PicLens is a nifty web browser addon from Cooliris that I hadn’t tried until the company emailed us a couple of weeks ago to let us know that they had updated their software with a couple of new features, both stunning and useful. If you haven’t tried out PicLens yet, this is definitely a good time to hop on board, as the browser addon is a lot of fun to play with and makes searching and viewing images on the web very enjoyable.
PicLens works on both Mac and PC, and has versions for FireFox, Internet Explorer, and Safari (though the Safari version is still awaiting its update).
The addon is basically a photo viewer for the web. It creates a desktop-like photo viewing experience for supported sites, by pulling out all images on a page (or in an online gallery) and creating a slideshow. PicLens supports a range of sites, including the image search engines from the big five search sites, social networks Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, and Friendster, and photosharing sites Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, DeviantArt, and Smugmug.
The latest version ads a Cover Flow-esque photo browser called “The Wall” that stacks photos in a three dimensional space. It might actually be more comparable to the “wall of videos” Apple TV ad. Users can click and drag along the wall, zoom in on any photo, or visit the source. The Wall is a gorgeous feature that makes looking at web galleries a lot more like browsing photos using something like Apple’s iPhoto app.
Even better, another new feature lets users search a handful of supported sites (Google, Yahoo!, Smugmug, Flickr, DeviantArt, and Photobucket) directly from within PicLens. Results are automatically loaded up on the wall.
The video below from Cooliris shows the new version of PicLens in action.
Cooliris also makes the Previews addon, which we wrote about last year.
