New Feature Alert: One-click Enhance!

It may be a new year, and we may all have a laundry list of things we'd like to do differently (resolutions: to keep or not to keep, that is the question!), but simplicity and ease of use is something that Aviary is steadfastly sticking to.

One of the features we're most excited about is our collection of Enhance tools, which are one-click fixes to the most common problems ailing photographers. Our algorithms detect a range of elements that cause your images to be visually awry. We have four tools in total, and while they can't retroactively create perfect conditions, the improvements are pretty darn significant.

AUTO: Our auto feature is a simple but incredibly effective edit that works with all photos -- think of it as a "one-tool-fixes-all" approach to editing. Depending upon the quality of the photo, the results can range from subtle to drastic, but there's a clear difference between the "before" and "after".

NIGHT: Darkness is no match for our night enhance tool. We know some of your favorite memories come from evening get-togethers, concerts, and the like; while the dark threatens to hide features and detail, we also know how annoying it is when flash overexposes them into obscurity. Take a gander at how we can help!

BACKLIT: One of the most common (and most commonly neglected) rules in photography is to seek proper lighting. Backlighting is when the lighting of your photograph is behind your subject, rather than in front. While it's great for silhouettes (and when done properly, can result in awesome effects), it's not exactly ideal -- backlighting casts an inconvenient shadow that falls over facial features. That's where our backlight feature makes itself useful. Observe:

BALANCE: Our balance tool works wonders for color correction. For those of you who shoot indoors and are forced to deal with awful indoor lighting (too fluorescent? too yellow?), this will quickly become your favorite. I've corrected many a dinner table photo with it, and it's probably my most-used of the bunch.

We hope you find Aviary's suite of enhance tools equally useful. Don't forget, these features are only available in Version 2.0 of our new, improved editor!

We would love to see how you improve your photos -- send us an email with your "before" and "after" images to contact [at] aviary [dot] com, and we'll pick a few to feature on our blog.

Ning Integrates Feather to Add Photo Functionality to Their Networks

Have you ever wanted to create your own social website? A social destination that allows you to create an entire community, based on anything you love?

Welcome to Ning. They're the world's largest platform for creating social websites. People from all around the world - including top organizers, marketers, influencers and activists - use Ning to create and manage online destinations for their audience. Think this sounds like a lot of work? Think again. Ning has made it incredibly simple to do just that. From complete branding, freedom to visually design the site, to organizing events in a click, you can do it all with Ning.

You can even further customize your Ning Network with Ning Apps. Ning Apps gives users the ability to add additional features and extensions, like a CafePress shop, an inline UStream video, or a Twitter tracker. We know what you're thinking...what about photo editing?!?! Ok fine, we'll spoil the surprise (well I guess we already did in the title), organizers of any Ning Network can now add photo editing functionality to all of their images with Feather, our simple image editor!

To activate the Aviary Ning extension, just head over to their network dashboard, and visit the Ning Extensions page (under Tools). Once you're there, click 'Activate' to turn on the fun!

Once the extension is added to the network, users will see the ability to turn their photos from 'meh' to 'OMG stunning'! They'll be able to make quick edits their photos (rotate, crop, adjusting color, saturation, and more), add fun stickers, and even add stylistic filters like Toy Camera and Retro.

"The photo feature continues to be one of the most popular on Ning, second only to the inbox/forum. By working closely with Aviary, who already has an awesome photo editing product, we're now able to offer our users an easy way to create more engagement with their Ning site.

A priority for us, we continue to develop partnerships and products that improve the experience for Ning Creators and members. Sometimes strategically partnering, like we've done with Aviary today, means we can roll-out new functionality even faster.

As many have said, "A picture is worth 1,000 words" and this integration gives people the freedom to speak volumes, empowering users to create an image without click away from the site" - Ning 

We're super excited about this partnership and the simple idea of enhancing the overall Ning experience. For us, it's another way to add a checkmark to our mission: Powering the World's Creativity!

Follow us on twitter to get the latest updates on partnerships @aviary.

If you’ve integrated 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.

TwitrPix Integrates Feather to add Editing Functionality

Want to edit your photos before posting them to Twitter? Now you can! Twitrpix currently allows users to upload and posts their photos onto Twitter using their mobile device or desktop web browser. Users can include a message while instantly sharing with their family, friends, and co-workers. Twitrpix not only provides this simple and effective service to their users, they also power a variety photo sharing services across the web, including Twitcher, Twitterville, TweetPocket, and more.

Twitrpix has gone ahead and added Feather, our simple image editor, to their list of functionality. Users can now edit, enhance, and have a blast with their posted photos - all without leaving the browser! With this new and exciting partnership, we're one step closer to our mission: Powering the World's Creativity!

Want to see how Feather works on other sites? Getting started is easy. First, log in to Twitrpix with your Twitter account. Choose a photo, add a caption if you want, and click 'Upload Photo' (It's that easy!)

Once uploaded, head over to 'MY PIX', and click on any photo. To launch Feather, click on 'Photo Editor'.

You may notice that the editor looks a little different from our original design. We’ve worked together with Twitrpix 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 Twitrpix’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!

Users can crop, rotate, resize, adjust color, saturation, contrast, as well as apply stylistic filters like instant, retro, toy camera, and more. To see a full list of features offered by Feather, visit developers.aviary.com/featherapi

"At TwitrPix HQ, we’ve always followed the ideals that to succeed we needed to be different, find our own lane.  One of things that really surprised us was that only one of the photo sharing services from “Mashable’s Top 10 Twitter Photo-Sharing Sites” (yes we refer to that list in our inevitable climb to the #1 spot) offered users the ability to edit the photos they’ve uploaded.

We asked ourselves, “How can we be a media sharing platform if users can’t even edit and reshare their content?”  In fact, although we didn’t offer it as well (guilty as charged), we knew it was important but our roadmap was already stacked to the brim.

As luck would have it, though its probably more about recognizing innovation in others than luck, we became aware of a new product from Aviary called Feather.  We realized that it could immediately allow us to fast track a fundamental component that we were missing. And to do so, without reinventing the wheel and coding it from the ground up — saving us valuable development cycles and resources.

The integration was one of the most straight-forward processes we've come across and allowed us to roll the feature to small group of users really quickly.  Feedback gathered has been fantastic so far.  And we’re happy to say that we’re rolling out this new component to all of our users immediately." - Jerry Thompson, Co-Founder of Twitrpix and Cando Entertainment

Follow us on twitter to get the latest updates on partnerships @aviary

If you’ve integrated 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.

Feather now available in any language!

Great news for our international partners! Our embeddable simple image editor (Feather) is now available for localization in any language. If you're interested in implementing Feather on your site in a language other than English, please contact us at api@aviary.com.

If you're interested in being notified the next time a new Feather feature is available, sign up here!

Father's Day Sticker Pack

So what did you get your dad for Father's Day? You know it's this Sunday right??? Well, have no fear! If you're bad with dates (like me), then we've got a super simple and effective solution for you! Add some fun dad-like stickers to your awesome son/daughter and father portraits. You know, pagers, bbqs, briefcases, things that dads totally love....well at least we think...right?? You can find all these and more in our new Father's Day sticker pack for Feather, our simple image editor!!!

Launch Feather now to start expressing your affection! You can find the stickers option on the bottom-right corner of the editor.

If you’ve integrated Feather onto your site, let us know at api@aviary.com. Our simple image editor is free to use, and free to implement on your site. Stickers are customizable, meaning you can create your own sticker packs like this one! Check out Dogster’s custom stickers! If you’re a developer and would like to try it out, read the technical documentation or embed it on your site, visit our developers page to learn more.

Spiffy Stores Joins the Flock

Spiffy Stores allows you to create your own online shop in minutes...no, really! They've done all the hard work for you behind the scenes, enabling you to sit, relax, and watch the dough roll in. All it takes to start is choosing a plan that fits your need, picking a theme (choose from their selection of free online store designs, or use your own custom HTML and CSS), adding your products (this is where we come in), and setting up payments. Then personalize your domain and share!

Product photos can go a long way when you're buying something online, and let's face it, who really wants a blurry, un-cropped sweater! Not we!

Spiffy Stores has added a new addition to their photo uploading process to make it even more seamless. Thanks to Feather, our embeddable simple image editor, Spiffy users can now make quick-edits to their existing product photos. Tools like rotating, image resizing, cropping, coloring, adding text, will provide their users additional functionality that'll help them perfect their photo before placing them out on the market

Once you upload a photo, an editing option will appear on the thumbnail. Click it, and the lightbox version of Feather will appear, taking you away from the screen to focus on one thing - bettering the product photo to maximize sales!

Clicking save will update the photo you uploaded. That was easy!

"We’re pleased to announce the addition of a new, easy to use image editor to your store toolbox. The Feather editor from Aviary.com loads into your browser and allows you to perform a wide range of editing tasks, all without leaving your Spiffy Stores Toolbox. In short, you can really make your product images look extra spiffy! - Brian Kenn, Technical Director

If you’ve integrated 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.

Silkfair Integrates Feather - Offers Aviary Users Free Unlimited Shop

SilkFair is buying and selling made easy!

SilkFair lets users purchase goods from a vibrant community, or set up a store to showcase and sell their own products! SilkFair provides complete security (Mcafee Hackersafe daily certification, fraud prevention, etc.), convenience (easy multi-vendor 1 page shopping cart checkout, filterable search, RSS feeds on stores), and a wide set of user interaction features, including the ability to comment, review, and blog.

One neat feature of SilkFair is that they allow you to import your eBay and Etsy listings into your custom shop, meaning you can reach a wider audience with just one click. How awesome is that?

With all this functionality, SilkFair is aiming to be the premier e-commerce site for users to buy and sell their goods online. They're constantly looking to innovate and provide their users with more great features and tools. Since product photos are essential to their business, it made sense for them to integrate Feather, our embeddable simple image editor, into their platform.

Now Silkfair users can sell with ease knowing that every product photo uploaded can be enhanced. Quick edits like rotate, crop, brightness, adjusting colors, etc. will make your product photos go from 'meh' to 'WOW'! (And we bet this will increase sales too!)

SilkFair has implemented the floating version of Feather, which lets you drag the widget anywhere you please! You may also notice that the editor looks a little different from our original design. We’ve worked together with Silkfair 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 SilkFair's brand, and we changed the buttons from eggs to circles. If you’re interested in customizing Feather for your own site, give us a hoot!

We're excited to partner up with SilkFair, and even more excited to announce that they've been kind enough to offer Aviary users a free UNLIMITED custom shop for 1 year - a $300 value! To get this deal, just type in "Aviary" as the coupon code. Benefits of an unlimited plan on SilkFair include:

• Waived setup fee
• Waived listing fee
• Unlimited product listings
• Google Analytics
• Customizable CSS and HTML
• Custom domain/branding
• And more!

"Product photos are essential in e-commerce, and now sellers on our site can easily enhance their photos for better product presentation." - Albert Wu, Founder

If you’ve integrated 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.

Mother's Day Sticker Pack

Did you know Americans spend approximately $68 million on Mother's day greeting cards, $2.6 billion on flowers, and another $1.53 billion on gifts??? We've taken this expense into consideration, and have created a free and fun alternative solution for you! Mother's day is right around the corner, and what better way to show your mom you care, than sending her your most prized photo covered with fresh flowers and stunning hearts!  Zip up those images, compress all your love together, and email those creations asap!

Launch Feather now to start expressing your affection!

If you’ve integrated Feather onto your site, let us know at api@aviary.com. Our simple image editor is free to use, and free to implement on your site. Stickers are customizable, meaning you can create your own sticker packs like this one! Check out Dogster’s custom stickers! If you’re a developer and would like to try it out, read the technical documentation or embed it on your site, visit our developers page to learn more.

Duktee's Aviary Add-on for ExpressionEngine

Duktee builds creative add-ons for ExpressionEngine, a sleek web publishing system, based off of available APIs from around the web, or simply from inspiration to empower others. With a variety of add-ons in their arsenal, including a video player, a Mailchimp extension, a SEO rank tracker and more, Duktee is on a mission to provide top notch add-ons for Expression Engine users.

Duktee’s latest add-on is powered by Aviary, featuring 4 of our web apps - Our Simple Image Editor, Advanced Image Editor, Vector Editor, and Effects Editor. Our Simple Image Editor gives you instant access to basic quick-edits like blur, brightness, rotate, crop, etc, and let’s you edit and save the files you’re working on, on the fly. On top of that, you’ll be able to access the other 3 editors from the file manager in the control panel. A suite of powerful image editing tools at the click of a mouse!

Visit Duktee.com to learn more about their Image Editor add-on, or to see their entire gallery of sweet tools!

Our Image Editor, Phoenix Our Vector Editor, Raven Our Effects Editor, Peacock

This add-on is a perfect example of how our API's can be used to power anything you want, whether it’s an extension for a popular platform, or a module for your personal site!

If you've integrated any of our API's onto your site, let us know at api@aviary.com. If you're a developer and would like to try it out, get an API key, read the technical documentation, or use it on your site, check out our Simple API and the Effects API documentation!

Edit Your Facebook Photos with Aviary and Pixable

Pixable has enabled over a million users to manage their online photos with a variety of features that are centered around photo search, aggregation, editing, and photo-product creation. When Pixable first launched, they allowed users to create and print photo books from within their Facebook, but since then, the company has grown to offer an assortment of tools including mosaics, digital videos, and a powerful Facebook app (imagine your news feed on steroids), entitled Photofeed. Photofeed offers users a unique and fun way to discover photos on Facebook. Not only can you browse through feeds of photos customized to your taste and connections, you can have them automatically filtered into specific categories (Popular of the Week, Best of the Month, Just Ladies, Popular on Flickr/Instagram) and more!

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve partnered up with Pixable to offer their users the ability to edit and customize their photos, right inside of Facebook! Pixable is the first to implement Feather, our simple image editor, onto Facebook's platform, showcasing how the float version of Feather can be used in Facebook's iframe without any fuss!

Now you can finally get your daily dose of Facebook gossip, find out what you did in last night's party photos, or view your cousin's newborn child, while having the ability to edit and add fun effects to any of their images! Basic tools include quick-edits like rotate, crop, blur, brightness, etc, to more advanced filters like retro, toy camera, 1st camera, and more.

Launch http://apps.facebook.com/pixable/ to get started.

After you choose a photo, look for the ‘Edit’ button, located on the bottom right-hand corner. Once clicked, Feather will appear. *Note: You can drag the widget anywhere you please!

You may notice that the editor looks a little different from our original design. We’ve worked together with Pixable 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 Pixable'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!

Once you're done editing, you can save it to your desktop or straight to Facebook!

Here’s a video tutorial in case you left your reading glasses at home!

[youtube width="640" height="510"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KCw9ryKJXg[/youtube]

"Simply, we're using feather to give our users another level of engagement and fun with their photos on Facebook. As our attempt is to be the destination where people come to enjoy their photos, we want to add another type of enjoyment - editing. They'll then be able to share or save these photos just as they can do with any of the other photos they discover through Photofeed." - Loren Appin, Director of Marketing

If you've integrated 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 it out, read the technical documentation,  or embed it on your site, go to aviary.com/html5