Hey folks, just a mini-update: As part of our pre-launch prep, we have just released a set of 42 tutorials for beginners and experts a like, explaining how to use Aviary to achieve certain effects.
Check out the full list here!
Here are some of my personal favorites:
Understanding Layers (beginners)
Read the tutorial
Converting Day into Night (expert)
Read the tutorial
Wrapping images around curves on a shirt (expert)
Read the tutorial
These were all written by our very own crazed feline, Meowza. He made them as cross-platform as possible. These can be used for Photoshop and GIMP without too much trouble, and even some other web-based editors. 
If you're an educator or teacher these are excellent (and free) to use for the purposes of sharing in your class to introduce students to different concepts in image editing. And of course the Phoenix editor itself is now available for your students to use.
They are sorted from beginner through expert, check out pages 2-3 for intermediate effects and 4-5 for some of the more advanced effects.
A lot more to come, including video tutorials and user submissions!
Well, it seems we weren't alone in watching the US Vice Presidential debates last week. I'm also sure we weren't alone in noticing the intense sexual chemistry between Joe "Six-Pack" Biden and Sarah "Nukeyoolar" Palin. We couldn't help but wonder what might have happened if their podiums had been any closer? We needed to find out.
Aviary tracked down world-famous DNA specialist Meowza Katz, currently enjoying retirement at an old age facility in Florida, and convinced him to get back in the game. We captured a live video feed of the horror that transpired...
View the sources and full layered file
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Meowza is so good, he was even able to generate a shot of Jarah Bilen, Soseph Paden's twin sister:
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Kudos to the awesome Ronald Jenkees for allowing us to use his new single Stay Crunchy. You can get the full MP3 tracks at his store.
An additional kudos to the awesome Mike Peutz, who made the snazzy video intro for us.
Standard disclaimer: For those of you new to this blog, this was not created in Photoshop. It was created in Aviary, a suite of online web applications. You can sign up for the current beta at http://a.viary.com. We're currently allowing a limited number of people to register (without needing to wait).
Sign up here!
It's been a very busy past few weeks for us. In addition to the new team addition, we've also been furiously working on improving all currently released tools AND gearing up for the alpha release of 2 new birds (Some users are already seeing access to them in their accounts, but more on those later).
Let's start this off with some new feature enhancements to our image editor, Phoenix! In our next post we'll touch on some of the amazing new features added to Peacock, our visual laboratory (for creating complex patterns and filters).
More Aviary goodness after the jump!
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Great method actors like Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame) will embed themselves so deeply in a role that they will look, dress and act in part non-stop for the duration of filming, even when the cameras aren't rolling.
Now as Emma Watson prepares for her most challenging role to date, 57-year-old male truck driver Roscuro in the upcoming film, The Tale of Despereaux, she asked Aviary's resident plastic surgeon Meowza to perform the emergency sexandectomy. 
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It's every Harry Potter fan fic writers dream come true! Here's a video of the operation:
This work made heavy use of distorting, blend modes and smoothing.
Sources:
Kudos to Aerosmith for providing the background vocals!
Standard disclaimer: For those of you new to this blog, this was not created in Photoshop. It was created in Aviary, a suite of online web applications. You can sign up for the current beta at http://a.viary.com.
One of the most fantastic things about building a suite of tools around a community, instead of the other way around, is that users are always willing to pitch in and help out others with tutorials and forum assistance. It's our plan to build our applications with a very deep set of community tools, built around forums, wiki-documentation, chat, user-made tutorials and sharable workspaces.
Aviary super star Meowza has already begun paving the way with more than a dozen "photo-phixing" tutorials for other users of Aviary's image editor, Phoenix. Got a specific question on how to make a technique in Phoenix? Ask and ye shall receive.
Unzipping a Kitty
View the full tutorial | Full layered file
Chocolatizing a Statue
View the full tutorial | Full layered file
Cyborg Frog
View the full tutorial | Full layered file
Smoking Woman
View the full tutorial | Full layered file
12 more tutorials after the jump!
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Editor's Note: with the launch of Adobe Photoshop Express, came a flurry of concerned emails from friends and family asking "Have you seen this? Are you concerned for Aviary?" My response each time was 'no - they cater to different markets.' They serve red-eye reducer consumers. We serve more advanced hobbyist creators.
But pictures are worth one thousand words, so we asked Aviary superstar Meowza to do an actual comparison against some of the more well known Flash web apps (Photoshop Express, Picnik, Splashup, Fotoflexer and Aviary) to see whether or not he could recreate one of his fantastic Aviary creations.
Meowza's full review after the jump.
Continue reading full post ...
At Aviary, we like to ask the hard-hitting questions most journalists shy away from. Most importantly: We can put man on the moon, but we don't have frigging flying cars yet?!
Luckily, we don't just identify the problems - we also solve them.
This time around Aviary's resident industrial designer Meowza has drawn up a plan to unclog the world's highways and put flying metal projectiles in the hands of every man, woman and child.
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We had so much fun playing with industrial car design, that we made another video as well:
Here's another example of Meowza changing an already sleek design by Ben Messmer of our friends at Local Motors.
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These works made heavy use of color adjustments, blend modes, painting, transforming and sourcing.
Kudos to Parliament and Arcade Fire for the musical accompaniments!
Standard disclaimer: For those of you new to this blog, this was not created in Photoshop. It was created in Aviary, a suite of online web applications. You can sign up for the current beta at http://a.viary.com.
BONUS: Here are some Worth1000 concepts for more flying cars!
Parcopresis, the fear of using a public toilet, is a serious affliction that affects millions of people. And we at Aviary, know there is good reason: Toilets are one of the most favored hiding spots for evil robots from other galaxies. We finally have video proof.
This time around Aviary's resident plumber Meowza has located classified evidence in a secret goverment restroom.
View the sources and full layered file
I, for one, welcome our new porcelain overlords.
This work made heavy use of lighting, painting, transforming and sourcing.
Sources:
Kudos to RudyEvil for the awesome Transformers remix!
Standard disclaimer: For those of you new to this blog, this was not created in Photoshop. It was created in Aviary, a suite of online web applications. You can sign up for the current beta at http://a.viary.com.
We've been getting a ton of press at Worth1000 over our Ultimate Celebrity contest, where the goal is to take the best physical features of multiple celebrities and merge them into one super celebrity. One of the requests we got from a prominent newspaper was to prove that Aviary (a web app) could really be used to create an ultimate celebrity. Piece of cake.
This time around Aviary's resident plastic surgeon Meowza performs illegal skin grafts on Catherine Zeta-Jones, Keira Knightly, Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron, creating the beautiful Catheinize Zightly-Jeliens. I hope his malpractice insurance is paid up.
View the sources and full layered file
This work made heavy use of painting, blending and layering effects.
Sources:
Kudos to INXS for providing the beautiful accompaniment!
Standard disclaimer: For those of you new to this blog, this was not created in Photoshop. It was created in Aviary, a suite of online web applications. You can sign up for the current beta at http://a.viary.com.
Here's one more video of Phoenix, our powerful Flash-based image editor to tide you over for the week:
This time around Aviary's resident mad scientist Meowza experiments with illegal genetic cross breeding. For shame, Meowza. For shame.
View the sources and full layered file
This work made heavy use of painting and layering effects.
Kudos to Alvin and the Chipmunks for providing the soundtrack!
But wait, there's more! Here are some more Meowza experiments on innocent animals: Someone please call PeTA already.
View the sources and full layered file
View the sources and full layered file
Standard disclaimer: For those of you new to this blog, this was not created in Photoshop. It was created in Aviary, a suite of online web applications. You can sign up for the current beta at http://a.viary.com.
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Update The frog image was dugg and the traffic seems to be slowing the site, so we're redirecting traffic over to this blog post which can handle the requests better (and also contains the cyborg frog). You should be able to access the frog image by clicking the sources. Sorry the extra step!
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