[HN Gopher] Show HN: I made a tool that turns screenshots into d...
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Show HN: I made a tool that turns screenshots into dramatically
angled photos
Author : mikaelaast
Score : 86 points
Date : 2023-02-09 19:28 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.screenstab.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.screenstab.com)
| caboteria wrote:
| Error on the landing page:
|
| > Gorgeous screenshots is just a click away...
|
| should be "Gorgeous screenshots are just a click away...".
| voytec wrote:
| I would reconsider this pricing model. Flat monthly fee with
| unlimited calls/runs may not be pleasant for you.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. I don't do any cloud computing to deliver the service.
| It is essentially a pure JavaScript-application running on the
| client.
| mih wrote:
| I can see how this is useful for laypeople. Those with a DIY
| attitude might resort to popular image editing tools. My choice
| would be trying to achieve this with Imagemagick. Fred Weinhaus'
| script http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/skew/index.php and
| maybe adding a blur later.
| dt3ft wrote:
| Great results on the first attempt I did.
|
| When I wanted to export the result in highest available
| resolution, it asked me to subscribe for $5/month. I only need 1
| single screenshot, so I'm not going to subscribe, but I can see
| this being used by big newspaper companies. Good luck with your
| project!
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. Thanks, that's good to hear. I got journalists at a
| couple of the big newspaper players here in my country (Norway)
| to purchase subscriptions, and after seeing these pop up in
| articles rather often, I felt that I had sold myself short with
| the $5 monthly fee. One of them (VG.no), is like the 2nd
| biggest site in Norway, with 70 million visits a month. I guess
| I'm bad at business.
| cloudking wrote:
| I think the insight here is you should offer a pay-per-use
| model too.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Personal / business tier pricing
| nextaccountic wrote:
| $5/yr is too much for the casual user and too little for big
| newspapersq
| radiojasper wrote:
| Took me 2 scrolls to find an image probably generated by your
| tool.
|
| https://www.tek.no/nyheter/nyhet/i/KnWn0G/ai-flause-for-
| goog...
|
| You probably should make a personal account which limits the
| amount of images you can generate a month (10?) and a
| business account which offers unlimited generation but for a
| steep price.
| movedx wrote:
| It's the wrong pricing model, in my opinion.
|
| consider the following:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwXlo9gy_k4 &
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWZbWzAyHAE
| oblib wrote:
| I made a screenshot using this and it's pretty cool.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. Love to hear it!
| INTPenis wrote:
| I'd pay for one-time pro features. I don't want a subscription,
| but I'm willing to pay to use this service a few times a year
| maybe. There are probably more like me.
|
| Maybe sell 10 pro edits or something like that?
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Ahahaha amazing! Affine transformation as a service! Upgrade to
| pro and we'll do a convolution kernel as well! Take the trouble
| out of performing basic linear transforms with money!
|
| Don't worry your little head with things like:
| transform: skew(15deg, 15deg);
|
| Let the big boys in silicon valley handle that. AI and big data!
| For a small monthly fee we'll throw in rotational transforms as
| well! What a savings!
| [deleted]
| weakfish wrote:
| Why do you need to use a snide tone to convey your point? Just
| make it in plain language, don't be rude.
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Yeah fair, I'm one one today. I genuinely thought this was a
| joke at first. But you're right, I should just put my money
| where my mouth is and make a github pages or similar that
| replicates this functionality as something that you can
| download and keep forever, how hard can it be?
|
| It's utterly disgraceful to charge money for something like
| this as a service, but that doesn't excuse my conduct in
| response. The implications of validating this sort of rent
| collecting are insidious and serve. We really need to re-
| evaluate what our definition of 'value' is as a society.
| kimjune01 wrote:
| Not everyone shares your values, and that's OK
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. There's a little more than that to it.
| dandigangi wrote:
| This is a cool idea. Wish website showed a bit more info and
| examples but I like what it d oes. Content creators could use
| this.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. Thanks! And yeah, I will try to improve on the landing
| page.
| ironlake wrote:
| I clicked the link because it sounded interesting and maybe
| useful. But then I wasn't quite sure what it did.
|
| I wanted a before and after photo. It's a simple concept. The
| landing page should be equally simple.
| ewjt wrote:
| Based on the GIF, I thought it created an animated video.
|
| Even when the .PNG downloaded I thought for sure it'd be an
| animated PNG.
|
| If I'm doing some content creation, I probably already have an
| image editor, in which case I can create this effect myself or
| would prefer an integrated plugin to do it.
|
| Motion graphics is much harder, and there's more demand there
| to add some sparkle to a static image. OP, have you considered
| that angle?
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. Sorry to disappoint you with the lack of animation.
| I have definitely entertained the idea of creating a video
| variant of this app. I fear it will remain a pipe dream due
| to the demands of my day job and family life.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. A few others have made this point, and it's glaringly
| obvious to me in retrospect. Guess I have my work cut out for
| me.
| voytec wrote:
| The GIF[1] on the mail page shows the effect with before-after
| transformation.
|
| [1] https://www.screenstab.com/editor/resources/demo.gif
| syntaxing wrote:
| There's a gif on the landing page that shows what it does
| pretty much immediately
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| That's pretty much what the animated image is. It shows a
| screenshot before, the tool being used, and the final image as
| part of a tweet.
| [deleted]
| warent wrote:
| I'm sure you put a ton of work into this, so it's really
| unfortunate that I can barely tell what this really does or why
| we should care.
|
| Also the "Ready to go pro?" thing seems very rushed and
| presumptuous. Like, I'm not even sure I'm ready to go "Free" yet
| [deleted]
| acuozzo wrote:
| > so it's really unfortunate that I can barely tell what this
| really does or why we should care
|
| It takes an image as input and produces a "dramatic" copy of
| that image in which "dramatic" is defined as being angled away
| from the viewer on two planes and having a blur somewhat
| consistent with it having been photographed with a shallow
| depth of field.
| LoganDark wrote:
| What is this paid subscription to be able to rotate the
| screenshot a certain way?
| system2 wrote:
| Why not skew, mask and blur with photoshop in 10 seconds?
| warent wrote:
| you mean aside from the fact that it requires downloading a
| huge multi-purpose program that starts at $21/mo which is built
| for significantly more than just those features and the user
| must use a lot more brain space for what they want to be a
| simple task?
| kilgnad wrote:
| Or gimp. "Photoshop" is the all encompassing term for these
| editors. This task is actually quite trivial, but there is a
| bit of a learning curve for someone who knows absolutely
| nothing about photo editing.
| rzzzt wrote:
| For a Linux user, you can already build such a system
| yourself quite trivially by using PHP's ImageMagick
| extension to modify the uploaded image file.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I wonder can ImageMagick give you the "progressive linear
| blur" (or whatever you want to call it) that emulates
| depth of field?
|
| Might as well ray trace it....
| rzzzt wrote:
| My comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek. mih in a sibling
| thread added a link to actually useful IM scripts
| however, one of which supports variable blur using a mask
| (scroll below the table and parameters for example
| pictures): http://www.fmwconcepts.com/imagemagick/variabl
| eblur/index.ph...
| kimjune01 wrote:
| photopea.com
| [deleted]
| bluetidepro wrote:
| Def needs more before/after examples...
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. Duly noted!
| movedx wrote:
| "Charged monthly at only $5 for individuals or $3 per person for
| teams of 3 and up. Cancel anytime." - excellent tool, terrible
| business model.
|
| No on wants to pay $5/month for a utility.
| csilverman wrote:
| Yeah, I was initially interested, but then I saw that it was a
| subscription and I just stopped looking.
| [deleted]
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. How would you monetize it?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, subscription for the big players (and raise your
| subscription price), then $1 a pop for a one-off.
| movedx wrote:
| I would consider the value to the consumer and use a value
| based pricing model.
|
| The value you're offering is overcoming a few challenges.
|
| First, the technical challenges of designing these graphics
| yourself - you have to pay for potentially expensive software
| suites (Photoshop, etc.) to get this kind of work done, and
| then you have to learn how-to do it. There is a financial and
| educational curve to climb there.
|
| Then the second challenge is time. It takes time to sit and
| fiddle with a complex piece of software to make a screenshot
| do what your utility does.
|
| So your value is you provide a single piece of software that
| does one job very well, and it's near instant and requires
| little to no learning curve whatsoever.
|
| Further, you need to consider your own personal objectives
| with this software. I'm not in this field, so I do not have
| the foresight to see the potential growth with this software,
| therefore from my perspective it's a cute tool that does one
| thing. You might know different and can see potentially big
| markets.
|
| Anyway. I would likely price this as a $15 one time purchase
| at the non-commercial level (targeting everyday Joe Blogs)
| with one year of upgrades, and around $50/year/user at the
| commercial end.
|
| It really depends on the market and the user's pain points,
| Jobs To be Done, etc.
| kevincox wrote:
| It would be nice to have a few more examples. The only example I
| see on the homepage is hidden in the video, both hard to see and
| not always visible.
| metadat wrote:
| 100%, I also wonder what this would do to a regular non-
| screenshot photograph. Could be funky weird or funky cool.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. It's basically Ken-Burns-on-steroids vibes.
| dylan604 wrote:
| ken-burns 1.0
|
| modern ken-burns not only slides the image, but does the
| 2.5D effects as well. much more interesting than just
| zoom/pan
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. Valid point! I find it hard to strike a good balance
| between demonstrating value and cutting to the chase. I wanted
| it to come off as a utility that lets you take action
| immediately.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| My first reaction was "I can barely tell what this does" so
| it's hard to feel motivated to take action at that point.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Yes, I would recommend showing two images (before/after)
| instead of the video.
|
| You could do more interactive stuff, like the common interface
| of moving a slider on the "before" image to reveal the "after"
| image. And that's nice, but it should be supplemental to the
| two images.
|
| But take this advice with a grain of salt - after all, the
| video did cause me to spend more time on your site than if two
| images had immediately answered the question I was curious
| about.
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. Thanks for the advice. I have been considering a few
| different options. Perhaps I could have a preloaded
| screenshot with the UI already initialised, so I immediately
| can show off the functionality? I don't know what is the best
| approach.
| tambourine_man wrote:
| This looks neat indeed :)
|
| I have no idea how hard it would be, but this would be great as
| an effect for Final Cut, Da Vinci, etc. I don't think the video
| world has a plug-in standard like the photo kinda does
| (eventually lots of apps implemented Photoshop's API).
| mikaelaast wrote:
| OP here. I'm fantasising about making a video version of this
| app, to generate some very cool documentary-style Ken Burns-
| shit imagery.
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(page generated 2023-02-09 23:00 UTC)