PicLens provides instant immersive slideshows on many websites
Description: PicLens is a free browser extension for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari that interacts with a number of the most popular image sharing sites to provide a seamless, full-screen "immersive slideshow" experience. Sites supported include Google Images, Yahoo Images, Facebook, Friendster, Flickr and Picasa Web Albums. It is also possible to embed PicLens immersive slideshows within your own site or blog.
This program is a little bit hard to describe: imagine that you’re browsing, say, Flickr, and that you are looking at a page full of thumbnails. Normally what you would do is click on the thumbnail and view the image, go back to the page with the thumbnail and click on the next image and so on. What PicLens offers is an alternate way of viewing the images that literally "takes over" and overlays itself on top of your browser window; your images will be displayed full screen and all thumbnails presented in a horizontal sequence that is quickly browsable on the bottom of the screen.
How it works: whenever you are surfing on a site that supports PicLens, a little distinct arrow will appear on the image thumbnail when you mouse over it which signals that the images are browsable with PicLens. Clicking on the arrow will activate the PicLens image browser, while clicking on the thumbnail anywhere around it will open/display the image as normal. (See second screenshot).- Browsing with PicLens: you can use the mouse or arrow keys to scroll through the images, as well as the navigation arrows to move/jump back and forth.
- PicLens on your site: this is possible. The developers of PicLens provide a Wordpress plugin for blogs powered by Wordpress (of which this is one). If you do not use Wordpress you can use "PicLens Publisher" on your site, which can create immersive slideshows. It will generate the code for you and allow you to customize by adding your logo and/or other audio/video files (and also seems to support Piclens style slideshows within RSS feeds). Moreover, it seems that visitors to your site or Wordpress blog can view the slideshows without needing the PicLens plugin if their browser is equipped with Flash v.9.0.28 or higher.
You might ask: is it really worth it to go through the trouble of installing this given that it only supports a handful of sites? If you use or visit any of the supported sites then the answer is a definite yes. If you do so only occasionally the answer might well be yes as well. Try it out for yourself and see how you like it.
Watch a video demo of PicLens below:
Version Tested: 1.5.17 beta
Compatibility: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac. Requires IE 6 or higher, Firefox or Safari.
Go to the program page download the latest version (approx 815K).
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I have been using it for quite some time (the firefox plugin) and it’s quite well done eye candy!
Thanks so much for posting about PicLens, our free browser addon for full-screen 3D views across the web.
As a picture speaks a thousand words, we think PicLens speaks a thousand pictures! So, we’ve provided video demo here: http://www.piclens.com/site/firefox/tutorial_pl_ff_16.php.
Our YouTube posting of this video can be found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utySPFH_HlA in case you wish to embed it in your blog.
Thanks, again.
Kind regards,
Alec & The Cooliris Team
[...] 1.5.17 beta es una excelente extensión para Firefox, Internet Explorer y Safari que te permite ver las fotos seleccionadas de la Web a pantalla completa y las restantes como miniaturas en la parte inferior de la [...]
I have been using piclens for a while. Though a great program there are a few problems - if site displays page of thumbnails - it will just enlarge those thumbnails and not fetch the larger better quality picture.
Also - browsing several pages of pictures is impossible. You have to escape, click on the next page and open piclens.
Alec,
Thanks for pointing out the videos… I embedded the YouTube vid in the review above.
[...] for an immersive “wall of images” viewing experience such as that employed by the PicLens browser extension, which would fit perfectly with the concept of this [...]
…and I liked PicLens so much that I implemented it right away on my site: http://www.highton-ridley.co.uk
I love it!!!
PicLens v.1.6.3 - Now Supporting 3D Search for YouTube!
Thanks, again, for your past reviews and for your support for our work
at Cooliris. We truly appreciate it.
Now, on to news! I’m excited to let you in on our newest release,
PicLens v.1.6.3:
- Added “3D search” for YouTube videos. (You have to try this
out…It’s fun and lightning fast!)
- Added support for Firefox 3.0
- Improved user interface
- Optimized Media RSS support so webmasters can enable the PicLens
experience on their site (see piclens.com/lite)
For details and demo video on this release, please see:
http://blog.cooliris.com/2008/04/15/piclens-supports-3d-search-for-youtube/
http://blog.cooliris.com/2008/05/02/piclens-with-youtube-search-now-on-mozilla/
For more information on PicLens and our free download, please see:
http://piclens.com/demo/
http://piclens.com
Thanks, again! We’d very much value your feedback on this release.
Best regards,
Jo & The Cooliris Team
If you like Piclens, and if you’re also a movie buff, here’s a freeware that uses Piclens 3D wall to display your DVD collection, your favorite movies & series, your favorite actors, etc…
It also uses the latest PicLens feature to find videos on YouTube (trailers, interviews, making of, alternate scenes, spoofs, etc…)
http://www.coollector.com
Hey does anyone have the problem when viewing Youtube video’s with PicLens where video plays but no sound?
I’ve been looking everywhere for a forum but either I am the only person with this problem or i am searching Google in a parallel universe where this problems doesn’t exist. Any help? Thanks.
having the same trouble with the sound.. only mine is greatly distorted… troublesome
yes same here my sound is distorted quiet annoying. can anyone help?
ditto!
someone help!
i also dont have sound please help^^
I also have issues with sound when playing video. Sounds like a machine gun … I assume the first bit just keeps repeating.
firefox 3/win xp
Same problem with sound here, vista / xp / IE 7 / FF 2 & 3…
Same problem here too :((
XP sp3 Firefox 3
sound is out of sync
Vista FF3
I have no sound while playing videos from youtube and using piclens, either.
Firefox 3/windows xp
I found and installed PicLens over the weekend. I love it, but I also have the annoying sound issues with youtube. I have a fresh install of XP SP3 and Firefox 3.
I have no sound,too. Anybody knows this problem?
Firefox 3/ window xp sp2
No sound either on YouTube