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When Alexey Ivanov and his future wife, Marina Kiseleva, were dating, she gave him a memorable gift: a photograph of himself that looked as if it were hanging in the Tate Modern in London.
To create the image, she used a simple photo-editing program. And it gave the couple the idea for their Web site, Photofunia.com, which allows users to upload a photograph, select an image from dozens of templates showing a scene, and then merge the two photographs. It is just one of many Web sites for enhancing photographs that are becoming easier than ever to use.
The Web sites cater to novices, unlike sophisticated software packages like Photoshop, making it possible to create a greeting card, make photo collages, design new images for a Web site and tweak personal photographs without doing much more than clicking a button.
Some sites, like Photofunia, which is based in Ukraine, merge or mash up images. Others are aimed at transforming pictures to look as if they come from another time or place. Some sites have a more commercial aspect, selling products like lipstick by letting you try it by painting a virtual copy of the makeup on a photo of yourself.
Photofunia contains dozens of templates — of art galleries, urban scenes and locations like the Sphinx in Egypt. For example, users can put a picture of themselves into a scene from Times Square so that it looks as if the user’s image is on a billboard. The site also has tools to digitally detect a person’s face, extract it from a picture and graft it onto the head and body of another image, like Santa Claus or the Mona Lisa.
A similar site, based in Russia, is Photo505.com. It offers a wide array of templates, and can place a face in a wanted poster or the cover of a magazine like Cosmopolitan.
“We experiment and realize every idea we have in mind,” said the site’s founder, Vasily Giharev. “Even the most insane ones.”
Mr. Giharev said he was inspired to create the site after seeing the film “Forrest Gump,” which sliced film of the actor Tom Hanks into historical images from the 1960s, making it seem as if the character was present at the important events of that era.
Other sites — like Aviary.com, Pixlr.com, Splashup.com, and Citrify.com — are competing to offer simple tools for cropping an image, fixing red eye or making other tweaks to an image.
“The typical user is not a professional, but a step below, a beginner,” said Ola Sevandersson, the Stockholm-based founder of Pixlr.
While Pixlr itself is meant to be easy to use, Mr. Sevandersson also created an even simpler version that does most of the work with the push of a button.
Pixlr includes another feature that allows users to modify the colors in a photo. For example, effects named Melissa, Sophie or Tony (to make them easier to remember) will mute colors and change the focus to imitate the film and lenses commonly used in different eras. The vintage ’60s effect, for instance, amplifies the red tones and mutes the blues, effectively producing more yellows and purples, and imitating the way that films and photographic paper of that time reproduced light from the scene.
Other sites take photo editing into different realms. Taaz.com, for instance, allows people to test various colors of makeup.
“Our main positioning is not as a photo modification site,” said Deepu John, vice president of marketing at Taaz, which is based in San Diego. “It’s a site where women can try on thousands of different makeup colors on themselves.”
Users upload a photo of themselves and can then modify it by trying on foundation, lip gloss, blush and other cosmetics. Cosmetic companies pay fees to the company to include their products. Making the images look realistic was a challenge for the company’s software designers, Mr. John said. “We have to focus on light interacting with surface. That’s part of the key to realism.”
The makeup test is licensed by Taaz to other Web sites like People.com and Esteelauder.com.
Mr. John said more than a quarter of a billion tests of makeup products were performed each month on all the sites.
Yet another site is Bighugelabs.com, where users create badges, jigsaw puzzles and art work meant to emulate the styles of Andy Warhol or David Hockney. John Watson, the site’s founder, said it had almost a half million registered users.
The most popular service, he said, produces images that imitate a popular line of black-matted, motivational posters often found in office hallways. The site matches a picture with a caption and produces an image with the correct typeface. Many of the people visit the site to produce posters that are sarcastic, not inspirational.
“I think most people can be creative but not everyone is going to learn to play guitar,” Mr. Watson said. “But there are other ways for people to be creative. You can give them tools that allow themselves to express themselves in ways they couldn’t before.”
参考译文：
当阿里克谢.伊万诺夫和他的未婚妻玛丽娜约会时，她给了他一个难忘的礼物：一张照片，其中伊万的照片似乎被悬挂在了伦敦泰特现代美术馆里。
玛丽娜使用了一个简单的照片编辑软件来生成这张图片。这让这对新人产生了一个想法：办一个网站，Photofunia.com，让用户上传照片，从数十个背景模板中选择一个模板，并将照片和模板融合在一起。现在有不少这样的网站，让图片处理比过去简单了不少。
这类网站迎合菜鸟的需要。和复杂的软件，如Photoshop相比，这类网站可以让你只需轻点鼠标，即可制作贺卡、照片拼贴、设计网站图片，或调整私人照片。
有些网站，比如设在乌克兰的Photofunia，可以将图片进行融合或混搭。有的网站可以让你将照片整得像是来自另外一个时空。有些则商业味更浓点，比方说通过在你上传的照片上涂抹虚拟的口红来进行口红的销售。
网站Photofunia包含数十个模板，有艺术馆、城市景观，以及像埃及狮身人面像一类的景点。打个比方，用户可以将自己的照片放到一个时代广场的背景里，看上去就像是其照片出现在时代广场的广告牌上了。该网站还提供工具，可使用户将自己的脸嫁接到另一幅图片中，比如圣诞老人或蒙娜丽莎的头上或身体上。
另一个位于俄罗斯的类似的网站叫Photo505.com，提供内容广泛的模板，可将一张脸移植到通缉令上，或者像《大都会》这样的杂志封面上。
网站创办者瓦西里说：“我们把脑子里想得到的所有东西都拿出来试验，包括那些最疯狂的东西。”
瓦西里说他是看完《阿甘正传》这部电影后受启发才创办的这个网站。在电影里，汤姆汉克斯的影像被移植到了60年代的图片中，效果看起来就好像阿甘这个角色就出现在了重要事件的现场。
其他网站，像Aviary.com，Pixlr.com，Splashup.com和Citrify.com，都竞相提供照片微调的简单工具，如裁剪、修红眼等功能。
奥拉.赛万德斯是位于斯德哥尔摩的Pixlr网站的创办者。他说：“典型的用户都是非专业的，菜鸟类型。”
Pixlr网站就是为了便于用户使用。赛万德斯先生还制作了一个更简单的版本，只要按个按钮就可以完成大部分工作。
Pixlr网站还有另一个特色：可以让用户修改照片的颜色。打个比方，图片效果阿猫、阿狗、阿朱（只是为了好记）可以去掉颜色，让照片模仿不同时期的胶片和镜头的特点。举例来说，六十年代的经典效果就是夸大红色调，淡化蓝色调，效果看上去偏黄偏紫，并模拟那个时代的现场光。
有的网站将照片处理代入了不同的领域。拿Taaz.com来说，它让人可以试验不同颜色的化妆。
“我们的定位不是照片修饰”，迪普.约翰是这家位于圣地亚哥市的网站的市场部副经理，他说：“我们目的是让女性可以在她们自己身上试验上千种不同颜色的妆扮。”
用户将自己的照片上传后，可以试用不同的粉底、亮唇膏、胭脂及其他化妆品。化妆公司要上他们的产品的话需要向网站付费。对公司的软件设计者来说，挑战来自于如何让画面真实。约翰先生说：“我们的重点是光线和面的交互作用。这是真实感的关键。”
Taaz将化妆测试的证书颁发给了其他网站，如People.com和Esteelauder.com。
约翰先生说，每个月在网上进行的化妆品测试有2.5亿次。
还有一个网站叫Bighugelabs.com，它可以让用户制作徽章、迷宫和模仿安迪沃霍尔和大卫霍克尼风格的艺术品。该网站的创办者约翰.华生说他已经有了近50万的注册用户。
他说，最受欢迎的服务，是制作一排哑光的励志海报，就像贴在办公室走道里的那种。该网站为照片配上图题，并生成一幅带正确字体的图片。许多人访问该网站制作海报倒不是为了励志，而是为了讽刺。
华生先生说：“我觉得大部分人都是有创造力的，但不是每个人都会去学弹吉他。但是人们可以找到发挥创造力的办法。你可以给他们一个工具，让他们用以前从未试过的方式表现自己。”
