I’ve added some new effects to Funhouse Photo, taking the total up to 40. One thing I discovered was that the fx operator in ImageMagick is really slow, as in seconds for a 256×256 image with a fairly small expression. I was using this in some of my custom effects, so to avoid the performance hit I started a custom branch of ImageMagick, with some of the features I need compiled in. For example, I’ve added a new composite mode that distorts the base image, so I can create custom distortions in Photoshop as images.

As my next step I’m going to examine the database, and figure out which effects are most popular. Knowing how people are using the app will help me improve it, maybe removing some effects and replacing them with types that are more popular, and tweaking the captions. I also want to add in some feed notifications, and maybe an easy way for people to link to their photos from external sites, like their blogs.

Funhouse Photo User Count: 359, 72 active daily. The growth’s as before, but there’s quite a drop-off in the proportion of people active, though it’s pretty steady in absolute terms. I wonder if there’s something I can offer to make it more fun to keep playing with…