Fauxto: web-based Photoshop

December 22, 2006 7:29 AM

Flash Friday: Fauxto is a lightweight web-based Photoshop alternative. Import or create, edit, and save your images. On its heels are similar web-based apps like ScrapBlog and lesser options for basic image sizing and cropping.
posted by deern the headlice (14 comments total)

More like a web-based Windows Paint alternative...

But then, all the new breed of web-based word processors we're supposed to be amazed at are really web-based Windows Wordpad alternatives.

Long way to go...
posted by Jimbob at 8:02 AM on December 22, 2006

OK. It seems to have hung up while loading a 36kb jpg on my Mac w/Safari. I'll stay with the overpriced Photoshop for a while.
posted by birdherder at 8:06 AM on December 22, 2006

Photo editing is one of the worst things to put on the web, other then video editing anyway. There's something to be said for using your own hard drive...
posted by delmoi at 8:25 AM on December 22, 2006

Load Flash v9? Meh.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:49 AM on December 22, 2006

GIMP, a free, cross-platform image editing application, runs circles around these web-based editors and is an adequate alternative to Photoshop for 99% of people who think they need Photoshop. Irfanview, a free, Windows-only image viewer/editor, is also superior (and much easier to learn than GIMP). Both also work as portable applications on a USB thumb drive. Neither will be anywhere near as frustrating as the Web applications collected here.
posted by gum at 1:40 PM on December 22, 2006

I think, for certain situations, that despite the plethora of options on various platforms for image editing, it's still nice to have some kind of Windows Paint Plus app available online.

Given how often people who actually own Photoshop find themself in Some Damn Place using MS Paint to crop and save a screenshot or something, it'd be nice to have a somewhat enhanced version available online.

But, yeah, this one is obviously still in v1.0.0.0 mode. It doesn't even have undo yet.
posted by dansdata at 2:06 PM on December 22, 2006

I'd like to use it, for quick cropping and sizing of images, but it doesn't seem to load an image "load failed". Still, amazing how much it is like a desktop app, yet loads as fast as a normal web page. I'm impressed, considering. Just wish it worked.
posted by stbalbach at 5:04 PM on December 22, 2006

The GIMP sucks hardcore. I'd avoid using it as an example of anything but the failures of the open-source software movement. They were central in keeping the windowing-toolkit schisms alive, they are notoriously caustic towards anyone who tries to contribute to their project or steer it towards the light.

Their software is almost totally unusable because of their dedication to their retarded vision. The gimp-print people changed the name of their project to 'Gutenprint' to rid themselves of association with the GIMP, and to get away from that unfortunate name. Would you name your slideware application 'Retard'?

Irfanview is pretty damn good. It's like a windows-style iPhoto that can actually handle what you throw at it (though iPhoto has gotten a lot better recently, and the one that is released for 10.5 will be way faster)
posted by blasdelf at 6:04 PM on December 22, 2006

I dunno blasdelf, I've used photoshop and gimp in some major professional projects and my own hobby tasks (including Worth1000 contests) and the results were quite good with gimp...usually indistinguishable from what I've done with photoshop. And, once I got used to gimp, it was just as easy to use.

Maybe your difficulty is in tool changing, not the tool itself.
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:13 PM on December 22, 2006

One example of GIMP suckage beyond the terrible UI: It can't handle more than 8 bits per channel. That means that when you're working with gradients, they look like total ass, with banding all over the place.

Another example: It's file format? Totally undocumented (unless a terse hundred words counts), and it has never been supported by any other program.

I seriously prefer Imagemagick to the GIMP. mogrify, convert, and friends have more usable interfaces.
posted by blasdelf at 8:22 PM on December 22, 2006

here are a bunch of just-created gradients in Gimp...the second stripe is intentially banded with the built in 'browns' gradient. I'm not sure what you are pointing out here.
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:55 PM on December 22, 2006

What's the deal with calling any image manipulation software a "Photoshop replacement"? That's like calling emacs a "Microsoft Word replacement". It's not that one is better or worse than the other (yeah, I know, bad examples if I want to avoid flamage), but they're very clearly intended for different tasks.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 9:56 AM on December 23, 2006

Understood that GIMP qualifies as a Photoshop alternative, but it's not web-based and it too has a long ways to go. Fauxto is in its infant stages, but I still I thought it was neat to see what folks are doing right now in the realm of a "web-based Photoshop" as it has seemed like an inevitability for years. Someone will no doubt improve on Fauxto in just the next 12 months. A more "portable" way to edit images is what a lot of folks look for, especially if your job requires you to be mobile and to work from machines which are not necessarily yours.
posted by deern the headlice at 2:58 PM on December 23, 2006

Someone will no doubt improve on Fauxto in just the next 12 months.

And they will be completely constrained by what they're able to do within Flash/Shockwave.
posted by Jimbob at 3:38 PM on December 23, 2006