Ask HN: Looking for business ideas for web photo editor | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Looking for business ideas for web photo editor

Hi. I've been working on a web photo editor for a while. It has 0 monthly users (nor testers, so there are bugs). As of now it has accurate implementations of many features known from photoshop and is in many regards more advanced than popular tools like e.g pixlr and more compatible to ps like e.g. affinity - both have functioning business models. Can you give some advice on what could be a working model for the app? Do you know anybody who would like to join in on the project? I am aware there is lots of competition in the field. I think all the brains that went into this (psd, adjustments, layer styles, ps asset formats .pat,.asl,.grd..., text engine) must be of some value. What do you think about releasing everything on github. It would hurt, but it dying on my harddisk would hurt more.

https://cloudpaint.com/photo

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I'm not a big user of this kind of application but I played around with it a little. The UI appears to be very well implemented but at first glance it looks like you more or less ported gimp to the web. I'm not sure there would be a huge market for that sort of thing given that anyone can use gimp for free.

here are some selling points of the app:

- faithful support of many photoshop file formats. These formats can be considered industry standard and only half a handful of apps (excluding gimp) support them. These are: psd (ps document) csh(shapes) asl(layer styles) grd(gradients) pat(patterns) ase(swatches)

- accurate rendering of layer styles: These are non-destructive effects on layers such as drop-shadow or stroke. Many apps just import ps layers as images. cpphoto they remain editable.

- accurate rendering of ps adjustment layers: like layer styles they are non destructive (like contrast or color adjustments) and remain editable. Adjustment layers include gradient, pattern and solidcolor layers.

- accurate rendering, editing and transforming of text layers: ps text layers are often imported as images in 3rd party apps and thus not editable. Text layers are loaded as editable text in cpphoto. They can be transformed and warped non-destructively. A huge library of free fonts is included and could be easily extended.

- loading, editing of ps vector shapes: basic shapes are supported via pen and path tools. a library of free shapes is included and additional shapes in csh format can be loaded.

It is important to note that ps formats are widely used and shared asset formats. There are huge libraries and they can be used immediately in cpphoto.

Generally, as a web app, cpphoto runs in any desktop browser and needs no installations or updates. It could be easily integrated into any web service or platform. It is developed as modular typescript application with no external dependencies.

Expectation: ChatGPT will destroy developer jobs.

Reality:

This might be true in a few years, and I am excited too. As of now, there is no help from ChatGPT in developing a complex app. ChatGPT can create mashups, straightforward web code but anything that involves thinking is still out of reach. It can't even be used to generate a consistent ui framework let alone algorithmic code. If you tried using it and skipped all the twitter clickbait you know what I am talking about.

I'll worry about that when I see it write correct code to render a circle in OpenGL.

That may all be true, like I said I'm no expert in this domain, but none of that is obvious from just looking at the app. I think you'll need to find some way to convey the advantages that your app has to the kinds of people who would be interested in those features.

You must have put a great deal of work into this to create such a high-quality UI and handle all of those proprietary file formats. What was your goal when you started working on this ? I doubt you planned to just host it somewhere and hope the right people would find it.

Work started when web apps were still new and web platform was not as mature it is today. The ui is the smaller part of the project, ps compatibility was much harder to achieve and is rare to find. Guess you're right this is not obvious and might be unimportant for many potential users. However it is large part of what makes the app stand out and I think constitutes its value.

Call it naive, but I guess putting stuff up somewhere and spread the word in a forum could have worked then. Users are pickier today as markets are more saturated and even free stuff is expected to work flawlessly.

Work on the project has been and is mostly fun, having a rather boring day job, roaming free, reverse engineering, analyzing how image filters work is something I enjoy doing no matter how many users there are. Nevertheless it could be more fun doing more of what I like doing so I'm asking if it is possible to make more out of it. Thank you for your advice on looking for the right people - this is one key for sure.

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