Some of my best digital photos are usually too large to share on the web via email, Facebook, or on my blog. Full high resolution photos need to be shared in a smaller sized low-resolution “˜preview’. I wished there were a better way to share my large images on Flickr easily.
Guess what ““ the new Seadragon does just that! You can share any large image you find on the web with this amazing new service from Microsoft Live Labs. Of course, everything featured here on MakeUseOf is free, but there’s more – there is no need to sign up anywhere. Just go to Seadragon and enter the URL of your image. It processes your image link and gives you URL that you can tweet, share on Facebook, or bookmark on Delicious, or whatever you wish. Let’s see how it works.
Suppose I wanted to share this wonderful panoramic high resolution photo of New York’s Grand Central Station by David Iliff, which is graciously shared on Wikimedia Commons:
You can see there is no fun sharing the photo in this way. The high resolution photo from Wikimedia Commons is 2500 x 1287 pixels, 1.13 MB in size. Here’s what you do to get your kicks by sharing the original image:
- Copy the URL of the full-resolution image.
- Go to Seadragon and paste the URL. Seadragon gives you a URL and an embed script code.
- Share the URL with anyone or embed the script code on your blog.
That’s it! Here is how it looks:
Viewer Controls
- To zoom in, click on the image, or use your mouse wheel, or use the +/- buttons
- To move around in the image, simply drag the picture with your mouse
- Use the Home button to reset the view
- Finally ““ you must try this out ““ use the rightmost button to switch between normal and Full Screen view. You can still zoom in and move around in the Full Screen view.
Seadragon also gives you quick access to share your image on Delicious, Digg, Facebook, and Twitter.
You can use the embed script on your web page, blog, or eBay ad. If you are an artist, you can use it to create your own portfolio. Your viewers can view the high resolution image using any popular web browser on multiple platforms.
Notice how the image loads up very quickly even if it’s large in size. No more waiting for slow downloads for large images. If your viewers have Silverlight installed, the viewing experience is ultra-smooth and fast. But the beauty of this technology is that even if they don’t have it installed, it almost works the same way!
For iPhone lovers, Seadragon Mobile is available on the iPhone App Store. Using this free app, you can view large, high-resolution images on your iPhone.
You can create your own interesting images by creating your own panoramic photos, or stunning mosaics. Check out these 10 stunning photo blogs, download free high-resolution photos from this Digital Stock Photography Site, or check out the best sites to download very high resolution wallpapers.
Share your favorite high resolution images via Seadragon with us in the comments!
Tagged: photo sharing • photography
