I found the perfect free web app. Then I checked what it was doing
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The genesis of this column came from something simple: I noticed that there’s a tiny bit of distortion in my lead photo of my Framework Laptop 13 Pro review, a monster which took me most of a week to complete. By then, the image had published. I wasn’t sure if it was referred to as fisheye distortion or some other name, but I figured I could learn how to correct it for future shots. (No, I don’t shoot with a DSLR; I gave all that up when my kids arrived, along with pleas to “carry me, Dad” and snacks and backpacks and diaper bags and all that.)
A quick web search brought me to ImageOnline.io’s Perspective Crop tool. All I had to do was upload the image, adjust the perspective by dragging the corners of the image to their “true” perspective, and then either download or just copy the image to my clipboard. It all took just a few seconds. ImageOnline.io collects over 220 other similar image-editing tools, all single-purpose tasks with an extremely straightforward interface, and none of it runs in the cloud. That’s what I want in a productivity tool!
Yes, Adobe Photoshop can do all that, too. But my problem is that everything is baked in. I have to open Photoshop, discover the tool I want, figure out how to use it, and then get what I need to get done, done. At this point, I just don’t use it holistically with the ease and flow of a natural digital artist. That’s why I asked Microsoft’s AI visual aid, Copilot Vision, for help using Photoshop. And that’s why ImageOnline.io’s tools are so useful: Photoshop may be the Bible of the photo-editing business, but Imageonline links you to chapter and verse.
Here, the productivity aspect wasn’t the variable in this equation. I could solve that in seconds. Instead, the process took a lot longer because I needed to ask the question: Is this productivity tool safe?
Checking it out
My first stop: documentation. ImageOnline.io’s Privacy Policy is simple and direct, and ends with this summary: “Your images are processed entirely in your browser and never uploaded to our servers. We do not see, access, or store your images. We collect minimal analytics data to improve our service, but no personal information is required or collected.”
The Terms of Service are equally simple, brief, and straightforward. The problem is that I then realized my ad blocker was on. What would happen if I turned it off?
