Photo Editing Software Industry and Trends

Transcription

Photo Editing Software:
Industry & Trends
Conducted for: Nova Development Co.
[Online photo editing services together with photo sharing
websites, which continue to grow in number, have been
changing the characteristics of the “digital photo
management” software industry. The permanent access to
the Internet along with the ubiquity of digital cameras have
required image-related software manufacturers to think of
new features and tools and redefine their strategy, in order
to survive in a highly competitive and dynamic market. ]
By: Pujan Ziaie
Supervisor: Barry Evleth
September 2008
Photo Editing Software: Industry & Trends
September 2008
Table of Contents
Executive Summary .................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 5
Basic Concepts............................................................................................................................ 6
Digital Photo Market .............................................................................................................. 6
Main Target ............................................................................................................................ 6
Avanquest’s Status ................................................................................................................. 6
Objectives ............................................................................................................................... 6
Digital Photo Management ........................................................................................................ 7
Basic Tools .............................................................................................................................. 7
Editing................................................................................................................................. 7
Enhancement ..................................................................................................................... 7
Organizing .......................................................................................................................... 7
Sharing................................................................................................................................ 8
Import & Export ................................................................................................................. 8
Searching ............................................................................................................................ 9
Additional Tools ................................................................................................................... 10
Creating Entities ............................................................................................................... 10
Morphing .......................................................................................................................... 10
Photo Montage ................................................................................................................ 10
Publish & Printing ............................................................................................................. 10
3D Rendering .................................................................................................................... 11
Online vs. Desktop ............................................................................................................... 11
Overview .......................................................................................................................... 11
Status Quo ........................................................................................................................ 12
Issues and Facts .................................................................................................................... 12
World Wide Web.............................................................................................................. 12
Ubiquity of Cell-phones.................................................................................................... 12
Digital Camera Software .................................................................................................. 12
Digital Camera Tools ........................................................................................................ 13
Open-source Software & Freeware ................................................................................. 13
Free Online services ......................................................................................................... 13
Escalation in number of Photographers .......................................................................... 13
Pervasive Video Generation ............................................................................................. 13
Digital Cameras ........................................................................................................................ 14
Industry Overview ................................................................................................................ 14
Drivers .................................................................................................................................. 14
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Copyright © Nova Development Co. & Avanquest Software
September 2008
Replacement habit ........................................................................................................... 14
Individual owners ............................................................................................................. 14
Camera Phones ................................................................................................................ 15
Low Price Cameras ........................................................................................................... 15
Barriers ................................................................................................................................. 15
Market Saturation ............................................................................................................ 15
Slowing Economy ............................................................................................................. 15
Trends ................................................................................................................................... 15
Value-added Features ...................................................................................................... 15
Technologies .................................................................................................................... 16
Customer Interest ............................................................................................................ 16
Photo Explosion........................................................................................................................ 17
Description ........................................................................................................................... 17
Target Market & Market Position ........................................................................................ 17
Current Features .................................................................................................................. 17
Strengths .......................................................................................................................... 18
Weaknesses ...................................................................................................................... 18
Competitors.......................................................................................................................... 18
Desktop Software ............................................................................................................. 18
Online Services ................................................................................................................. 19
Photo Explosion vs. Photo Brush ..................................................................................... 19
Extending Photo Explosion ................................................................................................... 20
Changing the Approach .................................................................................................... 20
Lesser Features to Add ..................................................................................................... 21
Resources ................................................................................................................................. 23
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September 2008
Executive Summary
In order to define new features and services for the next generation of photomanagement tools at Avanquest Software, the following strategies are proposed:
-
New tools for organizing & sharing photos (offline and online) should be
considered
-
More value-added features (i.e. face-detection, Own Handwriting Font,
Searching by given patterns) should be offered
-
Protocols to enable transactions with major photo-sharing websites (e.g.
Flickr) should be developed
-
Access to free online web services should be provided through the software
-
Basic tools to handle video files should be embedded
-
Mobile version of the software should be available to be used on cell-phones
and iPods
The above suggestions are based on trends defined in the market, including:
-
Ease of access to the Internet
-
Free Software being provided with digital cameras
-
Need to organize rapidly growing photograph collections
-
People’s desire to share their pictures with others
-
New feasible technologies to intelligently recognize and classify images
-
Ubiquity of cell-phones with wide, high-resolution screens
-
Open-source software and freeware permeating the market
-
Introduction of Open API technologies
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September 2008
Introduction
Digital photography has permeated every stratum of society. Unlike the past, anyone, no
matter their generation or educational level, is capable of taking innumerable pictures at a
very low cost without worrying about wasting film or lens adjustments. Digital cameras and
video recorders have, in fact, raised the bar and changed the definition of photography,
which previously required proficiency possessed by a limited number of people. Point and
shoot digital cameras will soon surpass film in quality and flexibility. High quality LaserJet
printers can already print at a quality high enough to make it near impossible for a discerning
eye to tell the difference between a printed image and one from a photo developer.
Nowadays, the number of family pictures per event can easily number into hundreds.
Digital photos are being vastly –and extravagantly- created and distributed. Thanks to high
capacity storing utilities, there is almost no limitation in generating digital images, hence,
resulting in an increasing need for organizing them. Picture-takers (let us not call this
overwhelming number of unprofessional camera owners “photographers”!) want to be able
to easily categorize, organize and search for their “products”. Mere editing of images is no
longer sufficient as the main feature of software.
Moreover, many editing and enhancement techniques such as cropping, coloradjustment, red-eye removal, converting to black and white, sepia or rotation are embedded
in the new generation of most of digital cameras. In addition, free software is packaged with
the purchased cameras and open-source software and freeware provide yet more options.
The Internet has also brought new ways to publish and share pictures. There are a vast
number of photo sites that are taking the all-inclusive approach to saving, editing and
sharing media. Online services like Flickr or Shutterfly provide products that enable users to
upload, tag and share digital photos. In addition, many online services, like Picnik or
FotoFlexer provide tools to edit images, manipulate and enhance them in a convenient and
user-friendly way. Free applications like Jalbum or Google Picasa offer functions to manage
and create fancy web-galleries with multiple skins and options.
The boom in digital images alongside the increasing access to the Internet has brought
new opportunities to the digital image market. Studying trends and the outlook of this
industry in order to address the need to develop a new generation of photo management
software is the major theme of this report. First, the basic concepts of digital-image market
and the pertinent facts are discussed. Then, digital photo management services and
products are expounded upon and the digital camera industry is studied. Finally, Photo
Explosion, as the current major product of Avanquest USA in the market is introduced and
analyzed and new features and strategies for its future development are proposed.
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September 2008
Basic Concepts
In this section, basic concepts relevant to the discussed issues in this report, such as
market segments, Avanquest’s target market and the current status of the company’s photomanipulation products, are addressed.
Digital Photo Market
There are several target groups and market segments in the digital photo industry. Target
groups can vary from professional graphics designers to hobbyist photographers, to those
who have just purchased their first point and shoot digital camera. The range of software
can cover utilities like photo editing, design and creation, package generators, organizing
tools and sharing utilities.
Main Target
This study is conducted with a focus on non-professional but frequent users of digital
cameras. This group is largely unconcerned with advanced editing utilities like curve
manipulation or histogram adjustment. Basically, they expect to be able to perform
transactions like auto-enhancement, rotation or basic amendments quickly and create family
albums or web galleries with little or no hassle. They require easy-to-use tools to enable
them to organize and categorize their countless pictures.
Avanquest’s Status
Currently, Nova Development Corporation (an office of Avanquest Software located in the
US) offers several products with a focus on digital photos such as Photo Impact Pro or Photo
Explosion. Photo Explosion in particular is of great interest, as it is marketed as a complete
digital photo studio targeting non-professionals which has to be replaced in the near future
due to licensing issues.
Objectives
The primary goal of this report is to provide valuable information for developing a new
product which will serve as the next generation of Photo Explosion. This would be achieved
by studying the market as well as trends in the digital photo industry. In order to provide a
better perspective for decision makers, a comparison analysis has been conducted with the
major competitor of Photo Explosion, Photo Brush.
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September 2008
Digital Photo Management
In order to envision a sophisticated and successful product for the market addressed
before, it is of great avail to monitor the common features of current market-leading
products.
Basic Tools
The categories listed below provide users with features to manipulate or organize their
pictures. Each category is explained briefly.
Editing
Editing tools help users edit and manipulate their pictures. Common tools in this essential
category are:
Transformation: Crop, resize, rotate, shift, perspective, etc.
View Manipulation: RGB, Color Equalizer, Replacement, Level & Curve Hue & Saturation,
Brightness & Contrast, Histogram Transformation, etc.
Effects: Filters, shadows, text, decoration, etc.
Enhancement
Enhancement methods are used to enhance the quality of a realistic image by altering its
pixels.
Visage: Red-eye Correction, Portrait Enhancement (removing shine from skin, whiten
teeth, etc.), Sharpening Edges, etc.
Smart Enhance: Boost Color, Histogram Equalization, etc.
Coordination: Fixing Barrel Distortion, Chromatic Aberration, Exposure Correction,
Perspective Handling, etc.
General Quality: Dust Removal, Hot Pixel Fixing, Spat and Line Removal, Color
Enhancement, etc.
Organizing
Organizing digital photos is becoming increasingly necessary due to the vast number of
pictures taken. In times when film camera were predominant, the prints of each camera
film, which were often limited to 24 to 32 pictures per event, were put into an album and
that was sufficient for the purpose of categorization. Nowadays, however, with no extra
costs for additional photos, any number of pictures might be taken. This creates the need for
organizing images according to dates, events, persons, locations or some other criteria.
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Sharing
Sharing pictures is another emerging issue. Thanks to new findings and innovations in
communication technology, sharing data has become quite feasible today. Above all, mobile
phones and the Internet are being extensively used with which the distribution of data can
be performed in less than a second. As depicted in Figure 1, the trend has been shifted from
hard-copy albums to online galleries.
Figure 1 - Publishing Trends
The foremost sharing-channels are listed below:
Mobile Phones: By creating mobile versions pictures to be stored on cell-phones.
Web-Galleries: By generating web-galleries to be uploaded on a website.
CD-DVDs: By burning the photos as slide-shows on a CD or DVD to be secured and
distributed when needed.
Import & Export
Several methods of importing pictures aside from digital cameras or exporting them are
available today which are:
Printing: Printing can be done either one-by-one or as a collection. Providing tools for the
users to print a group of pictures neatly and comfortably is of great importance.
Scanning: Scanning old and traditionally taken pictures and storing them as digital photos
is becoming more popular, since the capacity of devices to store data is not an issue
anymore. Therefore, offering convenient options to users to scan as many as pictures in a
fast way is recommended.
Video capture: Digital video cameras, like digital cameras, are pervading the video
camera market. Capturing pictures from video frames would be, therefore, of great avail.
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September 2008
Searching
Searching through a sizable amount of images can be very frustrating and timeconsuming. Many techniques and algorithms have been introduced that make the dream of
automatic searching of images come true. This would help users to search for a face,
pattern, scene or any other definable criteria (see Figure 2).
Figure 2 - Different Methods of Searching Through Images
Some criteria upon which a searching algorithm could be defined are:
Tagging: The easiest method for looking for images is through tag search. Users should
tag their own pictures as they store them. Tags are basically key words (salient factors) that
best describe an image. The searching process is then performed by looking for similar tags
as those given in the input field.
Image-based: Image-based searching operates upon a given template image. For
example, in order to find pictures that contain a particular person, one can give the picture
of the face of that person as the input, and the system searches through the pool of images.
This process, despite being very time-consuming, is the most convenient way of looking for
an image.
Pattern-based: Pattern-based searching is basically the same as image-based methods,
with the slight difference that instead of an image, a pattern is given as a template. This way,
users only have to provide a basic representation (i.e. a doodle or scribble) of what they
have in mind in order to receive pictures containing similar patterns.
Visual Features: Features like color, texture, etc. can also be given as search criteria.
EXIF data: A search can be performed according to data stored in images as Exchangeable
Image File Format. EXIF is actually a file format, however, it is usually considered as
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September 2008
metadata saved in images with JPEG, TIFF and RIFF WAV format. A sample of EXIF metadata
is shown in Table 1.
Table 1 - A Sample EXIF Meta-data
EXIF metadata are, in fact, tags put automatically into images by digital cameras. This
data is more useful in organizing photos than in searching for them.
Additional Tools
Additional tools (see Figure 3) are used to create supplementary and often fancy
packages by means of pictures. These tools are particularly popular amongst nonprofessional users. Some of the most common tools are explained below:
Creating Entities
Entities like customized calendars, scrapbooks, albums, photo collages, etc. can be made
based on a pool of pictures. There are several online or off-line services offering the creation
of these items, however, a complete and comprehensive package in one product as valueadded services is strongly recommended.
Morphing
Morphing is a technology that changes (or morphs) one image into another through a
seamless transition. The morphing tool is usually unimportant for users, nonetheless, it is a
very attractive tool to play with and it could enhance the attractiveness of a product and act
as an enticement.
Photo Montage
Photo Montage is another ornamental feature that enables users to create compositions
made up of thumbnail photographs in their photo library. Again, like morphing, it is not
required, but recommended as an add-on.
Publish & Printing
There are numerous (usually web) services that print photos on T-shirts, stickers, greeting
cards, luggage tags, puzzles, mouse-pads, etc. It is very useful for a photo-management
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product to have the appropriate linking channels with one or some of these services to
facilitate the necessary transactions.
3D Rendering
3D technologies allow users to combine multiple still images of a scene taken from
different perspectives into a quasi-3D entity that can be looked at from different directions.
Microsoft has, for example, recently launched Photosynth, which is a free online image 3D
image rendering technology.
Figure 3 - Additional Photo-based Tools
Online vs. Desktop
Overview
There are basically two kinds of products: Desktop and Online (web-based).
Desktop products are those that are installed on a personal computer or laptop. They can
be used whenever users desire on a PC and provide fast transactions and the privacy of users
is absolutely secured.
Online services, on the other hand, run on a server and can only be accessed through a
web-browser. Users generally need a fast internet connection to use online services and
their existence can never be 100% guaranteed. There are, indeed, several positive aspects
regarding online services. One of their major advantages is that users are not required to
install anything (except a web-browser, of course) on their system and they can access their
data regardless of the machine on which they access the service.
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Status Quo
Since the introduction of Web2.0, many desktop applications could be turned into online
services and the rift between online and desktop has gradually dissipated. As a result, many
photo-related services like editing, enhancement, etc. became able to be implemented
online. FotoFlexer and Picnik are, for example, two of the most popular online services in this
regard.
There are also many websites that provide users with sharing and publishing services.
Online social networks (or community platforms) like Facebook, StudiVZ or MySpace offer
tools for uploading unlimited number of images as well as categorizing and tagging them
into albums and share them with friends. Moreover, platforms like Flickr provide ample
space for users to upload as many photos as they want, tag them, put comment on others’
photos and share and search them. Recently, there have been even tools to edit and modify
pictures on these sharing sites.
Since working with a large amount of pictures is easier on a desktop computer, some
web-services have their own desktop applications to perform some transactions on pictures
before uploading them onto their server. Google Picasa is a good example in this regard. The
application is used to organize and tag photos off-line, whereas the sharing and web-album
creation is made online.
Issues and Facts
World Wide Web
The most important issue considering the digital photo industry is the overall access to
the Internet by users. The Internet provides not only a sharing tool for users, but also an
infrastructure to offer new services that are PC-independent. Users, therefore, seek a well
laid-out site for publishing their images and seeing and commenting on others’ photos.
Ubiquity of Cell-phones
Cell-phones are now an indispensible personal device. In some countries, they are being
used as an ID or credit card to purchase tickets or identify individuals. Nowadays, many cellphones also have an embedded digital camera. They also act as storage devices to store
pictures, sound-tracks, videos, etc.
Digital Camera Software
Currently, most of the digital camera manufacturers provide free software along with a
purchased digital camera for simple or even advanced image manipulation. Based on this
fact, users do not need to buy products, which offer the same services.
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September 2008
Digital Camera Tools
Simple image-enhancement tools like rotation, scale, adjustment of color and contrast or
even red-eye removal are now available in many new digital cameras. It is also possible to
categorize images based on various criteria like date, subject, etc. All these features
gradually obviate the need for products that perform the same procedures.
Open-source Software & Freeware
Open-source software, first beginning as a marketing campaign for free software, are now
a noticeable part of software industry. According to a report conducted by Standish Group,
the adoption of open source has caused a drop in revenue to the proprietary software
industry by about $60 billion per year.
In recent times, there has been a dramatic increase in using open-source or free software
and digital photo industry is not an exception. Therefore, the current trend is to provide
users with as many outlets for their edits and creations as possible. Shutterfly and American
Greetings, for example, are two major movers towards this particular trend, as a wider
demographic can be approached with such tools, and hopefully bring in more revenue as
well.
Free Online services
Free online services are a threat to the custom products. For years, people have used and
paid for products like Photoshop when what they actually require are most basic tools that
were not available on other programs like MS Paint. After the introduction of Web2.0, spiffy
online image editors have been launch and are stealing a large number of casual users away
from products like Photoshop. With these online applications, one can quickly and easily
make basic image edits, enhancements and effects, making a big dent in the very vast
market of Photo-editing software.
Escalation in number of Photographers
Based on the vast production of digital cameras (see next section), the number of
photographers has been increased considerably. The burst in the number of owned pictures
as well as the almost permanent access to the Internet leads to a trend to sharing and
organizing this huge amount of data. This also means a bigger market for non-professional
photographers.
Pervasive Video Generation
Like digital cameras, digital video recorders are also becoming ubiquitous. Moreover,
most of the current digital cameras provide recording of sound and video. Proper software
should have the necessary tools and features to deal with videos, even at a very basic level.
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September 2008
Digital Cameras
Industry Overview
The digital camera industry is inextricably entwined with the digital photo business.
Innovative technologies in digital cameras provide new opportunities for software
manufacturers and vice versa.
Figure 4 - Digital Cameras Statistics, Units and Value (dpreview)
Studies show that the production of digital cameras will reach 94 million units in 2008 and
growth will then begin to diminish in 2009. A large portion of these units will be sold to nonprofessionals, making each buyer a potential customer of photo management software.
This section provides a glance at the digital camera market, its drivers, barriers and
trends.
Drivers
The major drivers of the market are listed below:
Replacement habit
Many digital camera buyers are, in fact, repeat and replacement buyers. It means that
they are always seeking for cameras with new features and technologies. Their market share
is disproportionately large in comparison to their numbers.
Individual owners
Previously, a family might have possessed a single camera (if at all) that was sufficient for
all family members. Nowadays, due to the relatively low price of simple digital cameras,
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September 2008
individuals have become owners of digital cameras, hence adding a new portion to the
market.
Camera Phones
Embedded cameras in cell-phones have spurred late adopters into the digital camera
market. Many cell-phones provide photo or even video recording tools. This increases the
number of digital photos significantly.
Low Price Cameras
Feature packed cameras have been available since the last few years at ever lower prices.
They encourage people with low income to have their own digital camera.
Barriers
Despite all the facts mentioned in the previous section as the driver of the market, there
are several issues that act as barriers or threats to the vast market of digital cameras. Some
major barriers are listed below:
Market Saturation
Most of the people who wanted to possess a digital camera have already purchased one
and are absolutely satisfied with it. Although a small segment of them are replacement
buyers as addressed in the previous section, however, most of them find their camera fit for
purpose. This means that the market growth will decrease gradually in the next couple of
years.
Slowing Economy
Slowing economy, especially in the US, has a strong negative impact on the market.
Because of the current recession, consumers would spend less on non-essentials, including
buying or replacing their digital cameras.
Trends
This section addresses some trends in the industry of digital cameras, regarding new
features, technologies and consumer habits.
Value-added Features
There are numerous new features waiting in the production lines to be added to the new
generation of digital cameras. Motion detection is one of them. This feature can be used to
enhance the quality of pictures through adjusting the shutter speed based on the speed of
the moving objects in the scene.
Built-in GPS receiver is another very useful feature for storing the location. The
information would be added to the EXIF file. Currently, only very few cameras, such as the
Ricoh 500SE, have this ability.
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Recording videos and sounds has recently been an indispensible part of every digital
camera. The quality of videos and sound will steadily increase and the need to have a
separate digital video recorder will diminish.
Technologies
Considering new technologies, Wireless cameras would become easier to use. Even now
there are some memory-cards capable of detecting the surrounding Wi-Fi network and
communicating with the network.
OLEDs (organic light emitting diodes) would become more prevalent in digital cameras. A
significant benefit of OLEDs is that they draw less power and are much thinner than an LCD
panel.
The sensor technology would also improve, leading to a better quality of captured
pictures. Optical image stabilization (not digital) is a new innovation used to stabilize the
optical features of a camera, rather than tampering with the flow of digital data.
Customer Interest
Personalization of digital cameras is an emerging trend. Like cars, the customer will be
able to order a personalized camera. The personalization can apply to physical features like
color or size as well as the technologies and tools in a camera.
Moreover, features would meet consumer needs rather than showcasing manufacturer
capability. For example, consumer demand has been driving the pixel race, however,
understanding that they do not need more than 4-5 mega pixels for their daily use, would
soon shift the trend in offering higher resolutions to consistently higher quality of pictures.
Regarding customer needs and desires, a movement away from tiny pocket cameras to
devices with better lenses, readable displays, and manageable controls can be observed.
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September 2008
Photo Explosion
Description
Photo Explosion is a product developed by Nova
Development Co. that delivers easy-to-use photo editing
features, numerous special effects and tools to create
photo projects (albums, web-pages, calendars, etc.).
Target Market & Market Position
Unlike Adobe Photoshop, Photo Explosion targets nonprofessionals in the digital photo industry. It has, therefore, a user-friendly interface with
handy tools making it very appealing to normal people with little or no experience or
training in image processing.
According to the statements of its marketing department, Photo Explosion still sells very
satisfactorily and based on the statistics obtained from one on the retailers (see Table 2) it
ranks second in order of the number of sold units and fourth considering sales income. This
puts Photo Explosion Deluxe in the first position in the market segment of photo-editing
products under $50. The deluxe version of this product contains additional packages for
morphing, generating photo montages and creating panoramas.
Table 2 - List of best selling photo-editing products
Publisher
Adobe
Nova
Development
Adobe
Adobe
Adobe
Corel
Adobe
Nova
Development
Individual
Software
Item
Sales
Units
Avg. Sell Price
Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0
Photo Explosion 3.0 Deluxe
15627894
3954857
172539
95988
90,58
41,2
Adobe Photoshop Elements
6.0/Premiere Elements 4.0 Bundle
Paint Shop Pro Photo X2
Adobe Photoshop Elements
5.0/Premiere Elements 3.0 Bundle
Photo Impact 11.0 Pro
7113968
10076863
81410
76264
87,38
132,13
3554131
2778138
3844148
41288
37229
27374
86,08
74,62
140,43
1823124
20008
91,12
534151
19442
27,47
PhotoStudio Expressions 2.0
Current Features
Photo Explosion delivers basic photo editing features as well as a comprehensive set of
special effects, templates and props. It also provides wizards to create photo entities like
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September 2008
calendars, web-pages, family albums and scrapbooks. Moreover, it offers sophisticated
importing facilities from scanning devices and digital photo or video cameras.
Strengths
The strength of Photo Explosion is in its simplicity, broad range for creating packages and
bank of templates and props. It is truly easy to work with and therefore appeals to nonprofessional users.
Weaknesses
Photo Explosion has several serious weaknesses. The most critical one is the lack of
organizing and sharing tools. Secondly, it does not provide any bridges to the online sharing
websites. Moreover, its packaging utilities are very primitive and need to be improved, in
order to be able to make more attractive and sophisticated.
Competitors
The competitors of Photo Explosion can be categorized into two major groups which are
desktop and online tools.
Desktop Software
Among the many photo editing and management products in the market, Photo Brush is
the one most similar to Photo Explosion. It is under $50 dollars and is also targeted at nonprofessionals. A complete comparison-sheet between Photo Brush and Photo Explosion
along with the highlights of other competitors can be found in the attached Excel file. Figure
5 shows the main competitors.
Figure 5 - Major Competitors of Photo Explosion
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September 2008
Online Services
As discussed in the previous chapters, after the introduction of Web2.0 technology, a lot
of online services have been launched that provide the same editing and enhancement tools
for pictures as desktop products. Some of them are free sites and can be accessed after a
simple registration process.
Picnik, for example, is a free online editing tool that offers almost all of the useful
features of Photo Explosion.
FotoFlexer is another example. Many advanced features for manipulating pictures, like
layers, are available in FotoFlexer.
There are also some sites that provide tools for creating packages. Scrapblog is a good
example of such an online tool, which allows users to create a scrapbook. Pictures can be
selected from well-known photo-sharing websites or simply be uploaded. Blurb BookSmart
is another site for creating documents like diaries, reports, wedding albums, etc.
Photo Explosion vs. Photo Brush
The comparison between the major features of Photo Brush and Photo Explosion
products reveals that Photo Brush provides more editing tools, whereas Photo Explosion is
more suitable for creating packages. The diagram showing the analysis of features is
depicted in Figure 6.
Figure 6 - Feature Analysis: Photo Explosion vs. Photo Brush
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Extending Photo Explosion
The next iteration of the digital photo revolution will encompass a shift from offline to
online services. In addition, more tools will be available for handling the sharing and
organizing of photo collections. This development of the industry should be reflected in the
next version of Photo Explosion. There are also some lesser features and minor
improvements that should be considered.
Changing the Approach
Based on the results of several surveys conducted by the marketing division, different
utilities of photo-management products are categorized and depicted according to three
variables of uniqueness, importance and attraction to customers (see Figure 7).
Uniqueness means how innovative a feature is compared to the current players in the
market. Importance is the degree of importance of a particular feature, considering the tools
to manage photos. Attraction to customers is the degree of appeal to users of the product.
Figure 7 - Analysis of major utilities of photo-management products
According to our analysis, searching, sharing, organizing and particularly handling online
protocols utilities are considered to be new and unique. Based on this information, the
following utilities are recommended:
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September 2008
Access Photo Sharing Sites
It is highly recommended to provide access to online sharing website (e.g. Flickr, Picasa
and Facebook). Most services nowadays allow users to transfer the edited photos directly
between Flickr, Webshots or other online photo services, saving users the trouble of
downloading the photo from one service and uploading it to another.
Focus on Package Creation
Creating packages is a very attractive and useful tool for most of the customers. Especially
now that all the editing and enhancement tools are available free and online, it is necessary
to differentiate a product by offering appealing utilities to create attractive packages like
calendars, photo albums, scrapbooks, etc.
Collaborating with Online Services
Another utility of online sites to be used by a product is to exploit their services to add
more value to the product. Putting photos on Google's map according to their geo-tag or
transferring and storing comments of others as the additional information of one’s pictures
are two examples in this regard. As mentioned in the sections regarding current trends, the
focus is put more on sharing and organizing than on editing and enhancements.
Value-added tools
Several value-added tools can be added to Photo Explosion by utilizing the new
technologies in image-processing. Face-recognition and “doodling patterns” for searching
albums are considered as very attractive and useful to users.
Commenting on pictures with users’ own handwriting, making 3D entities
(http://photosynth.net/), finding similar images and intelligent watermarking are also of
great interest to many users.
Lesser Features to Add
Based on the analysis of Photo Explosion and its comparison with similar photo-editing
products, some small features were considered as necessary to be added in the next version
of the product. They are listed in Table 3.
Table 3 - Small Features to be implemented
Features
Attraction
Comment
Action-Macros
***
***
**
*
Saving a series of actions to be applied again
Many Levels of Undo
Hold-Undo bottom
Custom Texture
Photo Explosion has only up to 10 levels
Image in the Undo buffer is locked and preserved
Customizing a texture and applying it
21
September 2008
Searching pictures based on a template image
Compatible with Adobe Plug-ins
*
**
**
***
**
Image Acquisition Phase
*
Recognizing the digital camera instantly upon connection
to the computer
Face Recognition
Search images based on the face of a person
Proportional Crop
***
***
**
*
Rotatation through Horizontal Line
**
Specifying a line as horizontal and rotating accordingly
Sharp & Blur Brush
A brush for sharpening and blurring purposes
Date Signature (Stamp)
*
*
**
*
**
**
*
*
**
*
*
*
**
*
*
*
Saving Packages (Albums,
Calendars)
**
Create packages modifiable at a later date
Create Video-File Slideshow
**
*
Rendering pictures into a video file
Find Similar Images
Camera Information
Downloadable Software Package
Free Trail Available
Watermarking
Tagging Images
Zoom with Scroll wheel
Perspective Handling
Scratch and Line Removal Brush
Bridge Brush
Portrait Enhancement
Save/Load Selection
Paint Original
Texture Clone
Nozzle
Stamp-cloning
3 Colors Artistic Filter
Stylize - Aged Photo (Sepia)
Adjustable Warp
Negative Filter
Adjustment for JPG
Reading EXIF file
Downloadable through the Internet
Offering free limited trial version
Adobe plug-ins can be applied
Visible and invisible watermarking of captured images
Adding info-tags to images
Selecting the crop area with proportional width/length
Zoom in an image by scrolling the wheel on the mouse
Correcting or applying perspective
Brush to remove spots, scratches and lines
To remove unwanted columns or poles
To remove shine from skin and whiten teeth
Saving selections to be loaded later
To paint back according to the first image
A tool to clone texture
To spray image with colors, props or textures
To clone according to a distanced spot
To reduce image into three colors
For expressing "The Retro-Look"
Necessary setting to adjust the warp tool
To create the negative-style version of an image
Tool to stamp on an image with a signature
Users should be able to modify JPG settings
22
September 2008
Resources
Digital Photography: Today and Tomorrow - http://arstechnica.com/
Photo Explosion® Deluxe 3.0 - http://www.avanquest.com/USA/
Digital Photo Secrets: What is EXIF? http://www.digital-photo-secrets.com
Top Digital Photo Software - http://www.about.com
Buying Guide: Simple Photo Editors - http://www.pcmag.com
eye.fi: Where we are going - http://www.eye.fi/news
North American Consumer Digital Camera Forecast: 2008 - 2013 - http://www.infotrendsresearch.com
Increased Use of Camera Phones - http://www.infotrends.com
Online Photo Services End User Research: 2008 - http://www.infotrends.com
Digital Camera Market Peaked Too Soon - http://news.cnet.com
CIPA Shipment of Digital Still Cameras - http://www.dpreview.com
Creating Wealth with Free Software - http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/
23

Photo Editing Software Industry and Trends

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