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Inside Snapfish Lab

Open for business!

Published 14 April 2008, 05:11 PM


One of the earlier blog posts mentioned the need for an invitation code to use the site. Now that we can handle more users on the system, we've removed the need for the code, so anyone with a Snapfish account and log in and try the tools on their own photos (just leave the invitation code field blank).

In other exciting news...

There is a good article by Simon Firth on the HP Labs web site on Snapfish Lab. It provides more context about why we've created this site.  We'd appreciate any feedback you have on it.

Also, we pushed out a new release of the software over the weekend. You should notice much better performance on the various photo enhancement applications. You should also be able to upload finished posters back to Snapfish much more quickly in the Poster Creator application.

Previously, the various photo enhancement operations were being run on full size images (suitable for printing) and thus were a bit slow.  This new version performs the operations on reduced resolution images, and only does the full sized one if needed.
Posted By warrensander | 3 Comments | Trackbacks | Permalink


Comments

As great as Snapfish is, it really lacked a significant differentiator for the other photo sharing / management sites. I think with the invent of Snapfish Labs, Snapfish will have a strong offering in the marketplace. The caveat on that statement is however that it offers tools which really make significant difference to the simplicity and over all image quality. That being said, I think Snapfish needs to include tools such as: ‘Autolevels’, ‘ColorBalance’ and maybe even a ‘Fix my Photo’ button which would simple attempt to optimize the image quality. These tools should work on a single image or an entire galleries to simplify processing. I’m not suggesting Snapfish should compete with the likes of Adobe Express, however a basic, easy to use photo editing toolkit would go a long way in making better looking galleries. Another idea would be to categorize tools. Knowing that the photography market can be divided into the “hobbyist/pro” and “other’s categories” I think it’s important to position the tools as such, including functionality clearly addressed at one or the other.
# Tuesday, April 15, 2008 03:18 PM by shem.szot@hp.com
Agreed, with so many photo sharing/management sites out there, what can make Snapfish standing out (other than price), that is a big challenge. We do hope the offerings from Snapfish Lab can provide Snapfish some inputs on their business strategy development. Specically, I like the comment on associating tools with consumer catogories. Clearly, tools like AutoLevel will be appreciated more by "hobbyist/pro" rather then "Emily". One tool that we are going to offer on Snapfish Lab soon functions like "one-click" enhancement, which is more for regular consumers. So, stay tuned :-).
# Tuesday, April 15, 2008 06:29 PM by Peng Wu
Hi. The Fisheye visualization is great, however I find it a bit frustrating not to be able to zoom directly into a photo to view it larger. How about letting the user zoom into the photo with a single click and then zoom out with the next click. This would also allow for a menu to be displayed while in the zoomed in mode for example to access other snapfish features such as printing, emailing, etc..). Just an idea.. I'm sure you have tons, however you can add this one to the 'stack'.
# Wednesday, April 16, 2008 05:25 PM by shem.szot@hp.com

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