Aviary, the company that makes it easy for mobile developers to integrate image editing into their apps, is debuting a huge partnership today. The New York-based startup will be powering photo editing for Flickr’s 75 million users.
Picnik was the default photo editor for Flickr for some time now, even after Google bought the startup. But Google decided to shut down Picnik, and and editor will be removed from Flickr as of April 19, 2012.
For years, Aviary has been offering one of the more advanced suite of web-based, yet easy to use image editing apps. Last year, the startup shifted toward distributing a developer-facing mobile SDK, which allows third-party developers to quickly integrate photo editing, filters, virtual stickers, and other related features into their applications.
Now within Flickr, you’ll see a new Aviary-powered photo editor in your Actions menu on the site. The feature will be rolled out to users over the next few weeks. As Flickr writes it its announcement of the news, tens of thousands of members edit their photos on Flickr each day, and the most important features user wanted in a web-based editing tool was speed and simplicity.
Flickr says it has worked with Aviary to deliver a fast editing experience. Basically, one your photo loads, it will be ready to be edited. And similar to Aviary’s UI, the Flickr editor is extremely simple. User will be able to add filters, stickers, text, and save it back to their photo streams.
Here’s how it works. One ce you’ve uploaded a photo, you click on the Actions tab, then select Edit. Aviary’s editor will pop up, giving you access to fourteen simple tools, including brightness, orientation, filters, cropping and more. Once you choose the edit to the photo, you click Apply and you are done.
And since Aviary’s photo editor is built using HTML5, the Flickr editor is available on mobile and iPad apps as well.
“We built Aviary’s web editor with Flickr users in mind. All editing happens directly on Flickr itself using HTML5, allowing for quick load times, fast photo processing and a great overall user experience. You can’t ask for a better community than Flickr to help give you feedback in crafting the perfect photo- editing experience,” said Aviary’s CEO Avi Muchnick.
Considering the size and scale of Flickr, this is a huge win for Aviary. The startup also has its own loyal userbase, and currently has 3.5 million users that have edited over 40 million photos over
the past 30 days. Existing partners include Box, Constant Contact, MailChimp, Ning, Imgur, PicCollage, FriendCaster, PicPlz, and others. And the company’s SDK is growing 50% a month (measured based on how many users are accessing the editor and editing images).
Former game designers Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake created Flickr, an online photo sharing network, in 2004. Flickr, which began as a photo-sharing feature of their gaming project, has since then blossomed into one of the premiere photo-sharing sites on the web. Yahoo purchased Flickr for $35 million in March of 2005. Since then Flickr continues to compete with other photo-sharing giant Photobucket.
Aviary’s mission is to power the world’s creativity. Aviary provides developers with a robust, customizable photo editor that can be plugged into consumer-facing apps on iOS, Android, Windows Phone and HTML5 in minutes. Hassle-free integration: easy to integrate with just a few lines of code. Customizable: The look and feel of the photo editor can be changed to match the brand. Cross-platform: Aviary SDKs are available for all major mobile platforms and HTML5. Easy to use: Anyone can pick up on the intuitive editing...
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