At last! One of the most-wanted features is now live! End users can now resize images with Pixo. Enlarge or reduce them by manually setting the width or height, or select a pre-defined image size suitable for social media!
But wait, that’s not all. Enlarging raster images leads to quality loss. Raster images are not suitable for enlargement because they get pixelated. But when enlarging images Pixo uses AI to make the enlarged image clearer and better!
Image resize feature is available to all plans (including the FREE one) but AI upscaling is a Premium-only.
We are happy to announce that Pixo now fully supports the WebP image format, both in the Image Editor and the REST Editing API. You can now send a webp image to Pixo Editor or the REST Editing API and get the final result again in webp or any other supported output format (png or jpeg).
Browser support
According to caniuse.com all modern browsers support webp format nowadays. Although older versions of Microsoft Edge browser does not support it, our usage statistics for the past 3 months show that none of our users use the non-Chromium Edge anymore. So using webp format should be safe.
We haven’t posted anything for a very long time. This does not mean that we did nothing, though 😉 There are plenty of new APIs & features that we implemented and released since the beginning of 2022. Here are the most interesting ones.
You can now specify the Unit to be used in all measured user inputs (like in Crop). Can be one of the following: “px” (default), “cm” or “in”.
Editing Tools
Eraser brush
Users now can erase objects:
Shortcut keys
Users can now delete selected objects with del/backspace keys.
Autoresizable textarea in Text tool
Users can now add multiline text in the Text tool:
Improved objects rotation controls
Users can now see the rotation angle while rotating objects:
Objects opacity
Users can now control the opacity of objects:
Grid
Users can now toggle a grid over the canvas in order to position objects more precisely:
Clone objects
Users can now clone selected objects with the click of a control button:
New dictionaries
Danish (da-DK) and Dutch (nl-NL).
A lot of projects for customers
We did many integrations of Pixo into various customers’ projects. If you need custom integration and you are not a developer, or you need assistance – please do not hesitate to contact us.
We never stop
We also did a lot of other smaller bug fixes & improvements. We never stop improving the product & APIs.
Although Pixo Editor does not provide native SDK for iOS, Android, or Flutter, it can be easily integrated into a native application, thanks to the WebView component, supported by both platforms. All you need is an embedded HTML page that integrates Pixo, a WebView instance rendering that HTML page, and a communication controller. Here is the flow:
Any Image is converted to base64 string
The WebView component renders a static HTML page that integrates Pixo
The static HTML page gets the base64 string and opens it in Pixo
The onSave callback of the Pixo.Bridge instance sends back the edited image as base64 string as a JavascriptChannel
A watermark is a logo, a piece of text or signature imposed onto an image. Watermarks are typically transparent, so those viewing the image can still admire it. Watermarking images can also protect the copyright – ensuring others don’t use the image without the owner’s permission.
With this example you’ll learn how to impose watermarks on end-user’s images – a simple text. You can also insert custom sticker images as watermarks.
Everything you need to do is to:
Overwrite the default Save action, in order to insert the watermark when the end-user clicks “Save”, using the Custom Actions API;
To insert the text watermark before saving the image, using the Text Editing API.
Our Editing API is finally out now! With it, you can manipulate images server-side. It supports most of the features of the Editor, and guarantees you the exact same result as if the image was edited in Pixo Editor.
You can use both the Editing API and the client-side Image Editor with the same API key. You can, of course, create new API key for server-side projects. But it will require a new subscription.
API keys can be protected both by domain and IP address.
TODO
There are a couple of features to be added soon:
Background API – remove background, or replace it with solid color or another image
Drawing shapes
Free drawing
Limitations
The Editing API is not available for FREE accounts.
We wish you a happy New year
This project was the biggest one for this year. We are very happy that we managed to release it, even though in the very last day of 2021. The past two years were extremely hard for all of us. Let’s hope that 2022 will be a much better one. We will continue our work on exciting new features. Stay healthy, and have a happy New 2022!
We’re extremely happy to announce a new feature we’ve been working on for quite so long! Let us present to you our new exciting end-user tool – Background!
Removing background of images using machine learning (ML) is very popular these days. Our brand new Background tool does exactly this. But that’s not all! End users can not only remove the background of photos, but also can replace it with a solid color, or with another background image. They can browse a rich stock image collection (powered by Unsplash) as well as to upload their custom image to be used as a background of the edited photo.
Removing the background
Background removing is possible thanks to ML. This is expensive operation and takes some time, usually a couple of seconds. During this time end users see a progress message.
Is it a Premium feature?
Yes. The Background tool is a Premium feature, which means that it is available in all paid subscriptions as well as during trial period. FREE accounts do not have access to this tool.
Will it cost extra?
At the moment of the release – no. However, down the road we may decide to make this feature cost extra, one way or another – either apply some pay-per-use, or create extra subscription plans on top of the current ones.
Will I get extra charged without notice?
Definitely not! If we ever decide to make the Background tool cost extra, you will have the choice to upgrade your subscription and start using it, or to keep your current plan and not use the Background tool respectfully.
We wish you a Merry Christmas…
…and a Happy New Year! As usual, our Christmas Stickers pack is now available to end users.
We are happy to announce that we finally implemented z-order controls in Pixo! These controls allow your end users to change the z-order of every object (Text, Sticker, Shape):
move it to the very top
move one level up
move one level down
move it to the very bottom
Many users were asking us for this feature. Hope you all enjoy it!
After the announcement that we dropped support of Internet Explorer, we did a code clean-up, removing all polyfills and compatibility code blocks. As a result, our integration file bridge.m.js (the one that you include in your web pages) got reduced with 21%, and the script resources that are loaded when the Editor is opened got reduced with 10.5%.
Also, we noticed from our logs that some customers were experiencing huge load delays. Sometimes the Editor took 5+ seconds to load. We investigated the delay, did some server optimizations, and now every customer should open the Editor in less than a second.
We are monitoring performance constantly, and we constantly work to make Pixo blazingly fast, for better user experience.
Although Pixo Editor does not provide native SDK for iOS, it can be easily integrated into a native application, thanks to the WKWebView component. All you need is an embedded HTML page that integrates Pixo, a WKWebView instance rendering that HTML page, and a communication controller. Here is the flow:
Any UIImage is converted to base64 string
The WKWebView component renders a static HTML page that integrates Pixo
The static HTML page gets the base64 string and opens it in Pixo
The onSave callback of the Pixo.Bridge instance sends back the edited image as base64 string as a WKScriptMessage
