As images are clearly a part of almost any web application (user photos, avatars, etc.), analyzing them better will always be functional for users.

Face Detection is a jQuery plugin that returns the coordinates of faces in any given image.

It uses an algorithm named CCV (a JS file that needs to be included in to the documents as well) and has callbacks on every level.

The usage is straightforward, just mention the element to be analyzed and get back the results, nothing complicated.

There can be cases that you may want to generate images dynamically like using it as a background, displaying the titles of a post inside an image, etc.

Dynamic Dummy Image Generator is a free PHP script that helps creating images with any size, color and text over them.

It has many predefined sizes for popular uses (like banner sizes) and works by sending the details inside the URL like: http://dummyimage.com/480x160/333333/fff&text=This+is+a+Dummy+Image is actually how the image above is created.

Tip: The website also displays similar dummy text generators that are built with other scripting languages.

You'll remember Deep Zoom, a format which lets you explore an image easily no matter what size it is.

Zoom.it is a free service by Microsoft which enables us to view and share high-resolution imagery using the Deep Zoom.

It can be used by simply pasting the URL of the image to the form on the website or via the API provided.

The service returns a shortened URL of the zoomable image for sharing easily and embed link for inserting into web pages.

imgPreview is a jQuery plugin that enables users to preview images before clicking on them.

If the image is clicked later, it will be shown instantly as it will already be preloaded at the preview.

The image preview is shown in a chic tooltip-like box.

The plugin is unobtrusive, does not use non-semantic classes. It detects the anchors that link to images and apply the preview effect only to them.

There are various configuration options that comes with imgPreview like defining the css pf the image to be previewed, its distance from the cursor, whether the images will be preloaded or not, callback functions & more.

Fotonotes is a collection of scripts for annotating images. Simply, it lets you add notes over images.

With the help of a PHP file (supports PHP4 & PHP5), every note added to the images are stored in JPEG headers in XML format.

There is a very nice example on the website which you can try the code.

Download package includes classes for alternate storage strategies like databases.

Image processing is needed in almost every web application like creating watermarks, uploading & resizing avatars, cropping them & similar tasks.

Asido is a feature-rich image processing class for PHP that fits to any environment like GD2, Magick Wand and Image Magick. It supports both PHP4 & PHP5 (newer versions support only PHP5).

An example of adding a watermark to an image:

And the code:

<?php
include('./../../asido/dev/class.asido.php');
asido::driver('gd');
$i1 = asido::image(
      'the-source-image.jpg',
      'filename-with-which-you-want-to-save-the-result.png'
);
asido::watermark($i1, 'put-the-watermark-image-here.png');
$i1->save(ASIDO_OVERWRITE_ENABLED);
?>

It is really simple and clear.

Asido can:

• resize
• watermark
• rotate
• copy
• crop
• grayscale
• convert

images with ease. To develop faster, Asido is worth a try.

MooCrop is an image cropping utility using the powerful mootools javascript framework. Alone, it is only a selection tool but when used with a serverside script then it becomes an image manipulation tool.

Similar to Lightbox, FancyBox, a jQuery powered image zooming script, zooms the images with very nice loading and zoom-in / zoom-out effects.

Features:

• Automatically scales large images to fit in window
• Adds a nice drop shadow under the full-size image
• Image sets to group related images and navigate through them

Basic usage:

$(function() {

    $("div#test_zone a").fancybox();

});

FancyBox works with the major web browsers and can be configured for different closing effects.

ProtoFlow is an open source content viewing application built with Prototype & script.aculo.us which functions similar to the famous iTunes Cover Flow.

You can browse through the content (it supports all the HTML elements) with mouse clicks or a JavaScript slider.

It is mentioned that the application may have more features in the future like auto-play and image reflection.

Online image cropping is a widely used feature in web applications.

Prototype JavaScript Image Cropper UI is an unobtrusive script based on Prototype and script.aculo.us.

It allows you to select any area in an image and gives the x, y, x1, y1, width and height values which are enough for a succesful image cropping.

This Prototype image crop UI also has ratio locking, selected area preview and minimum height – width options.