Aviary web v3.1: forced crop, improved color picker, and more!

The web team here at Aviary has spent the last couple of years building the foundation of what we truly believe is the best web-based photo editor out there, and now it's time for the fun part: perfecting this editor so that it fits seamlessly within the workflow of your website. No matter what your site provides, we want to make sure Aviary is highly configurable so you can make it look and act exactly the way you need.

Forced Crop

​We've gotten a ton of requests for this, and as of v3.1 we're incredibly pleased to announce that you can now force a user to crop their photo before editing. This is especially useful for partners whose sites only support photos in a certain aspect ratio (say, square or 3x5), but there are a bunch of creative ways to take advantage of this feature as well!

• Newsletters and website builders: launch the editor with the exact dimensions required for the space your user is currently trying to fill.

• Printing services: launch Aviary after a user chooses the size of the product they'd like to print their photo on.

How it works: Just use the new forceCropPreset key to select your ratio or dimensions and optional label. (You can also set a custom message for your users, if you'd like.) Instead of seeing the full Aviary editor when they launch, they will see this customized version of the crop tool which does not allow them to proceed without cropping to the specified size.

Note: if you use forced crop, users will not have access to the Resize, Crop, or Orientation tools, as those can change the size of their cropped photo.

Updated Crop Tool

 For those of you sticking with the crop tool inside the editor, we've got some great improvements there as well. We rebuilt the crop tool from the ground up with custom presets in mind, so it should work better with a ton of different use cases: 

• Dimensions or ratios
• Anywhere from one to many presets
• Longer preset labels or localized labels

Plus, users can now type in their own preferred dimensions, AND the dimensions of the current crop box now display right on the photo as you resize it, so it should be infinitely easier to use.

As always, you can control what options users have by setting your own crop presets with the cropPresets flag, so you can leave out Custom, choose your own supported ratios or dimensions, etc.

Miscellaneous Improvements

Aviary minimum theme

A few other notable changes in v3.1:

• We are retiring the minimumStyling flag; the minimum styled version of the editor can now be accessed with the configuration parameter theme:"minimum". If you are currently using minimumStyling with either the Dark or Light theme, you will automatically be converted to the standard theme:"minimum" version (which is still light in color but excludes shadows, animations, round corners, etc).
• Long font names are now truncated in the text tool. (Pssst: interested in providing custom fonts for your users? Get in touch.)
• Much improved color picker: users no longer have to click a button to select the color they've chosen in the color picker.

Enjoy, and please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions or if there's anything we can do to make Aviary even better in the future!

Aviary iOS SDK: iOS 7 Timeline

A quick message for devs building apps for iOS 7.

The Aviary iOS team is this close to finalizing our iOS 7-compatible SDK! Here’s a quick timeline for your reference as you plan your app’s transition to the new OS.

## The Now:

We’ve distributed a beta version of our iOS 7-compatible SDK to all of our existing partners. (if you don’t have yours - send us an email). This version of the SDK will compile properly for iOS 7. The UI design is identical to our current, iOS 6 SDK. Important: You should NOT submit with this build, as it is will not be approved by Apple.

## The next couple of weeks:

We’ll be sending out a releasable version of the iOS 7-compatible SDK which you can swap into your integration and submit to the App Store whenever you’re ready. We are working around the clock to get this to you as quickly as possible, but our priority is making sure that you have a perfectly stable build for your updated app – so this may mean a few extra days of testing and tweaking (especially as the iOS7 GM is not yet available). We’ll also be providing guidelines that help you use our Desktop Customizer App to create an iOS-7 like “flat design” at this time.

## The next month:

Partners who have indicated an interest in an early build will receive a beta of our shiny new iOS 7-optimized SDK. We’re not quite ready to share the new designs with the world (some of which will be informed and optimized by user behavior we observe once iOS7 itself released). But keep an eye on this blog and we’ll keep you posted on our progress.

If you’re interested in getting on the beta list, get in touch and we’ll be happy to review your app and let you know if you qualify for early access.

## The Fall (tentatively October)

The final release date for our iOS 7-optimized SDK will depend on the kind of feedback we receive from beta partners, and how much tweaking we need to do. That said, we are currently aiming to roll it out to all partners sometime in October. This SDK will have an updated look & feel to fit in right at home with your app as you go “all in” with iOS 7.

As always, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or concerns. We’re so excited about the possibilities of iOS 7 and can’t wait to see what all our amazing partners come up with this year!

Aviary web widget v3 now out of beta!

The new and improved v3.0 of our Web Editor is officially available, so you can update your integration at any time. It looks beautiful, includes some awesome new features, and runs more smoothly than ever! For instructions on updating and details about how long you have before it becomes the default for all partners, read on.

v3 Highlights

• Gorgeous, streamlined interface: better customization for you, and improved performance for your users
• Improved a number of tools, including Enhance, Crop, Draw, and Text
• Improved the top and bottom toolbars of the editor: tool name displayed above, image size below the photo
• Removed last page (feedback/get this editor) from top toolbar
• Greatly improved general performance and responsiveness
• Note: We are officially dropping support for IE7. It's less than 1% of our web usage, and after talking to a sample of our partners it seems like most of you are dropping IE7 as well. If you still require support for IE7, get in touch and we can discuss your options.

How to Update!

1. API Keys As of v3, API keys are now required. If you don't have one yet, you can grab one from aviary.com/web.

2. Feather.js URL Make sure you're using the url http://feather.aviary.com/js/feather.js for your integration. As of September, no other urls will be accepted, so you will be forced onto this version even if you've been pointing to an outdated url previously. You can also use our code generator to grab the full web widget code, which comes with a couple theme options and works straight out of the box!

3. apiVersion Number When you're ready to update to the new version, change the apiVersion configuration parameter to 3. As of today, this will work immediately on production. (It is also now the new default value for apiVersion, so if you are not currently specifying an apiVersion and want to remain on v2 for a bit, be sure to set apiVersion to 2!) Note: On September 16th, version 2 will be deprecated and apiVersion will be forced to 3 for all integrations. If you're currently doing anything anything unsupported, make sure you test your custom CSS and update to v3 before you are forced into it in September! See our Timeline below for instructions for staying on v2 past that date.

4. Customization Start with the dark or light default theme and customize the editor from there. If you're currently doing anything anything unsupported with CSS we highly recommend removing any existing customization and starting fresh with the new version (this should be much easier than tweaking existing code - a lot has changed!). If you have any questions or concerns about achieving a certain look for your integration, don't hesitate to get in touch.

5. minimumStyling If you'd like to take it one step further and build your own theme for the editor, you can use the minimumStyling configuration with either the dark or light theme. That said, we highly recommend building on top of one of our default themes, as those come with built in transitions, hover states, etc - try them out, they feel really nice!

Timeline

• Today, July 15th: v3 is officially available. The apiVersion parameter will default to 3 if it isn't specified. To remain on v2 past this date, make sure to set apiVersion to 2.
• September 16th: v2 will be deprecated entirely. Hardcoded apiVersion numbers (as well as any url besides http://feather.aviary.com/js/feather.js) will no longer be valid and will be overridden with these defaults. If you need to stay on v2 or a custom url past this date please contact us.

We hope you love this new editor as much as we do, and we're looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Cheers, Aviary

Have you updated to v3 of the Aviary iOS SDK?

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It’s finally (finally!) warm in NYC, but before we go soak up the sunshine, we’re sharing some awesome upgrades that came out of hibernation with us.

A totally new interface, tools you’ve been begging for, and a renewed commitment to protect your users’ privacy are the headlines of today’s updates. So grab a popsicle, settle in and take a peek - we can’t wait to hear what you think!

What's new: Aviary iOS SDK v3.0

We just released our biggest update ever, and more than one thousand developers are already enjoying our shiny new improvements. Planning your upgrade? Here’s what to expect:

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get_sdk-3

And as always, remember that Aviary is:

• Cross-platform:Aviary is available for all major platforms (mobile and web) and takes just minutes to integrate, saving you major headaches when it’s time to expand.
• More than filters: Editing photos with Aviary goes far beyond filters; offer your users a variety of professional-grade tools (crop, text, redeye removal, and more) that are simple enough for anyone to use.
• Customizable: Change the colors and toolset of your integration in seconds. Plus, with white label options, we get out of the way so your brand can shine!
• Adware free: Your users trust you with their privacy, and we don't ask you to compromise it in uncomfortable or unfair ways. (Beware of other SDKs that do!)
• The most user-friendly way to monetize: Our much-loved special edition filters, frames and stickers are designed in-house, and have been applied more than 250 million times since launching last fall. Learn more!
• Tried and true: Over 4,000 partners, big and small, trust Aviary to provide the best editing experience in the world. Whether you’re Flickr or you’re just getting off the ground, we feel honored that you depend on us, and will never stop working for you.
• Here to help: We love your questions (and your big ideas). Want to chat? Just say hello!
• Obsessively devoted to photography: Our passion for photos is rivaled only by our devotion to making our users and partners happier with every release.

Happy editing!

-Team Aviary

Aviary Windows Phone 7 App Now Available

Last month we released the Aviary Windows Phone 7 SDK, and although we launched with a handful of impressive partners, lots of WP7 developers have been asking us for a basic example app which can quickly show off Aviary's SDK in action for the platform.

WP7-2_1

We partnered with identitymine, who built this demo app for us, and we thought it was worth sharing for any developer who wants to see Aviary's photo editing SDK in action. It's called Photo Genius, and here's how it works:

• The app displays a list of all your photos.
• You can click on any photo to get basic recommendations for how to improve it in the editor.
• Then, you can invoke the Aviary Photo Editor and make the suggested fixes. Simple, really!

The app includes all the tools featured in our SDK, which includes auto enhance, color balance, a handful of stunning effects, stickers, crop, blemish removal, among others to touch up any photo.

We do plan to continue to improve this app experience to make it even easier for developers to experiment with Aviary's SDK. Check it out now in the Windows Phone Marketplace!

If you have any questions, please feel free to send them to mobile@aviary.

Introducing the official Aviary mobile app

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Since we released our mobile SDKs (currently available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7), we've received overwhelmingly positive feedback from partners and users alike: everyone loves the convenience of being able to use Aviary within their favorite mobile apps! That said, we still heard from a lot of people who wished they could occasionally use it as a standalone photo editing app on their phone.

Aviary's focus is on supporting developers, and the photo editor we're releasing today is intended to be a quick and easy way for developers to evaluate our product before integrating it into their own app, while giving us a way to quickly test new tools and features before releasing them in our SDK.  As it turns out, it's also a great photo editor that we think consumers will really enjoy.

So, today we're happy to announce that the official Aviary mobile app is now available as a free download for both iPhone and Android! (Windows Phone 7 app coming soon.)

available-on-the-app-store

android_app_on_play_large

*Note: If you're already using our Android plugin, there's no need to install the new app. Just update Aviary on your device and you'll have all the new features! You'll still be able to share to Aviary from other apps, but now you can launch it as a standalone app as well.

Beyond the editor features you probably already know and love (lightning fast editing, a super intuitive interface, one-tap auto enhance, beautiful effects, all the tools you need in the palm of your hand), we've thrown in a couple extras to show off what Aviary can do:

• Scroll through your recent photos in a cover photo-like view from the home screen. (It's way faster and more satisfying than your phone's default gallery view.)
• Adjust settings to customize and rearrange the order of the tools in the editor. If you're a developer, this will help you get a sense for how easy it is to customize our tool list in your app. Or if you just love Aviary's text tool and use it all the time, you can move it to the first page of the editor so you can get to it with just one tap.

press_screen

You can install Aviary from the App Storeor from Google Play. Have fun, and don't forget to let us know what you think! You can submit feature requests here, or reach out to us directly at contact@aviary.com.

Aviary's iOS SDK is now universal: iPhone and iPad support!

aviary_ipad

You may have heard once or 10 times on our blog that we've launched a little something called the Aviary Mobile SDK, which allows developers to add our one-click photo editing tools to their mobile apps with just a few lines of code. Today we're pleased to bring our partners the most-requested update so far: a universal build of our iOS SDK, which adds support for iPad apps!

Our iPad editor has support for landscape and portrait modes, and it lets you choose which form factor you want to use (the full screen iPad editor, or the smaller iPhone interface within your app). Our partners over at PicCollage did a great job of seamlessly integrating the iPhone interface, so it overlays various pictures throughout the screen.

piccollage

Our mobile SDK is free to implement in your own app, so head over to our developer site and sign up for access to our brand new universal iOS SDK. Implementation takes just minutes, so your users will be editing and enhancing their photos from right within your app in no time!

Here are some more screenshots for your viewing pleasure. As always, feel free to email us at api@aviary.com if you have any questions or comments!

ipad portrait

ipad_crop

Five more awesome filters added to Aviary's Cloud API

The filters in Aviary's Cloud API can be used alone through our server or integrated into our web/mobile SDKs. Add them to your app or website, or try them out with any pic you want! We've just added another handful of new effects to our Cloud API - some of our personal favorites to date, actually.

Read on to see the details, or jump right to our developer site to check out the full list!

Note: even if you’re not a developer, you can still use these awesome effects on your photos! Eventually they’ll all be available in our embeddable editors for web and mobile, but until then you can use them through our developer site. Just upload the photo of your choice and go!

First Photo: A hip upgrade to the classic old-timey filter. Make all your photos look not just old, but timeless!

First Photo

Malibu: Transform even your dullest, most poorly lit moments into ones that might have been enjoyed in the California sun. We're all about making you look better. You're welcome.

Malibu

Maya: I went on about this filter for so long that they named it after me. It's like our super-dramatic cinematic filter, but retro! The best of both worlds.

Maya

San Carmen: Speaking of things we can't stop talking about, this filter has definitely been turning heads at Aviary HQ. It's that perfect retro effect we've all been craving for our terribly modern profile pics.

San Carmen

Sin City: Make everything you do look tougher, edgier, and a little bit chilly.

Sin City

Keep in mind that the parameters for these filters are different every time, so you can refresh to tweak your results. What are you waiting for? Go try these effects on your own photos now!

To stay up to date with the latest filter releases, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

Winners and full list of hacks from Photo Hack Day!

We had a great turnout this weekend at Photo Hack Day, Aviary'sphoto-centric hackathon. With all the awesome hacks (over 40!) that were presented on Sunday, the judges really had their work cut out for them. Check out the winners and the full list of hacks below, and stay tuned for the next Aviary API contest if these apps get your gears turning!

1st place: Photobot - Mason Du, Oscar G Torres. APIs used: Flickr, Face.com, Aviary, Shutterstock

2nd place: HoneyBadger - Abe Stanway, Misha Ponizil. APIs used: Face.com, Aviary, Twilio, Facebook

3rd place: Nostalgia - Rolf Rando, Jahanzeb Khawaja. APIs used: Instagram

Honorable mentions: Emotional Breakdown and PhotoBombr

People's choice: HoneyBadger - Abe Stanway, Misha Ponizil. APIs used: Face.com, Aviary, Twilio, Facebook

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FULL LIST OF HACKS:

ALBUM+ - Amir Shimoni. APIs used: Twilio, Aviary, Instagram, Trove/Flickr, Face.com

AllPaper - Hung Truong. APIs used: Instagram, 500px

Beard Me - Michael Schonfeld. APIs used: Face.com

BigBG - Jesse Chan-Norris. APIs used: Flickr, 500px, Magickly

BirthdayCards (iOS) (Winner, best use of Sincerely API) - Cameron Spickert. APIs used: Sincerely Ship Library, Aviary Feather SDK for iOS, Facebook Graph API

Comics Cam - Gilad Shai. APIs used: Aviary

CrowdFrames (Winner, best use of 500px API) - Ben Moss, Samantha John. APIs used: Twilio, 500px

Emotional Breakdown (Winner, best use of Face.com API, best use of Lomography API) - Andy Mangold, Anthony Mattox. APIs used: Face.com facial recognition API, Google Charts API

Everybody Can See Now! - Arcadius, Peggy. APIs used: Twilio, 500px

Faceswap - Lei. APIs used: Face.com

Facialytics - Jonathan Bensamoun, Ryan Hittner, Megan Janel Zimmer. Twitter: @facialytics. APIs used: Face.com

FlickHundred (Winner, best use of 500px API, runner up use of Flickr API) - Jesse Chan-Norris. APIs used: Flickr, 500px

Friendpocalypse - Greg Galant, Lee Semel, Wylie Conlon, Will Charczuk, Jeremiah Malina, Bojan Mitrevski, Gautier Julien. APIs used: Face.com, Facebook

Graffiti.js - Aidan Feldman. APIs used: none

Happy Mug - Greg Landweber, Andy Minkstein. APIs used: Facebook, Face.com, MoPho Engine

Hipster Hash - Joe McCourt. APIs used: none

HoneyBadger (Winner, 2nd place, People's Choice) - Abe Stanway, Misha Ponizil. APIs used: Face.com, Aviary, Twilio, Facebook

Instagirl (iOS) - Ajay Chainani. APIs used: Face.com, Instagram

Kinect Photos Proof of Concept - Justin Hart. APIs used: Photobucket, Kinect

Moodify - Michael Schonfeld. APIs used: Face.com, Spotify, EchoNest

Protestr - Chris Haseman. APIs used: Imgur, Tumblr, Flickr

SocialPhotoStock - Jose de Cabo, Alex Dantart, Pau Sabria, Luis Sanz, Sebastian Alvarez. APIs used: 500px, Picplz, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Picasa, Photobucket, Twitter

Stash Your 'Stache (Winner, best use of Aviary API) - Sara Chipps, Christina Lutters, Brenda Storer. APIs used: Face.com, Aviary

Tag Fight! - David Huerta. APIs used: Twilio, Flickr

TrueLookAlike - Carmen Delessio. APIs used: Face.com, Facebook

Underwear-Model-ify Yourself via MMS - Robb. APIs used: Face.com

Voronoi Diacam (Winner, best use of Flickr API) - David Chan, Max Gribov, David Cilia, Alexander Sagalovskiy, Shepherd X, Axel Forest, Christopher Kennedy. APIs used: Flickr, Face.com, Foursquare

ZoneMinder - Jesse Chan-Norris. APIs used: Twilio, Foursquare

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If you want to add a URL for your hack or have a correction, please email us at photohackday@aviary.com or hit up Erin on twitter.

Six brand new filters added to our Effects API!

Great news, everyone! Our awesome effects engineer Joe (I like to call him our imagineer) has been hard at work cranking out even more awesome filters to use with Aviary's Effects API. Here are the five we launched earlier this week, including our beloved Auto Enhance, if you need a refresher.

Note: even if you’re not a developer, you can still use these awesome effects on your photos! Eventually they’ll all be available through our simple editor Feather, but until then you can use them through our developer site. Just upload the photo of your choice and go!

Here's a peek at today’s new filters. Take a look, and then try them out yourself over on our developer site. Enjoy!

Always Sunny: Bring the sun with you wherever you are. Make all your friends jealous by going on a tropical vacation in your own backyard! They'll never know.

Always Sunny

Code Red: Tired of looking at life like it's not a post-apocalyptic video game? We've got you covered.

Code Red

Color Operations: Mess with the colors in your photos all you want. You'll find the regulars like saturation and brightness, but also some advanced things like hue shift and gamma adjustments.

Color Operations

Meme Generator: Already a crowd favorite here at Aviary HQ. Everything is funnier when you put silly text on it! This filter has been tested and approved by your fellow Redditors.

Meme Generator

Negative: Turns your world inside out!

Negative

Outline

Outline: This one's really cool. You kind of have to try it to get a sense of its power. Try variations with different outline colors and backgrounds for a ton of effects.

To stay up to date with the latest filter releases, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook!