We screwed up! Plus free for everyone!

We screwed up! Plus free for everyone! The update we released of Pixlr-o-matic iOS two days ago was really broken and anyone who upgraded ended up with an app that crashed constantly. We have put out new update that fix that issue and to tell you how sorry we are PLUS is free for anyone the next 3 days (Until Monday).

So go get it and tell your friends - Pixlr-o-Matic Plus 

Again I'm really really sorry if you had any issues with our bad release.

//Ola

Pixlr Editor and Pixlr Express now work with Google Drive

I’m very excited to announce that both Pixlr Editor and Pixlr Express now work with Google Drive, the new cloud storage and collaboration service from Google. 

I started Pixlr because I wanted to create the best tool possible to edit photos anywhere and everywhere—no downloads, no installations, no hassles. Just open any image file and you can get started in Pixlr. And today opening that file just got easier. With Google Drive, you can have your image files accessible whenever and wherever you need them. From one computer to another, or one person to another…it puts you in complete control of how, where and with whom you want to work.

Sounds cool, right? If you want to check it out, first go to drive.google.com and sign up for Google Drive. It’s free and you get 5 GB of storage to get started. Once your account is set up, you can add Pixlr Editor and Pixlr Express to Google Drive from the Chrome Web Store. If you already have the Chrome app installed, you’re all set. Just head straight to Google Drive and you’ll be able to open images from Google Drive right into Pixlr, then save your edited images back to Google Drive from Pixlr.

We’re always making changes to improve our experience. If there is something specific you’d like to see or be able to accomplish with Pixlr, let us know!

//ola

Now with 100 effects!

The last couple of days I have added a bunch new effects in many of the packs. For example there are six new "creative" effects and seven new in the "vintage" pack. I just uploaded number 100! They are all available in our iOS, Android, web apps - Have fun!

//Ola

Announcing more ways to use Pixlr!

As of today, we'll begin rolling out new features to registered Photobucket users, who will be able to edit their photos using Pixlr tools in a completely seamless integration on Photobucket.com. The Photobucket integration will offer embedded Pixlr Editor and Pixlr Express features. Check out this video preview for more details!

So what changes can you expect? You’ll get the same features, the same service, all still for free on pixlr.com. Or log in to Photobucket com, edit any photo and you’ll see your favorite Pixlr features right there!

Make your name famous!

Right now I'm creating a new effect pack and I need your help. Our effect packs show up in all our products and can be seen by more then 20 million people, I just need to name each of the effects ...

Do you want to be used by millions of people! ... err .. that came out wrong .. do you want the chance to name a future effect for pixlr and the bragging rights that comes with it?



Just post you best image, describe what the effect should look like or let me know in any other way why this is the best name for an effect!

Post it on twitter (@pixlr), on our facebook wall or post in in your blog, youtube/vimeo video, tumblr, photobucket, flickr or whatever JUST let me know!

Peace!

//Ola

400 million pictures in under 4 years…and still counting

It’s amazing to see how far Pixlr has come in just three and 1/2 years. When Pixlr first went live in 2008, we had 10,000 images edited in the first 24 hours. 100,000 visits in the first week. And I thought THAT was amazing. But this week we crossed an incredible milestone. More than 400 million pictures have been edited with Pixlr.com, and more than 1.5 million new images are edited every single day. And that’s just online; it doesn’t count the more than 8 million people editing images on Pixlr-o-matic on their phones.

It’s been a busy three years. I started out adding features when I couldn’t sleep at night. Then I added languages because fans like you helped complete the translations. We added Pixlr Grabber for Chrome and Firefox, imm.io as a sharing tool, Express and o-matic to make editing fun and easy. Since joining the Autodesk Consumer Group last year, we launched Pixlr-o-matic on iOS and Android. In January we re-launched Pixlr Express on the web. Now we’re not only seeing more than 15 million unique users each month….we’re growing faster than ever. It has been awesome to watch millions of people around the world embrace Pixlr as their favorite photo editor. No other photo editor approaches our volume and the breadth of our services across online and mobile.

But we’re just getting started. It’s nice to look back at what we’ve achieved and celebrate sometimes, but we mainly stay focused on what’s next. Stay tuned. Before we hit half a billion edits on pixlr.com and 10 million mobile users (less then 90 days away), you’ll see at least three new products from Pixlr. Along with new features, new partners and major updates from us in the coming months!

Thanks to all of you and my committed team around the world we are able to create some awesomeness!

//Ola

The wall!

Thank you all who submitted photos for our "Pixlr wall of fame" at the Toronto office! In just a few days we got more then 500 images sent to us! It's "People", "Objects", "Food" and "Places" in the four boards.

Tomorrow there will be a big Sketchbook event in the office, tons of talented artists and press will enjoy the awesome images you made!

Big thanks goes out to Epson and Eddie who supplied us with all the photo paper and printers!

//Ola

Join our Wall of Fame!

UPDATE! We've decided to make the Toronto walls FOOD themed for now, so email us your food-and-drink themed Pixlr-edited images, your first name and city to submit@pixlr.com for consideration.

We’re redecorating our Toronto office and we want to make a Pixlr collage for the walls. Want to be a part of it? Send us your image (or images—send as many as you would like) that you edited using Pixlr, together with your FIRST NAME and CITY for consideration no later than Wednesday, February 22. You can edit them in Pixlr-o-matic, Pixlr Express or Pixlr Editor. If we select your image (or images), we will print the images in 4 inch x 6 inch (10.2 x 15.2 cm) for our office. We’ll also post pictures of the final collage on the Pixlr blog so that you can see the end result. The images can be portrait or landscape orientation.


It’s easy to submit. Just email your Pixlr-edited image(s), your first name and city to submit@pixlr.com.

PLEASE NOTE: by submitting your image to submit@pixlr.com, you warrant and represent that your submission complies with Pixlr’s Terms of Service and you hereby grant Autodesk, Inc. and its designees the worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable right (through multiple tiers) and license to use, copy, adapt, publish, store, display, reproduce, modify, and distribute your first name, image(s) and city for any and all publicity, marketing and advertising purposes by any and all means or media. You also agree not to assert any so-called “moral rights” related to this matter and acknowledge that you will receive no compensation for your submission or the right and license mentioned above.

Pixlr Express ReUpdate!

Not to go into too many details here but we have an overall strategy with our editing products, one can say; Simple, Effective and Advanced. This then corresponds to our current offering of Pixlr-o-matic, Pixlr Express and Pixlr Editor.

We get tons of requests of adding more features, sliders, knobs and choices in Pixlr-o-matic but if we did that the reason why o-matic is such a awesome product would go away, it would be too hard to understand and to many settings. So o-matic works very well for novice users and people who want to play with an image once in a while. For more active users and those who want more control over the effects as well as adjustments, touchups, texts, stickers we have the new Express (http://pixlr.com/express/).

The concept of a single strip of items is good in o-matic but in express we really want to surface all the awesome content we actually have and are constantly adding more to. This is where the changes we just released come into play. When you now click one of the tabs you see all the different packs in that section (instead of only the default pack). When you click a pack you get a additional setting for selecting between all the items in that pack.

If there are more items then fits into your screen size you can scroll the content with the arrows in the top left corner or just drag/flick the strip with your mouse.

When you want to try an item you click on it and the strip goes away, it then load and apply the effect. A tip here is to click on the “pin” button in the top right corner to lock the strip from hiding, then you can click trough the list and try stuff out!

We also added buttons for shuffle and favorite, one click on the shuffle and we by random select one item in the pack, great if you don’t really know what you might want. By clicking on the favorite button you add the current item to your favorite list.

As soon as you have any item as a favorite there will be an extra pack in the menu called favorites for quick access to your selected items.

Express is new and will be updated on a daily basis for the next month, more content, fonts and touch-ups to look out for!

//Ola

Thank you Pixlr fans: Pixlr-o-matic wins Best Photo Editing App!

Today Pixlr-o-matic received a 2011 Best App Ever award for the Best Photo Editing App on Android.

This is an annual set of awards hosted by 148apps.com. It’s particularly special because the award doesn’t come from an individual or editorial team. Apps are nominated by users and the winners are chosen by users, so this award is truly from you.

Thanks to all the Pixlr-o-matic fans that made this possible!

The Amazing Pixlr Express Re-launch!

Pixlr-o-matic has become a great success for us, especially in the short period of time and across all the different platforms and devices we support. Millions of people create stunning photos on their phones, tablets and in the web browser each day - this with just three simple clicks.

The main focus of the pixlr-o-matic apps has always been, easy and playful. It's important that anyone can understand and use the application. With that mantra in mind we can't add lots of new features because then we kinda lose the wide user base and the simpleness of the app.

So to give you people that feel a bit constrained in the pixlr-o-matic app more power we created the new Pixlr Express (http://pixlr.com/express/). Here you both can user the general adjustments like crop, re-size, colors, contrast and red eye reduction as well as control the impact of an effect, border or overlay. 

We really focued on the image and I'm extremely happy how the UI turned out, very scaled back but somewhat fun and very easy.

It might just be because Iv'e been coding and designing too many nights to get this product done, but really I feel like this is one of our best apps so far.. I'm very proud to make it public!

There are a bunch new things, like the new crop with simple constraints and straighten with it's easy but powerful grids.

And with just a click on the "More" button you get access to all the different content packs we have with tons of old and new effects, overlays and borders!

We will keep updating the content so come back often and check for new awesomeness!

As always when one creates a product from scratch there can be things that don't really work as it should or stuff that seems weird. If you find anything please let us know in the support area.

Ah and don't be greedy, let your friends know about the new app as well ;)

Be Safe - have fun! (http://pixlr.com/express/)

//Ola

Packs, packs, auto crop and packs!

It's hip to be square! (sorry for the bad 80th ref) .. For some odd reason people want their images to be square nowadays.

To please is what we do so we just added a "Auto crop" feature in Pixlr-o-matic (web version for now). Click the crop icon to toggle from original to squared format.

The feature might seem a bit limited but this is to keep the product what it is, easy, fun and fast.

You guys who want more control over the crop effects, overlays, borders etc just have to wait a week and get the new awesome Pixlr express.

Our designer have been busy creating new packs, the last week alone we added a total of 6 packs with over 120 different new looks, we will keep adding new stuff and have some really cool effects in store.

Out!

//Ola

FAQ: Yes packs are coming to Android, they are part of the next release due in a couple of weeks. No we will not do Blackberry or Windows mobile at this time :). Yes you can sneak peak at the new express (http://pixlr.com/secret/index.htm), but don't tell anyone. Yes we have some issues with the last Pixl-o-matic for iOS, some of the new effects are to memory expensive and crash on big images. Yes effect packs on iOS will be much cheaper soon.

Share “Your World” with ABC News, Pixlr

We teamed up with ABC News to help you create and share “Your World” as part of a viewer generated art project to re-imagine our globe. ABC will combine the individual views to create a new vision of our planet and debut the crowd-sourced creation on "TED + Diane" in January 2012. Get started by downloading a template from ABCNews.com, then color and design your world in any way you see fit.

We’ll also share the final piece with you here on the Pixlr blog, but make sure to tune in to see the global perspectives live on ABC!

Content packs for Pixlr-o-matic web!

One of the great things about our Pixlr-o-matic products are the amount of different high quality effects we have in them. Well .. now we are adding tons and tons of new effects, overlays and borders.

For now there is a big plus in the end of the strip, click that to get into the pack browse and start adding and removing items from your strips.

We'll be adding more packs in the coming days and keep adding them.



Off to play!

//Ola

Pixlr-o-matic for Android!

The number one request we have had since the first launch of Pixlr-o-matic for iOS has been to release it on Android as well.

So today I'm happy to reveal the Android version of pom, download the app here!

Now go off and play, let us know what you think!

Say hello to some new friends!

I just released an update to pixlr-o-matic for the web. It mostly contains a lot of tweaks under the hood but we managed to squeeze some new effects in there for you to play with.

New to the effect family are Samantha, Ramona, Fred, Dean and Jean. We also have done some tweaks to Harry, Bob and Melissa to make them look better.

We did however lose some effects at the same time, gone are Rachel, Courtney, Agatha, Leslie and William. Mosley because no-one liked them..

The big thing under the hood was adding code for a release of something we call "packs", in the near future you will be able to add tons of different new effects, borders and overlays to the strip.

Now go along and play with the new effects and let us know what you think!

//Ola

Pixlr-o-matic for Windows and OSX

The Pixlr-o-matic product line has been a smashing hit for us here at Pixlr HQ*, we made it available in Facebook, Chrome web store, on pixlr.com and as an iOS app for you mobile Apple devices. (Soon also Android)

Some time ago I got this mail from a guy who loves the web version of o-matic, he doesn't own a smartphone and he want's to create vintage photos on his travels, especially in areas that don't have internet access like the middle of nowhere Asia.


So I'm getting this picture in my head of a lonely guy stranded in Asia with a Buddhist monk on his right side and a panda bear on his left side, they are all sad and have tears in their eyes ... Therefore I'm especially excited to make this guy (and the panda) happy because today we are releasing Pixlr-o-matic for Windows and OSX. Jump over to the download page and install the app for you offline days!

Out!
Ola

*We actually don't have a HQ, the people working with Pixlr are spread out over several offices from Stockholm in Sweden, to Shanghai in China, to Tonto in Canada, to San Francisco and Portland in USA.

Three years anniversary and millions of reasons to be happy!

It kind of interesting how fast one get used to how things are right now and take stuff for granted - I remember writing this post a year ago and I was so happy about our growth and numbers. Compared to last year we have grown over 250% and today we edit more than 20 million images per month with our web based utilities (Crazy).

Another epic win for us is the release of our first mobile application Pixlr-o-matic has totally blown up, we are talking about hitting one million downloads from iTunes store in just 11 days! We also pushed the all so popular Instagram of its throne and we were at one time the 10th most popular free iOS app in the world.

I'm so looking forward to the release of Pixlr-o-matic for Android and the other mobile applications we have in store for you.

Short and sweet - it's been a amazing year and I'm looking forward to the coming one, I promise we will deliver ever more cool, fun and wicked updates and products.

Humble and happy!

Ola - Founder, pixlr.com

Pixlr-o-matic goes mobile!

Yes it's true, now you can get the same fun and cool effects direct on your iDevice! Today we released Pixlr-o-matic for iOS i.e iPhone, iPod and iPad.

Not much to say - Just go to iTunes and hook the sweet app to your device!

http://itunes.apple.com/app/pixlr-o-matic/id450263811?mt=8

Over and out!
Ola

ps .. yes there will be an Android version soon enough ;) ds

Pixlr now a part of the Autodesk world.

So yes, we where bought by Autodesk - for you guys who don't know who they are ..  I'm not surprised, not that they aren't a big and important company but just because they - until a couple of years ago just worked with professional tools. Stuff like 80% of all modern cars are designed with and like all the special effects in movies and games are made in tools from Autodesk... You know the movie Avatar was made with tools from this company (and your IKEA furniture and LEGO toys)...

So yes they are big and great - In our case (The big PIXLR) we are part of a department called "Consumer group" they work with a slightly  different set of rules and approach, we have the freedom to try out different stuff and see if people like them. In this group there are products like Sketchbook, Thinkerbox and 123d.

The BIG! changes we are going to do on pixlr.com are .. nothing, nada, zip .. the people at Autodesk believe in the stuff we have done so far and we are going to be free enough to still deliver kick-ass products. We are however going to be more people working on the service so better, more stable and new products are going to be the result. (Like Pixlr-o-matic for iOS - I didn't say that by the way ..;) )

Oh and a other change is the tone on my tan since I'm going to spend a lot more time in San Francisco :) (Sweden have harsh winters)

To sum it up - No change, still free, open and great!

Cheerio
Ola