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Show HN: instafilter.io, a cloud API for applying filters to images

47 points by fosk 14y ago

luiperd 14y ago
I've been using CamanJS for a while now: http://camanjs.com/ http://camanjs.com/
Smudge 14y ago
I'm impressed at the features and simplicity, but I'm wondering what the real use cases are. If filters were a core part of my business, I'd certainly be doing them in-house instead of relying on a 3rd party service... Especially when it comes to the basic operations (crop, resize, etc) which can simply be done with imagemagick (or rmagick). Even Heroku allows for those operations on temporary files, despite the read-only filesystem. That said, the "real-time" feature seems like it could make certain use cases much easier. (An alternative to firing up workers and returning an intermediary status to the client.) Also, I suppose apps without much server infrastructure (built on more limited PaaS offerings) could benefit from this API.
alexchamberlain 14y ago
Fantastic idea. Simple, yet hard enough that it's annoying to do in house.
freditup 14y ago
I think the service looks quite neat, and the effects well done. However, wouldn't it make sense to apply filters client-side in most cases? (I'm personally always a fan of using their computing power not mine if it can be worked that way!) Plus, the time to upload and retrieve each image seems like it would be relatively high. Finally, the pricing seems rather expensive. Still, it's a neat idea. I'm just wondering if it will make sense to use this service in many real applications. Anyone have an example usage scenario?
- tedmiston 14y ago
  Perhaps the computation becomes cheaper roundtrip past a certain file size as opposed to fully on the client (only speculating). It could be an interesting strategy for filtering full-resolution images when you have 8MP at a time.
Cherian 14y ago
Not to discourage the project (love the interface), but isn’t this far easier to do client side than to send it to a server all the time? If there is a js lib that makes use of canvas then I am ready to buy a license. Also do you provide advice on creating custom filters?
smokeyj 14y ago
The other cost to consider is bandwidth. Licensing a binary would be a convenient work around.
- idonthack 14y ago
  licensing binaries would be silly, considering the dearth of free image processing libraries available on every platform. also, i really don't understand how they expect to compete with said libraries
Robby2012 14y ago
wow, this is really expensive for something I can do for free with ImageMagick
PufferBuffer 14y ago
This sounds like a really neat service. Just about a year ago a friend and I wanted to do a filtering app for our own use, but didn't seem to find any straight-forward resources to apply filters w/out doing too much development on our own. This is awesome; we may actually considering doing the old app again, thanks to these guys.
marban 14y ago
Any plans for gaussian blur?
brianbreslin 14y ago
Did you guys see the cloudflare module for this a few months back? http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/20/cloudflare-instaflare-instagram-joke/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/20/cloudflare-instaflare-inst... also see https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/instaflare https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/instaflare
- jgrahamc 14y ago
  Ho ho ho. Thanks for reminding me about that. I came up with the filter names and descriptions. The complete list was: Hangover: Everything's too bright! Where did all the colors go? Argh, my head. Drugstore: Perhaps you shouldn't have gone for the cheapest possible photo printing Truffaut: You've always dreamed of appearing in a European art house movie Blemish: For when only black and white can rescue your picture Madison: You like to think you're Don Draper, but you're actually Pete Campbell Jaundice: The relaxing yellow hue that accompanies a severe liver problem Blue Rinse: You tried to wash your socks and your white shirts together, didn't you? Cataract: This is how Grandma sees you Doves Cry: A Prince-ly purple vibe Williamsburg: Don’t you wish you’d lived there before it was cool to live there?
zupreme 14y ago
Great idea. Thought One: Your biggest barrier to adoption will be speed as you scale. If your API returns the modified image too slow, developers will quickly abandon you. So you'll need to invest heavily in RAM, processing power, and code/db optimization. Thought Two: I suggest, if you have the storage to support it, that you take a checksum of all original images and cache the original and modified versions of them. As you scale you will find lots of people submitting the same images (celebrity pics, scenery, etc) and you could save alot of time and bandwidth by doing a checksum client-side, AJAXing it back to your server and, if there is a match, just return your cached version (if the client requests the same filter) or processing the cached version. In either case you eliminate the need for the upload, and you speed up processing server-side. Just my 2 cents.
- samstave 14y ago
  Better yet - you should be leveraging IMGUR to store and server the files. The API should apply the filters, but let IMGUR do all the storage and gallery-ing.
  - Smudge 14y ago
    Why would you need gallery pages for an API? Wouldn't it make more sense to just use something like S3 to store raw files?
    - samstave 14y ago
      Maybe that was worded poorly: What I meant was to have two galleries on IMGUR, ORIGINGAL and FILTERED. The API should be used for applying the filters, but why build all the image hosting and gallery capabilities when IMGUR has solved that problem. Use IMGURs API to push the originals and filtered versions to the right spot. Pay the $30 for the annual sub and you can have unlimited photos in your account.
      - Smudge 14y ago
        I see. I still don't quite get how that addresses zupreme's idea, which had nothing to do with displaying galleries. He was suggesting that instafilter implement a potential performance optimization by caching images as they come in, so the same operations (to the same images) could be more quickly returned from any subsequent calls to the API. In terms of leveraging IMGUR for hosting and gallery capabilities, yes that would work if all you need is a place to dump original and filtered photos. But my impression was that this API would be used by apps that integrate images into their existing service (whatever it might be). Imagine taking a picture in Instagram, choosing a filter, and being redirected to an IMGUR gallery with the result...
hnriot 14y ago
If these kind of nonsense filters really are in demand, doing them in a cloud environment for photographs is insane. Javascript makes much more sense. For video, I could understand the need for server side processing power, but uploading an image, operating on it and then returning the image is crazy. However, I am against the whole filter nonsense in the first place. A photograph should should stand on its photographic merit, and not by its medium (filters simulate different mediums, old film, b&w, polaroid etc)
- tedmiston 14y ago
  They aren't all toy filters. Levels, contrast, resize, crop, even black and white are all totally reasonable post-processing while maintaining photographic merit IMO. Of course, if you run crappy photographs through filters, your output will still be crappy photographs.
- fruchtose 14y ago
  I think when you refer to "medium" you mean style. Here photography is the medium to deliver a message. I think we can agree that not every message is best presented in the same style. Would you present a photo of a party in the same way you present a photo of a war zone? Different photos need different styles of presentation. There is skill not just to picking the style, and adjusting the style to suit the photo. So it's fair to say that a photograph needs a certain visual style to stand out, and photo filters can strengthen a photograph by enhancing aspects of that photo that adhere to the desired style.
  - hnriot 14y ago
    No, not style, I meant medium. These filters are emulating, as do instagrams, different photographic mediums, like color film, b&w film, instant film, etc. Photo filters do not strengthen a photograph, they detract at best. A good photograph of a party, or a good photograph of a war zone are still good photographs. People don't go to a war zone and pick a filter to emphasize the horror. Understanding what makes a photograph work is a complex interaction between the image and the person looking at it. My point is that you can take a boring photo and add novelty by adding a filter, but that's a cheap sham, it's not a better photograph. Making a photograph b&w for example doesn't bestow it with artistic merit. As an example, go look up someone like Bruce Davidson, and see try these filters out on any of his photographs, after a few attempts you will start to see that the images worked before you added any fluff. Style isn't about filters, or about HDR or any of that nonsense, it's about visual intellect, about making a photograph by assembling components in a visual dialog with the viewer.
theDaveB 14y ago
This is really interesting, I use Corona SDK to develop iOS apps and there is no way in Corona to manipulate images directly in this manner. Dave
numeral_two 14y ago
How is this not a joke?
- idonthack 14y ago
  seriously, i can't believe this thing got upvoted. how do they expect to compete with imagemagick, batch mode gimp, and the like? or even client-side JS libraries like pixastic?
jaredcwhite 14y ago
Looks very cool! I would also like to point out Cloudinary as a great service that features image hosting & upload in addition to filters. I think Instafilter.io could maybe get a leg up though if they offer and publicize a growing collection of available filters (perhaps a user-generated "filter store" of sorts).
jhales 14y ago
Can some one explain what the benefit of this over using something like imageMagick? Is there a hidden cost to imageMagick that I am missing?
brandoncapecci 14y ago
PaintbrushJS, CaymanJS, VintageJS and Filtrr all do this for free.

47 points by fosk 14y ago

I've been using CamanJS for a while now: http://camanjs.com/ http://camanjs.com/

I'm impressed at the features and simplicity, but I'm wondering what the real use cases are. If filters were a core part of my business, I'd certainly be doing them in-house instead of relying on a 3rd party service... Especially when it comes to the basic operations (crop, resize, etc) which can simply be done with imagemagick (or rmagick). Even Heroku allows for those operations on temporary files, despite the read-only filesystem. That said, the "real-time" feature seems like it could make certain use cases much easier. (An alternative to firing up workers and returning an intermediary status to the client.) Also, I suppose apps without much server infrastructure (built on more limited PaaS offerings) could benefit from this API.

alexchamberlain 14y ago

Fantastic idea. Simple, yet hard enough that it's annoying to do in house.

freditup 14y ago

I think the service looks quite neat, and the effects well done. However, wouldn't it make sense to apply filters client-side in most cases? (I'm personally always a fan of using their computing power not mine if it can be worked that way!) Plus, the time to upload and retrieve each image seems like it would be relatively high. Finally, the pricing seems rather expensive. Still, it's a neat idea. I'm just wondering if it will make sense to use this service in many real applications. Anyone have an example usage scenario?

tedmiston 14y ago
Perhaps the computation becomes cheaper roundtrip past a certain file size as opposed to fully on the client (only speculating). It could be an interesting strategy for filtering full-resolution images when you have 8MP at a time.

Cherian 14y ago

Not to discourage the project (love the interface), but isn’t this far easier to do client side than to send it to a server all the time? If there is a js lib that makes use of canvas then I am ready to buy a license. Also do you provide advice on creating custom filters?

smokeyj 14y ago

The other cost to consider is bandwidth. Licensing a binary would be a convenient work around.

idonthack 14y ago
licensing binaries would be silly, considering the dearth of free image processing libraries available on every platform. also, i really don't understand how they expect to compete with said libraries

Robby2012 14y ago

wow, this is really expensive for something I can do for free with ImageMagick

PufferBuffer 14y ago

This sounds like a really neat service. Just about a year ago a friend and I wanted to do a filtering app for our own use, but didn't seem to find any straight-forward resources to apply filters w/out doing too much development on our own. This is awesome; we may actually considering doing the old app again, thanks to these guys.

marban 14y ago

Any plans for gaussian blur?

brianbreslin 14y ago

Did you guys see the cloudflare module for this a few months back? http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/20/cloudflare-instaflare-instagram-joke/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/20/cloudflare-instaflare-inst... also see https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/instaflare https://www.cloudflare.com/apps/instaflare

jgrahamc 14y ago
Ho ho ho. Thanks for reminding me about that. I came up with the filter names and descriptions. The complete list was: Hangover: Everything's too bright! Where did all the colors go? Argh, my head. Drugstore: Perhaps you shouldn't have gone for the cheapest possible photo printing Truffaut: You've always dreamed of appearing in a European art house movie Blemish: For when only black and white can rescue your picture Madison: You like to think you're Don Draper, but you're actually Pete Campbell Jaundice: The relaxing yellow hue that accompanies a severe liver problem Blue Rinse: You tried to wash your socks and your white shirts together, didn't you? Cataract: This is how Grandma sees you Doves Cry: A Prince-ly purple vibe Williamsburg: Don’t you wish you’d lived there before it was cool to live there?

zupreme 14y ago

Great idea. Thought One: Your biggest barrier to adoption will be speed as you scale. If your API returns the modified image too slow, developers will quickly abandon you. So you'll need to invest heavily in RAM, processing power, and code/db optimization. Thought Two: I suggest, if you have the storage to support it, that you take a checksum of all original images and cache the original and modified versions of them. As you scale you will find lots of people submitting the same images (celebrity pics, scenery, etc) and you could save alot of time and bandwidth by doing a checksum client-side, AJAXing it back to your server and, if there is a match, just return your cached version (if the client requests the same filter) or processing the cached version. In either case you eliminate the need for the upload, and you speed up processing server-side. Just my 2 cents.

samstave 14y ago
Better yet - you should be leveraging IMGUR to store and server the files. The API should apply the filters, but let IMGUR do all the storage and gallery-ing.
- Smudge 14y ago
  Why would you need gallery pages for an API? Wouldn't it make more sense to just use something like S3 to store raw files?
  - samstave 14y ago
    Maybe that was worded poorly: What I meant was to have two galleries on IMGUR, ORIGINGAL and FILTERED. The API should be used for applying the filters, but why build all the image hosting and gallery capabilities when IMGUR has solved that problem. Use IMGURs API to push the originals and filtered versions to the right spot. Pay the $30 for the annual sub and you can have unlimited photos in your account.
    - Smudge 14y ago
      I see. I still don't quite get how that addresses zupreme's idea, which had nothing to do with displaying galleries. He was suggesting that instafilter implement a potential performance optimization by caching images as they come in, so the same operations (to the same images) could be more quickly returned from any subsequent calls to the API. In terms of leveraging IMGUR for hosting and gallery capabilities, yes that would work if all you need is a place to dump original and filtered photos. But my impression was that this API would be used by apps that integrate images into their existing service (whatever it might be). Imagine taking a picture in Instagram, choosing a filter, and being redirected to an IMGUR gallery with the result...

hnriot 14y ago

If these kind of nonsense filters really are in demand, doing them in a cloud environment for photographs is insane. Javascript makes much more sense. For video, I could understand the need for server side processing power, but uploading an image, operating on it and then returning the image is crazy. However, I am against the whole filter nonsense in the first place. A photograph should should stand on its photographic merit, and not by its medium (filters simulate different mediums, old film, b&w, polaroid etc)

tedmiston 14y ago
They aren't all toy filters. Levels, contrast, resize, crop, even black and white are all totally reasonable post-processing while maintaining photographic merit IMO. Of course, if you run crappy photographs through filters, your output will still be crappy photographs.
fruchtose 14y ago
I think when you refer to "medium" you mean style. Here photography is the medium to deliver a message. I think we can agree that not every message is best presented in the same style. Would you present a photo of a party in the same way you present a photo of a war zone? Different photos need different styles of presentation. There is skill not just to picking the style, and adjusting the style to suit the photo. So it's fair to say that a photograph needs a certain visual style to stand out, and photo filters can strengthen a photograph by enhancing aspects of that photo that adhere to the desired style.
- hnriot 14y ago
  No, not style, I meant medium. These filters are emulating, as do instagrams, different photographic mediums, like color film, b&w film, instant film, etc. Photo filters do not strengthen a photograph, they detract at best. A good photograph of a party, or a good photograph of a war zone are still good photographs. People don't go to a war zone and pick a filter to emphasize the horror. Understanding what makes a photograph work is a complex interaction between the image and the person looking at it. My point is that you can take a boring photo and add novelty by adding a filter, but that's a cheap sham, it's not a better photograph. Making a photograph b&w for example doesn't bestow it with artistic merit. As an example, go look up someone like Bruce Davidson, and see try these filters out on any of his photographs, after a few attempts you will start to see that the images worked before you added any fluff. Style isn't about filters, or about HDR or any of that nonsense, it's about visual intellect, about making a photograph by assembling components in a visual dialog with the viewer.

theDaveB 14y ago

This is really interesting, I use Corona SDK to develop iOS apps and there is no way in Corona to manipulate images directly in this manner. Dave

numeral_two 14y ago

How is this not a joke?

idonthack 14y ago
seriously, i can't believe this thing got upvoted. how do they expect to compete with imagemagick, batch mode gimp, and the like? or even client-side JS libraries like pixastic?

jaredcwhite 14y ago

Looks very cool! I would also like to point out Cloudinary as a great service that features image hosting & upload in addition to filters. I think Instafilter.io could maybe get a leg up though if they offer and publicize a growing collection of available filters (perhaps a user-generated "filter store" of sorts).

jhales 14y ago

Can some one explain what the benefit of this over using something like imageMagick? Is there a hidden cost to imageMagick that I am missing?

brandoncapecci 14y ago

PaintbrushJS, CaymanJS, VintageJS and Filtrr all do this for free.