Quick Pitch: Pho.to enhances digital photos with automatic yet powerful editing tools and services and provides a photo editing API.
Genius Idea: We all need image editing for everything from photo touch-ups to creating digital works of art (thus why Photoshop is so popular and widely known). However, improvements in web and Flash technology have given rise to robust online image editors such as Picnik (
), Pixlr, and Pho.to.
Pho.to is actually a collection of 8 image editing products, ranging from enhance photo (a one-click option to enhance a photo and fix common issues), fun generators (apps that will animate your photo, turn you into an avatar, and more), photo sharing tools (including the ability to embed photo albums), and finally the online photo editor.
The nice thing is that pho.to actually is a decent, though not perfect, image editing suite. It’s easy to add effects, crop photos, add touch-ups, or turn yourself into a cartoon. While there are 8 different tools, it’s easy to transfer an edited file to another Pho.to app. It is capable of some amazing effects, like the ones you see below:
What we like the most, though, is the application programming interface (API) – it allows developers to embed the platform on any website and even create a white-label version of the photo service (for a price, of course). This means you can have a branded photo-touch up editor for things like photo contests or a corporate use.
Still, it’s got a few issues. The biggest one: clutter. The design is not streamline and instructions on use aren’t made apparent. Pho.to needs to take away some of the menu items or reorganize them. Video tutorials or Flash-based interfaces would enrich the user experience.
While having a strong set of features is important, it’s only one part of building a great web app. The beauty of Picnik isn’t that it has the most tools or can create the perfect image; it’s that Picnik is straightforward, uncluttered, and elegant. Pho.to has a lot to offer users, but it needs to improve its user interface and redesign before it can realize its full potential.
http://mashable.com/2009/07/20/photo-2/
