Looks cool, and your app might be landing at just the right time, considering Picnik is disappearing in a few weeks. Lots of people are looking for something just like this.
As a user though, you lost me at the first screen. I run my browser at full screen, so dragging a photo over is a bit of a hassle. Plus, I'm not ready to trust your app just yet with one of my photos - is my photo being uploaded to your servers? Is it staying client-side? I could go looking for a photo that I don't mind uploading but... meh, too much hassle. Adding a couple of example images would let me play with the app immediately.
I like your app philosophy, though. I look forward to seeing the app evolve.
I don't think it's unreasonable to stick with only the drag & drop feature in order to keep the upload page clean and uncluttered. It's really not that much effort to temporarily re-size your window.
FWIW I actually bailed for the same reason. I do appreciate the simplicity but it seems like it would be easy enough to add an unobtrusive link in the bottom corner "...or click here to load up a sample image!"
I understand your thought. Yes, the image is sent to the server for several reasons:
1. Perspective. The app is able to render all effects in the client's browser except for the 3d perspective. This is made on the server side
2. Download. Since I want to give the user a "native" download, the only way to do this is with a server.
If it would be possible to render (quality) 3d transformations in canvas and to send out a download I event wouldn't need a server for processing the image.
Add a regular upload button (if you can). And maybe you should provide some sample images, that way I can start playing around right away without searching my hardware for a image.
And this one is a deal breaker: when I exported the image it was absolutely useless. The quality has dropped substantially, rendering it (pun intended :P) useless for further use.
edit: could you write about how you made all this? Just a quick summary would suffice.
That's interesting, I never had any quality loss with my images. Maybe you could send me your original image so I could investigate that.
All effects except the 3d perspective are rendered via canvas in the client's browser. After that the image gets sent to the server which adds the perspective (if needed) and sends out the download.
Sure, just tell me your email (I just followed you on twitter (@janhancic), follow me back and you can DM the email address to me there if you don't want to publish it here).
The picture in question was, funnily enough, taken in your home town Munich :)
If you have to tell people how to pronounce a name then there's a problem.
If the name is a homophone for a common word or term then it makes it somewhat confusing when people talk about it. (Try having a conversation about the Ruby database gem Sequel).
Bottom line is you're better off having the name pronounced as it looks: pik-tor. It's distinctive and less confusing.
18 comments
[ 1.4 ms ] story [ 387 ms ] threadAs a user though, you lost me at the first screen. I run my browser at full screen, so dragging a photo over is a bit of a hassle. Plus, I'm not ready to trust your app just yet with one of my photos - is my photo being uploaded to your servers? Is it staying client-side? I could go looking for a photo that I don't mind uploading but... meh, too much hassle. Adding a couple of example images would let me play with the app immediately.
I like your app philosophy, though. I look forward to seeing the app evolve.
1. Perspective. The app is able to render all effects in the client's browser except for the 3d perspective. This is made on the server side
2. Download. Since I want to give the user a "native" download, the only way to do this is with a server.
If it would be possible to render (quality) 3d transformations in canvas and to send out a download I event wouldn't need a server for processing the image.
And this one is a deal breaker: when I exported the image it was absolutely useless. The quality has dropped substantially, rendering it (pun intended :P) useless for further use.
edit: could you write about how you made all this? Just a quick summary would suffice.
I'm on Ubuntu 11.10 and dragged an image from Thunar to Firefox. Firefox just opened the image instead of it opening in your application.
All effects except the 3d perspective are rendered via canvas in the client's browser. After that the image gets sent to the server which adds the perspective (if needed) and sends out the download.
The picture in question was, funnily enough, taken in your home town Munich :)
No chance you will release the source?
But http://www.cappuccino.org is a good starting point.
If the name is a homophone for a common word or term then it makes it somewhat confusing when people talk about it. (Try having a conversation about the Ruby database gem Sequel).
Bottom line is you're better off having the name pronounced as it looks: pik-tor. It's distinctive and less confusing.