We are proud to announce that we have just released a special patent-pending V filter for Aviary's image editor.
Watch the video to see this filter in action. We used Hillary Clinton as our test subject.
The result:
Update: 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 beta invitation at http://a.viary.com.
This video is insane. Much like the singer (zing!).
The most amazing thing is that this took the legendary Meowza literally 21 minutes to do in Phoenix, Aviary's image editor. It was a rush job, done largely for the purpose of showing everybody how a photo-realistic image edit takes place from start to finish, and it still came out amazing.
21 minutes! Crazy.
Here's a video of the Clone Stamp Tool you can use in Phoenix, Aviary's online flash-based image editor.
The clone stamp tool allows you to copy (clone) from a target area in a photo and paint it in to a destination area with regular brush options.
Clone stamp is perfect for minor retouching on the seams of areas that have been cut and pasted together.
Here are some great images made entirely in Phoenix that used elements of the Clone Stamp Tool:
Colin Farrel & Tara Reid merged by Meowza
Street by phischer
From the "People are falling apart series" by Meowza
If you already have a Phoenix account, you can open up these images to see how they were made and try editing them further!
Here's a video demonstrating the Copy and Paste functionality you can use in Phoenix, Aviary's flash-based image editor.
Copy and pasting is essential for any layer based editing program, as it lets you break an image into several pieces that can be individually edited.
Here are some great examples of images that were made using Copy and Paste
"Bottled Fish" by Nicky666, uses the following source image, copied and pasted into new layers:
"Iggy's Night Out" by meowza, uses the following source image for both a main component and window reflections.
It's very easy to see why this functionality is the most important one to achieving photo-realistic image effects.
History Panel
I'm including this here, rather than in its own post because it is a really quick and simple demonstration. Phoenix includes 20 history states, which means that you can undo/redo up to 20 steps back. We can presumably allow more than that once Flash Player 10 is released and memory usage is optimized further.
Video of our history panel in action
Our History Panel shows you a thumbnail (optional) of all previous states in addition to the activity done / tool used during the step, letting you visually jump between steps quickly and easily.
Here's a video of the Distortion and Free Transform Tools you can use in Phoenix, Aviary's online flash-based image editor.
The distortion tool allows you to distort (surprise) any active selection by grabbing one of the four corner handles. You can twist, distort, stretch and warp selections with it in 3D space.
A great example of ways distortion could be used: To make a person look heavier. This example of Britney Spears used distortion to enlarge her legs.
The Free Transformation tool allows you to rotate, mirror, move, scale, and skew any selection. You can also keep things in the current ratio by holding down the shift key as you use it. This is really useful for placing any objects in your scene exactly as you want them.
We've been ultra-secretive about Phoenix to date, but it's time to let more people take a look under the hood of the most advanced Flash-based image editor created to date.
Let me caution, Phoenix is not for casual editing (like cropping and removing red-eye). Of course you can do those things in Phoenix, but that's a waste of the engine's potential. We are targeting our user base of Photoshop-using hobbyists at Worth1000 and built it around their specifications, so including a lot of advanced editing effects was an absolute must.
Our goal with Aviary in general was to create a portable web-based suite where people could collaboratively create really rich audio-visual content (the type that generally goes viral).
Case in point, here's an early technical demonstration of a new tool we're including in our next build - the color replacement brush.
I'll be publishing some more advanced videos showcasing effects that are possible to create in Phoenix (the full tool) in future posts.
For now, here are some Phoenix-created images... not bad for an online tool, huh?
So why recreate an image editing tool online when there are fantastic products like Adobe Photoshop, GIMP and Pixelmator available for desktop usage?
Simple: none of them allow for easy collaboration. Every tool in the Aviary suite does.
If two people wanted to collaborate on an image (let's say to participate in a game of Photoshop Tennis or give critique on different mockups), a whole bunch of limiting variables would need to be in place before it could happen:
- Both people would need to own Photoshop (or the same program) on their computer.
- Both people would need access to an FTP site or image hosting site. The file URL would need to be manually copied and pasted to be shared.
- Both people would need a separate location to comment, and possibly a separate location where comments could be listed privately or publicly.
- Revisions would be manually maintained and stored separately on each person's computer (unless they shared them with each other).
- If they are trying to track rights, royalties and attributions, they would need some kind of complex contractual agreement in place.
With any tool in the Aviary suite, all a user needs is a browser with the Flash Player installed and they can bypass all of these variables. Is there a trade-off for production-grade work that must be a certain resolution due to Flash's limitations? Absolutely. But is there a gain in terms of quick collaboration? No question. For mockups, collaboration and feedback, the gain is essential.
My teams work flow currently uses Google Docs in much the same way. We draft documents in Google Docs, and discuss and revise them in BaseCamp. Finally once we're done collaboration we recreate or import the work in a production-quality tool like Microsoft Word to create the final output. It's an invaluable addition to our workflow. We suspect that Aviary will be valuable in much the same way for professionals.
As for hobbyists creating content for fun and web display, Phoenix should be perfect to create incredibly rich content.
For an invitation to Phoenix, sign up on the right hand side. And don't forget to check back for videos of Phoenix itself in action.
A quick wrap-up on the last few days of excitement here:
Book deal!
We're thrilled to announce that we have signed a deal to create a book of image editing tutorials with a focus on using Aviary's Phoenix, the image editing tool of our suite.
The best part about this book is that we're including a free full version of Phoenix on AIR with every copy, along with source files for every tutorial inside. 
The book will also be useful to users of the GIMP and Adobe Photoshop, as the naming conventions, techniques and tools described in the book are universal in nature to tools used in those programs.
The book will be crowd-sourced, meaning it will be written by our talented community of image editors at Worth1000.com.
The book will be sold in major retail outlets like Barnes and Noble, Borders and of course can be ordered online through Amazon.com and BN.com. More details and a link to preorder will be posted soon.
New logo
We've made a slight change to our branding. We have a new logo, though we may be tweaking it further before our official launch.
New domain
For all you lazy folk out there, you can now access Aviary at a.viary.com:
http://a.viary.com/.
Of course you can continue accessing us at CreationOnTheFly.com.
Some of our team is planning on attending Adobe Max next week and would love to meet up with anyone in the graphics or tech industry who wants to grab some drinks. Drop us a line at aviary(a)worth1000.com if so and be sure to watch the keynote addresses on opening day and you'll hopefully see a glimpse of Phoenix and Hummingbird on AIR.
In other news: team member Michael had the pleasure of demonstrating Phoenix on AIR at Adobe's On AIR tour stop in NY on Monday. We had a blast - Adobe really puts on a great show.
We can also add to the press that Aviary received with this video interview posted on InfoWorld. Watch
< view newer posts | view older posts >