Photostax

PhotoStax is a software application for organizing and editing digital photos, created by Matthew Vandergrift. The word 'PhotoStax' is meant to convey the purpose that the system was built for, to organize your Photo->Stax. The logo is designed also to portray the software with a waitor hand serving pictures and images with the web as a folder to be mutually shared by all. Freeware offerings are available through BETA testing of Versions 1 & 2. With support and/or contributions PhotoStax will commit to remaining freeware for it's "life-time"

There is native support for Windows XP and Windows Vista, as well as a version for Linux coming soon, available through http://www.photostax.net as well as subscriptions to publications at http://photostax.site.io.
For Windows 98 and Windows ME, only an older version is available as .NET has a run-time redistributable package. Development is planned for mobile deployment once testing of Linux based systems is completed.

Features
Capturing
To gather images that you intend to filter / fix or file PhotoStax has an option to capture from image sources such as scanners and cameras as well as video cameras and web camera URL's. The video camera capture screen also has a live 'Sphere filter' addition allowing you to modify your capture with an appearence similar to fish-eye.
Capture delay timers exist in the beta release version 1.x with motion capture recording available in 2.x.
Organization and editing
For organizing photos PhotoStax has web or file importing features.
It also offers several common photo editing functions, including sharpen enhancement, smoothing, rotate left or right and cropping. Other advanced features include red eye reduction, sphere, swirl, grey-scale, sepia, HSL color enhancement, brightness, water effect, pixelate, contrast, invert, RGB color modification, reflection, emboss and edge detect. From the main snapable screens you can create albums, add to Windows Favorites or your Stax, as well as make slide shows programs, print in an environment similar to a professional studio and add multipele layer images. Images can also be prepared for external use, such as for CD burning or printing, by reducing file size and setting up page layouts. There is also an integration with online photo printing services, web sharing albums and custom tags with the April 2008 Version 2.0 BETA release.

Keywords
PhotoStax relies on EXIF data already available to gather information about photos and images and as such has content rich data regarding for example the make, model of a camera as well as many other camera and orientation information values.

Searching
PhotoStax has a search screen that has many custom settings allowing you to specify what folders to search, or all and how to search as well as retrieving pictures and images from the web.

When a word is typed into the search screen and the user clicks "go", images will be displayed that were indexed by Google and will return the image preview and the URL where the image is located. The user then has options available in a single click to 'Add to Album', 'Add to Stax' or 'Add to Favorites' as well as Right-Click options for Open image, Open Folder (or web site)

PhotoStax relies on the Google API for natural language syntax and as such supports boolean operators for searching in much the same way as Google's web search. All search terms are included by default (as with the operator "AND"), and keywords may be omitted by using the hyphen (as in the boolean operator "NOT"). For example, the search "family -friends" will cause PhotoStax to display all images with the keyword family, but which do not include the keyword friends.

Viewing
PhotoStax has separate re-sizable view windows that snap together to make for a custom user environment that is friendly and helpful.
The GUI has many modules that complement each other with a common color scheme through out with gradient fades and contrasting colors. In addition to color, the system also represents all of it's features on the windows with graphical buttons whose image indicates the corresponding feature. The buttons image also has a reflection of itself to give additional interaction with the user. The many screens will also retain their individual custom position and sizes through-out subsequent sessions.
The slide-show is a full-screen viewing state with several options on transition mechanism, background color and exit method.

Backup
PhotoStax does not by default overwrite photos when changes are made. Instead, it ask how the user would like to proceed as well as giving them an option to proceed in that manner in the future. The system has 30 slots dedicated to the file for undo/redo of changes while the image is loaded into memory.

Image Orientation
To date technologies exist to detect camera orientation given specific data such as EXIF or others. PhotoStax Development has indicated in forums that it intends to design a method of extracting that orientation for the purpose of auto-rotating images.
This feature is in design and development will begin in the near future in a subsequent Version 2.x release.

Other PhotoStax Features
PhotoStax Web Albums

PhotoStax Web Albums (PWA) is a photo-sharing upgrade in development that benefits from web service Flickr to host images with a global or local community. With the API platform you can interact with the Flickr services allowing custom groups, contacts, albums and images as well as many custom services (Prints, calling cards, photo-books, slideshow-DVDs, postage stamps, and much more.)

It allows users with accounts at Yahoo to store and share 100 MB of photos for free and benefit with it being tied in with Yahoo! for all the services they provide. Users can purchase more features as an upgrade and increase storage space as needed.

Flickr
Users may upload pictures either via a web interface on Flickr.NET or through PhotoStax.NET Version 2.x.
With the PhotoStax.NET system the images are uploaded Asynchronously and responses are given in the form of REST messages. This REST state allows for quick communication with the important feature of being stateless and as such has an increased level of security by default for the client and server systems as no memory needs to be retained nor connection pools and ports remain open to maintain connection information. This allows PhotoStax to offer a quick way to find and upload images or albums as the user is already inside the application and in most cases has already selected the image or album they wish to share with a given list of contacts.

Private photo albums are available through PhotoStax has included options available from the Flickr API.

PhotoStax Web Portal
PhotoStax Web Portal is a Google dashboard which allows added users to participate in a social network, while allowing the user to fully customize their individual start page through hundreds of Google Gadgets. The account includes an email address 'user@photostax.net' that is accessible throughout Google sites.

Version history
Windows
Prior Updates:

1st Half of October *Ver. 1.3

MP3 Music fix for slide shows & checked start track loop.
Support for VERY large resolution files...2400+x 1600+
Added arrows to Fix/Alter screen to navigate folder dir.
Added a button which allows you to add items to your "My Stax" from each of the other tabs on your thumbnails.
Added fix for saving after using gray-scale.

2nd Half of October *Ver. 1.31

Saving thumbnails after thumbnail size remains the same for a *while. (Next refresh/load the sizes and images will have already been thumb nailed and will load FAST!!!
Adding more support for IMAPI CD-Burning...
MP3 Music fix for slide shows & checked start track loop.
Support for large resolution files...2400+x 1600+
Added arrows to Fix/Alter screen to navigate back/forward through the folder directory it's in.
Added a button which allows you to add items to your "My Stax" from each of the other tabs on your thumbnails.
Added fix for saving after using gray-scale filter.

Leap Year Updates *Ver. 1.5

Added a Canvas with Multiple Layers
select multiple layers
size / move / flip
Added Layer Customizations
Adding layers on drag region over image
Canvas movement for greater Layer control
Layer Handles for easy Resize or Movement
Layer Background Colors and Styles
Linear Gradient
Hatch Styles
Layer Border Color and Style
Dash Styles
Layer Grid Lines
Layer Transparency Slider
Layer Image 'Make a Single Color Transparent'
Shadow Filter
Thumbnail preview implements the Frame Filter
Folder Information on Preview Screen
Open Folder from Preview Screen
Enable/Disable Buttons when file is loaded or not
Double buffering on reflection buttons
Frame Filter
With or without drop shadow
PhotoStax.NET Implements auto update feature in .NET

Bug Fixes

March 4th Update Addresses:
Saving error when clicking Finish on 'Fix/Alter' (Previously you had to select a "New" file-name)-FIXED
Thumbnail drag region selection had drawn borders of image over the row or column they contained - FIXED
Canvas selection was quirky or buggy - FIXED

See also the updates page and the latest publication page.

Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris
PhotoStax.NET is currently in development for it's version 1.x release on a Wine installed system. Wine is an emulation layer allowing many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86-based Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Solaris. It is not a native Linux program but an adapted Windows version that uses the Wine libraries.
* A Beta Release Candidate of PhotoStax for Linux will be published by late Spring 2008.

Mac OS X
PhotoStax.NET is NOT in design for custom Mac libraries, but as of now software emulators exist to allow .NET applications to run on Mac systems. The Mono project is always being contributed to and as such makes for a great platform for running .NET framework applications from a Mac environment. For now, PhotoStax is available mainly for Windows systems but as noted on the PhotoStax web site they are planning in the future.

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See Also

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