Aviary Debuts HTML5 Photo Editor
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Creative web app powerhouse Aviary has just announced its latest product, an HTML5-powered photo editor.Like Aviary’s other apps, the HTML5 photo editor — code named Feather — is easy to use and surprisingly powerful. Beyond its use of HTML5 (as opposed to Flash, Silverlight or other RIA frameworks), what sets this app apart is that it’s designed to be portable and embeddable.
Aviary already has a very solid Flash-based image editor, Phoenix. It’s been around for over two years and has a wealth of features. So what makes Feather different and special?
On its blog, Aviary discusses the the rationale for building Feather. First, Aviary says that it knew it wanted to be able to reach out to the world of creativity happening outside of Aviary.com. Because Feather is portable and embeddable, developers can directly integrate it into their sites and apps. That means that users don’t have to leave one page or experience in order to complete a task and then shift back.
On its blog, Aviary discusses the the rationale for building Feather. First, Aviary says that it knew it wanted to be able to reach out to the world of creativity happening outside of Aviary.com. Because Feather is portable and embeddable, developers can directly integrate it into their sites and apps. That means that users don’t have to leave one page or experience in order to complete a task and then shift back.
Furthermore, as powerful as Phoenix and some of Aviary’s other image tools are, many third parties who use Aviary’s products were requesting a simpler tool. You don’t always need to have a full-fledged photo suite. If a website just wants to make it easy for a user to upload a product photo and maybe add a caption, they probably don’t need to the ability to create multiple layers, make magic wand selections and add different type of brush effects.
So with Feather, Aviary decided to take the most popular functions of Phoenix and put it in one portable package. Plus, third-party developers can customize what features they want to include or exclude. The great thing about being in HTML5 is that the tool is easier to integrate and embed into third-party solutions. Aviary also says it has plans to open source the editor and create a mobile version too.
Already Everloop, Fashism, Shopify and other companies have signed up to integrate Feather into their apps.
How it Works
If you want to get a feel for Feather and see how it might be useful in your project, head tohttp://www.aviary.com/html5 and click on the “See it in Action” tab. Then upload an image and get started!
While simple in nature, the app is really powerful. I uploaded a photo from my online collection and then applied one of the pre-formulated “effects” — in this case, “Instant.” The results were a photo with cooler tones and already framed in a Polaroid. I was then able to add text, save the image and download the file.
Super simple, super effective. The fact that developers can take advantage of this portable toolset on their own sites is super cool. Even better, the functionality of this product is totally top-notch.
Aviary deserves kudos for showing off what HTML5 can do. Do you use any web-based image editors? What do you use and why?
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