little creepy but it really does demonstrate the power that these online image editors have. This is from Aviary (http://aviary.com/) which announced yesterday it would be offering all its services/products for free.
A Few Other Online Image Editors:
picnik - http://www.picnik.com/ - an old favorite at the fish bowl
pixler - http://www.pixlr.com/
photoshop online - https://www.photoshop.com/
Posted on
Friday, February 12, 2010
by Shane Larrabee