

How we open sourced Instagram  - lallouz
http://backspac.es/r/EtZtSJyJRB

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Mizza
Heh.. not very much on the "how" but I appreciate the effort!

I guess we'll be seeing a lot of these filters pop up in other apps now. I
don't really mind, a lot of people gave shit to Instagram for being a billion-
dollar-app which made photos look worse, but I think I prefer fake-shitty than
the weirdly-sharp digital look that most cell phones produce.

Anyway, bravo, and that's for releasing this as free software!

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zmitri
Hey Mizza, you read the github page here
[https://github.com/gobackspaces/DLCImagePickerController#rea...](https://github.com/gobackspaces/DLCImagePickerController#readme)
for more info.

I think open-source obj-C has a long way to go, and I want to help as much as
I can.

As for "fake-shitty" I assure you, these are not shitty, nor are they meant to
be straight copies. Check out this high res version of the output
<http://i.imgur.com/0OncO.jpg>

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Mizza
Heh, when I mean 'fake shitty', I mean the filters themselves are meant to
make the photos look aged, blurry, etc. "Fake shitty." Wabi-sabi.

~~~
zmitri
Ah, completely understand. Valid point.

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memnips
The title feels a bit sensationalist. Yes, some open sourced iOS live filters
are totally cool, but this really has nothing to do with Instagram.

Instagram is more than some photo filters.

~~~
Semiapies
Mind, this is the part of Instagram _everyone actually cares about_.

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memnips
I think that's what is commonly picked up on, but I think Instagram's magic
actually comes from how frictionless it is to share a photo and use the
service. The photo filters are a part of that - the fun and quirky part - but
its actually not what makes it special imo.

~~~
SandersAK
that's definitely fair. i guess we could have said it's more the initial hook
of instagram that we're open sourcing :)

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tomconte
Based on Brad Larson's GPUImage, amazing OpenGL based image filters library,
very hackable if you learn GLSL :)

~~~
zmitri
Yup. I made sure the second line in the repo readme was "The majority of the
praise should be directed towards BradLarson for his GPUImage library."

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brown9-2
What was actually released? The github page seems to have a single non-forked
repository: <http://github.com/gobackspaces>

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wylie
We released an iOS camera with live filters and blur at
<https://github.com/gobackspaces/DLCImagePickerController>

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reidrac
The post is a little bit misleading. You didn't open source Instagram but a
component used by the app. Am I right?

~~~
zmitri
That's fair. if you are looking for full functionality, I suggest you merge
Parse's AnyPic (<https://github.com/ParsePlatform/Anypic>) with this camera
picker component. IG is much more than just filters, but it is definitely a
big reason they are popular.

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upinsmoke
Thanks for sharing. I'm more interested in how you created the curve files?

~~~
wylie
I created them using Photoshop, and used GPUImage to parse the files it
created. I tested each filter on a sample of iPhone images in different
lighting conditions.

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SandersAK
i'm one of the founders at backspac.es and i was curious what people thought
of the story format that's produced. feedback is most welcome :)

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marginalboy
I came here to say "how the hell can I get a backspac.es account". Loved it,
absolutely loved it.

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SandersAK
Awesome!

For now you can just sign up on the homepage (<http://www.backspac.es>) and
we'll let you know when we're good to go. Should be any day hopefully!

happy to chat more on the emails, twitter etc, cheers!

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marginalboy
Signed up already!

Great job on it.

By way of exchange, I'll offer what meager observations my usability & QA
expertise inform when I start using :-)

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SandersAK
sweet! we're desperate for UX thoughts and feedback - definitely the piece
we're most keen to polish for the first update :)

