Internet development and its dominant role among all other media, electronic and printed, continuously bring new innovations in field of expression and communication among Web users. One of basic features of today’s Internet is wider and bigger usage of Web 2.0 technology also known as User Friendly technologies. Fundamental characteristic of these technologies is possibility of achieving communication in simple and easy way for regular users. The best examples of usage of those technologies are Blogs and Photo Galleries.

 

Adobe, as giant software manufacturer, launched remarkable Web application which we can also freely call “On-Line” Photoshop because of numerous offered options. Photoshop Express can be found on web address www.photoshop.com/express/landing.html . First step is on-line registration after which you’ll get access to this on-line gallery. We must mention that this application is at the moment in beta but despite that it will completely fulfill even the finest needs that you might have. After authorization will open panel for choosing one of three offered options: My photo, My Gallery and Browse.

My Photo is used for forwarding photos and creating photo albums. Upload process of your pictures is very simple and can be done in just few steps and after that all desired photos will be transferred to your panel. After that step, you can create as many albums as you want. Process of filling photo albums with pictures is simple and can be realized just with dragging wanted image from work area into chosen album. Organization of work area is adaptable using area in upper left corner by choosing one of three icons (single image, grid of photos or table of sortable informations). Beside this option in upper left corner you also have option Full Screen Mode that provides full screen mode. Options for photo processing that Photoshop Express offers can be available by double click on picture and after that it will be edited in new panel that provides many options for photo editing. On the left side of work area, where the picture is placed, are located all tools in three basic groups: Basic, Tuning and Effects.

In Basics category are options:
    •  Crop&Rotate - for custom picture crop or by choosing some of offered aspects (1:1, 2:3, 4:5, 4:6 …) and rotating (with slider)
    •  Auto Correct - automatic correction of color tonality on picture
    •  Exposure - option for correction of photo illumination
    •  Red-Eye Removal - removing effect of “red eyes”
    •  Touchup - very interesting tool for achieving effect of cloning of some part of photo
    •  Saturation - adjusting of picture saturation.

In Tuning category are tools like:
    •  White Balance - choosing one of offered options for correction of picture exposure with different predefined conditions like: sunny day, cloudy, foggy weather…,
    •  Highlight - effect for accenting some parts of picture,
    •  Fill Light - tool for attaining effect of additional lighting,
    •  Sharpen - adjusting of picture sharpness
    •  Soft Focus.

Effects category contents tools:
    •  Pop Color - option for adding intensity of chosen color in certain amount,
    •  Hue - for changing coloring on picture,
    •  Black&White - for canceling all colors except black and white or in other words  this tools serves for transferring all colors in one of mentioned – making black&white photo from color photo,
    •  Tint - tool for achieving overall tonality of photo
    •  Sketch - sketch effect
    •  Distort - distortion and bending of picture.

Second option in basic panel is My Gallery. All photo albums stored in your account can be seen in this panel and they can also be published. Browse is third option in basic panel and it serves for viewing all photo albums available through web application. Viewing is enabled with simple click and you’ll get photo slide show. Adjusting options for slide show are available through icon in upper right corner while on left side of panel will be opened extra menu for choosing photos reviewing modes (single, strip, grid and all that in 2D or 3D surroundings).

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With help of Jalbum we can create our own Web photo album, and it is available on address jalbum.net . Work with this application, if we compare it with previous example, is little bit different and reduced on just several steps. First step is download of Jalbum client from site mentioned above. We are talking about simple and user friendly program which installation takes few minutes.

After installation it’s necessary to export wanted pictures and then you can create album. After off-line creating of photo albums it’s necessary to access your account so you could make your gallery available to all users of this application. By creating account you will get at the same time some sort of your personal Web address that will go something like this nameaccount.myjalbum.net where you can see all your photo albums. On this site you could also perform selection of skins for your account, what makes work in this application more interesting.

 

Next photo album that we will present to you is on address www.myphotoalbum.com . This photo gallery has certain characteristics that differs this application from rivals. With account creation, just like in previous case, you’ll get your own domain nameaccount.myphotoalbum.com where all your created albums will be available to all site users.

You can even create photo albums with your video recording on this site, as difference from rivals’ applications. Beside this advantage, My Photo Album offers possibility of importing photos from other sites like Flickr, SmugMug, Picasa and many others. Upload of photos or video material is possible to achieve in several different ways: One-By-One Upload Tool, Java Upload Tool, through your mobile phone, mail etc. My Photo Album also offers opportunity of choosing one of many skins for your account and possibility of choosing some from different Slide Show displays of images.

 

Devian ART is one of the oldest sites in this category and as such it is maybe one of the best positioned sites of this kind on Internet. Firstly it was developed as Web site for designers to exchange ideas and concepts but this application overcome this idea long time ago as by number of users as by available information. This application is available on address www.deviantart.com .

Like we implied for all earlier mentioned sites and for this one, you need to register first if you want to have an account. After registration and accessing your newly created account, upload process is extremely simple and fast. Deviant ART allows direct communication with rest of users from community through chat or blog.

 

 

Apple Web Gallery can be found at www.apple.com/sg/dotmac/webgallery.html . As it is appropriate to all big companies, Apple developed its own application for presentations of photos and video clips.  Whole process of attaching pictures and video files is utmost simple and reduced on few steps. For upload of wanted files it is possible to choose one of several offered options for viewing, like it was the case with all other previously mentioned applications. Slide Show option is very attractive by design and by functions that offers.



Synthesis


We have mentioned just five applications from category of Web photo albums, but there are so many of them and this market is still growing. That is something what should make everyone happy – bigger competition results in better offer in this field. Beside these sites we also recommend you to take a look Flickr (www.flickr.com ), Photobucket (photobucket.com ) and Picasa (picasa.google.com ). What will be your choice is up to you and your needs.