PhotosByColour.com
Description
PhotosByColour.com allows you to build a collection of online photos and then to rate and search your collection. Photos can be rated by colour, quality and tagging. So that one can later search for, say, purple flowers, or blue boats.
The site analyses you photos and builds colour data from your photo collection to help in colour searches. Anyone can rate photos (one user get one quailty rating per photo), so that global searchable database is also built, which helps others find the photographers content, then you can also contact the owner if the photo for more information.
PhotosByColour.com primarily aims to be a useful tool for organising your online photo collection, enabling more search options for your photos. Photos from different sources can be all managed from the one user interface.
Load
The 'Load' button opens 3 panels screens to allow you to load photos from other sites.
robmunro.net Photos
Click on a link to load some photos from robmunro.net.
Flickr
You can load photos from Flickr using this box by entering details in the relevant boxes:-
- Username: (Optional) Your Flickr username - if you saved this in your login data then this will be prefilled when you login. If empty then the search will bring back anyones photos.
- Tags: (Optional) Select a tag used for Flickr photos.
- Text: (Optional) Search the description text of photos.
- Max / Page: Use the slider to select the maximum number of results for a page. User the page buttons next to it to load the next set of MAX results.
Picasa
You can load photos from Picasa using this box by entering details in the relevant boxes:-
- Username: (Optional) your Picasa username - if you saved this in your login data then this will be prefilled when you login. If empty then the search will bring back anyones photos.
- Tags: (Optional)Select a tag used for Flickr photos.
- Album: (Optional) Search the description text of photos. Using the button next to the text box allows you to select fro
- Max /Page: Use the slider to select the maximum number of results for a page. User the page buttons next to it to load the next set of MAX results.
Import
The import utility allows you to import the photos you have just loaded - you will not be able to search them by colour until you have imported them and our processing theread has had time to analyse them.
Rate
The rate button opens the 'Rate / Tag' panel and enables rating of photos, colour ratings are set by pressing the 'Rate colour' button, all other attributes are updated automatically when the photo is changed.
Rate / Tag
There are a few settings:-
- Colour Picker: Select the colour you want to associate with the photo. The background colour will change so you can see it against the photo.
- Set default: Check this box if you want to set this colour as the default colour to appear with this photo.
- Rate colour: Click this button to save the colour rating.
- My Rating: Select the ratings for the photo.
- Overall: The overall rating for the photo.
- Composition: The technical rating for the photo, i.e. how good the technical features of the photo is (i.e. not under/over exposed, framing, etc)
- Interestingness: This is more a rating of the subject matter of the photo, and how it appeals to the viewer.
- Average rating: These are a display only indicators for the average rating for the photo by all users who have rated it.
- In collection: check this box to add it to you collection.
- Auto add: Checking this box causes viewed photos to be automatically added to you collection as they are viewed, so its not required to check the 'In collection' checkbox all the time.
Search
This panel has all the search option for your photos once they have been imported.
- Search by colour: Check this box to enable the colour search. If unchecked the colour search option will not be visible.
- Colour Picker: Select the colour you want search for.
- More options: Open this dropbox for different color search options.
- Range: This is the range for the colour search, it is the allowed variance form the selected search colour. e.g. if rgb(50,50,50) is selected and, range is 30, then colours beetween rgb(20,20,20) & rgb (80,80,80) will be searched.
- Averages/Histogram: This radio box chooses the type of colour search, these different types of searches are quite detailed, sometime its best to just leave them all checked, but it is also useful if there is a specific requirement.
- Averages: Search by different colour ratings and averages.
- Average colour: The average pixel colour in the photo. Check the checkbox to use this type of search.
- Average rating: The average colour rating for this photo. Check the checkbox to use this type of search.
- Any rating: If a photo has a colour rating matching the colour. the slider set the minimum number of ratings that a photo must have to be successful in the search. Check the checkbox to use this type of search.
- Mode colour: The most common pixel colour in the photo. Check the checkbox to use this type of search.
- Histogram: Search by the percentage of a colour in a photo.
- Histogram colour: Use this slider to select the minimum percentage of the photo area which must have this colour.
- Search by rating: Check this box to enable searching by rating.
- Overall,Composition,Interestingness: Select the desired minimum value for each rating category, or leave empty or 0 if you don't want to use it. These are the same metric as for rating the photos.
- Search by tag: Enter tags to search by, if you click on a tag in the tag cloud then it set the tag into this box.
- Search everyone: Check this to search everyones photos, if it is unchecked it will only search the photos in your collection. It defaults to unchecked if you are logged in.
- Max results: Set the maximum number of results to display
- Page: Set the page number, i.e. the next set of Max results entries for your search.
- Sort by: Set the category to sort by.
Info
The Information panels provide colour, tag and EXIF data information respectivley the 'Info' button at the top opens all three panels.
This panel shows the generated and rated colour information for the photo, hovering over any colour shows a swatch in the top-right of the panel with the web and (r,g,b) colour. There are four boxes at the top:
- Default colour:
- Average colour:
- Average rated colour:
- Mode colour:
Below these are displays for other colour sets:
- My colour ratings:
- All colour ratings:
- Colour histogram:
At the bottom the tag for the current photo are displayed.
Tag Cloud
The tag cloud is a typical tag cloud at the top of the panel there are two buttons
- Refresh: This refreshes the tag list
- Global/Presonal tags cloud: this switches beetween a global tag cloud and a clouds of just the tag for photos in your collection.
Exif Data
This displays the EXIF data for the photo, note that the display my vary beetween Flickr and Picasa as different data is stored by them.
Send/Print
There are links here for sending and printing your photos, and contacting other to show them PhotosByColour
- Send a link to this set: This pops up the email window to allow you to send your search to someone else, a link is included in the mail that will open up the same search as the one you currently have open.
- Invite a friend: This open up the email to allow you to invite someone to the site,
- Print with photobox: This open up a dialog to go to photobox to print photos.
- Contact content owner: This get information about the current photo from the provider so you can contact them about the photo. You can go to the original site
- Report Feedback/Bugs: This opens the emial window for you to send us you feedback - which is very important to us.
- Webservice: You can pull the data for a search out as a WebService (as JavaScript or XML) to use in you own application the details are here webservice
Photo window
This is the main window in the middle of the screen for vieweing photos, the panel in moveable on the screen and when you hover on the window some arrows appear at the top, these are:-
- Start slideshow: Start the slideshow where the current set of photos are moved thorugh
- Last photo: Go to the next photo.
- Next photo: Go to the last photo.
ThumbNails
The thumbnails show all the photos in the selected set, click on a thumbnail to view it in the main viewer.
At the left & right edges of the the thumbnails are forward and back buttons - if applicable - to move to the next set of thumbnails that will fit on the container.
Login
This is for entering and display your information
Enter your username and password in the boxes provided and click on 'Login'. Login takes place over a secure link. If you don't have a login yet
Then click the register link to register a username/password/email. If you have forgotten your password then click on the forgot password link
to enter your email address that you registered with and your login details will be sent.
The register form has fields for your user record these are:-
- Username: (Mandatory) (Must be unique) The username you wish to use.
- Password: (Mandatory) Your desired password.
- Password confirm: (Mandatory) Re-enter the desired password to ensure the are no mistakes.
- First name: Your first name.
- Last name: Your last name.
- Email addr: (Mandatory) (Must be unique) An email address to use for forgot password.
- Phone: You phone number.
- Flickr Username: Your username on flickr.com, this prefills the Flickr load box when you login.
- Picasa Username: Your username on picasaweb.com, this prefills the Picasa load box when you login.
- Join maillist: By joining the mailing list you get updates on new developments for the website, this will NOT be used for third party advertisments or communication of any type.
- Agree T&C: By agreeing to the terms and conditions of the website.
After entering your details click on the green button (either 'Register' or 'Save') to save your details - if you are registering you will be automatically logged in.
Forgot password
If you have forgotten you user details, then you can enter you email here and we will send you your details by email.
todo stuff?
UI Components
Popoutbox
The popout box anchors to a side of the page. Clicking on the main tab will cause to box to open or close. The large icon at the to or left of the popout box is used to move the box along its anchored side.
DropBox
The Dropbox is a collapsible container for some content. The icon at the top left of the dropbox opens and closes it, in addition the dropbox content can be opened in a floating window using the detach button on the top right, when the window is closed the content is reattached to the dropbox and the drop box reappears in the position.
The detach function allows you to pop out the panel in a moveable window so that other useful data can be seen without scrolling past the end of the page.
Colour Picker
The colour picker is an HSV colour selector. The vertical scale in the middle selects the Hue value - then sliding the dot on the grid, select the Saturation and Variance(~brightness).
Note that sometime both selector have to be moved for the colour to appear.
