METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR IMAGE ACQUISITION, ORGANIZATION, MANIPULATION, AND PUBLICATION

• US 20110296326A1
• Filed: 08/08/2011
• Published: 12/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aaron Disario, Daniel B. Waylonis, Glenn Reid, Tim Wasko
• Original Assignee: Aaron Disario, Daniel B. Waylonis, Glenn Reid, Tim Wasko
• Inventors: Waylonis, Daniel B., Reid, Glenn, Disario, Aaron, Wasko, Tim
• Granted Patent: US 8,487,964 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/764
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/54 Browsing; Visualisation therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/58 Retrieval characterised by using metadata, e.g. metadata not derived from the content or metadata generated manually
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/00 2D [Two Dimensional] image generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/60 Editing figures and text; Combining figures or text
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/00 Geometric image transformations in the plane of the image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/40 Scaling of whole images or parts thereof, e.g. expanding or contracting

Abstract

To better realize the great potential of amateur digital photography, the present invention introduces an integrated system for the acquisition, organization, manipulation, and publication of digital images by amateur digital photography enthusiasts. The system of the present invention first acquires images from a number of different image sources. Images acquired in the same image importing session are marked as coming from the same conceptual film roll. Next, a user is empowered to organize and manipulate the acquired images. The images may be organized by tagging the images with informative keywords and grouping images together into conceptual photo albums. Furthermore, the images may be manipulated by rotating, cropping, and removing red-eye. Finally, the system of the present invention provides simple intuitive image publish systems. A selected group of images may be published in a photobook, published onto the World Wide Web, or published as individual image prints with minimal computer knowledge on the part of the user.

Claims

1-10. -10. (canceled)

11. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program comprising a user interface (“

UI”

) for organizing images, the UI comprising;

a first display area for displaying different groupings of the images; and

a second display area for displaying a set of images of a particular grouping of images that is selected in the first display area.

12. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the different groupings represent different photo albums.

13. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the first display area is displayed to the left of the second display area.

14. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein for each particular grouping of images, the first display area displays a particular selectable item that represents the particular grouping.

15. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the second display area displays images of the particular grouping of images when the selectable item representing the particular grouping is selected in the first display area.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 14, wherein the selectable item representing the particular grouping of images includes a title for describing the particular grouping of images.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein images that are displayed in the second display area have a particular order, wherein dragging and dropping images within the second display area changes the order of the images displayed in the second display area.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein a user specifies a grouping by:

creating a selectable item for each grouping of images, wherein said selectable item is displayed in the first display area; and

dragging and dropping images from the second display area onto different selectable items in the first display area.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 18, wherein at least two different groupings have the same image.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the UI further comprises a marking tool for associating different images with a graphical mark.

21. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 20, wherein the set of images is a first set of images, wherein a selection of a second set of images and a selection of the marking tool causes the second set of images to be associated with the graphical mark.

22. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 11, wherein the UI further comprises a set of editing tools for editing images in the first display area.

23. A method for an application comprising a user interface (“

UI”

) for organizing images on a computing device, the method comprising;

providing a first display area for displaying different groupings of the images; and

providing a second display area for displaying a set of images of a particular grouping of images that is selected in the first display area.

24. The method of claim 23, wherein the different groupings represent different photo albums.

25. The method of claim 23, wherein the first display area is displayed to the left of the second display area.

26. The method of claim 23, wherein for each particular grouping of images, the first display area displays a particular selectable item that represents the particular grouping.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the second display area displays images of the particular grouping of images when the selectable item representing the particular grouping is selected in the first display area.

28. The method of claim 26, wherein the selectable item representing the particular grouping of images includes a title for describing the particular grouping of images.

29. The method of claim 23, wherein images that are displayed in the second display area have a particular order, wherein dragging and dropping images within the second display area changes the order of the images displayed in the second display area.

30. The method of claim 23, wherein a user specifies a grouping by:

creating a selectable item for each grouping of images, wherein said selectable item is displayed in the first display area; and

dragging and dropping images from the second display area onto different selectable items in the first display area.