By Lauren Goode
Multimedia software company ArcSoft is using some of its recent $20 million in funding to focus on a suite of high-tech imaging apps, including one aimed at the mobile photo-sharing crowd.
ArcSoft today is unveiling Perfect365, a one-click photo touch up application that uses what ArcSoft [1] touts as its precise facial recognition technology to apply filters only to people’s faces in photos and not the entire photo. (See example posted here, where the rings under this Digits reporter’s eyes were erased with a single mouse click.)
The free downloadable app is available for Windows desktops to start, but ArcSoft founder and chief executive officer Michael Deng says the iOS version, optimized for both iPhone and iPad, will be available in mid-November, with Mac desktop and Android mobile editions coming by the end of the year. An in-app Facebook version of Perfect365–for editing photos within Facebook once they’ve been uploaded–is also in the works. The company is not planning on releasing an app for the RIM BlackBerry or PlayBook operating systems.
A premium version of Perfect365 will be sold for $30, and ArcSoft plans to charge for add-on features such as higher resolution photos, more photo filters and photo print outs. But for simple photo-sharing, the basic software–especially on smartphones and tablets–could be a game-changer for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagr.am photo-sharing hounds. Users can choose from a base of twenty “make-up” applications that add subtle enhancements to the face and can try single-feature fixes as well (face-slimmer with a touch of teeth-whitening, anyone?)
Because ArcSoft’s facial recognition tech pulls information from a cloud database of more than fifty thousand anonymous photos, the Perfect365 app doesn’t work quite as well when used offline. And unlike Adobe Photoshop, the photo-fixing industry standard for professionals and consumers, Perfect365 won’t allow users to alter images in a major way by juxtaposing objects or adding special effects. But even when offline the Perfect365 facial touch-ups in demos were pretty precise.
In September the privately-held ArcSoft closed a $20 million funding round from Intel Capital and Tudor Ventures Funding. Deng says the company has been profitable since 2000, and currently claims $50 million in cash, including the most recent equity investment. While ArcSoft is generally focused on licensing its technologies to electronics manufacturers and enterprise clients, with several brands of digital cameras using various ArcSoft imaging tech, it’s now trying its hand at selling directly to mobile consumers. However, ArcSoft’s Deng says he still wants to sell products to bigger businesses, and hopes something like Perfect365 generates enough consumer buzz that cosmetics giants become interested in it.
In addition to Perfect365, ArcSoft has a handful of additional consumer apps up its sleeve, including a streaming video player and an app called Video Pick, as well as an e-reading app that could be seen during a demo of Perfect365. ArcSoft declined to comment on the details of applications in the works or when they might launch.
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