May24

10 Best Firefox Extensions for Photographers

09:00 am on May 24th 2007 Christopher Scholl

In college I briefly studied psychology and explored it as a potential career. But in sophomore year I was stopped cold by one thing: statistics. I literally shudder when I type the word. S-T-A-T-I-S-T-I-C-S. Anyone else hear the ominous echo? Seriously. I’m shuddering.But occasionally I get just enough of a grip on my highly rational fear of number-crunching monstrosities to take a look at the … well, you know… the numbers for this web site.

What struck me the other day when looking at these numbers (gosh it feels so much safer not using the s-word) is how many of you are using the Firefox web browser to access this site.

In fact, if one looks strictly at browser versions, Firefox 2.0 is the single most widely used browser on this web site. Of course, Internet Explorer is more heavily used if you count both version 6 and version 7 users. Still, even accounting for that difference, Firefox users represent nearly 40% of the traffic on this web site. And that’s remarkable I think since Firefox holds only about a 14% market share web-wide.

Enough of the…numbers. Yikes, my head is spinning.

But the point is, it would seem that a lot of photographers - at least a lot of the ones visiting this site - are well aware of the tremendous benefits of Firefox. So with that in mind, I thought it might be helpful to share with you my top ten list of favorite photography-related Firefox extensions:

  1. Fotofox: This is an all-around photograph uploader that supports several major online photo sites. Flickr, Smugmug, Kodak EasyShare Gallery, Marela, Tabblo and 23 - you can access and upload to all of them right from your browser with this do-it-all extension.
  2. AutoSlideshow: This is a pretty cool little extension that allows you to turn all the images on one web page into a slideshow. Nicely done, and of course, like all of these Firefox extensions, it’s free.
  3. Image Zoom: With this extension, you can zoom in or out from any image, even resizing an image to easily fit your screen. It’s particularly handy if you want to look at some of the finer details in a photograph.
  4. FxIF: I love this. How many times have you wanted to know more about a photograph you come across on the web? With this little puppy you can examine the Exchangeable Image File in any photograph that was taken by a camera which records it (most do). Exif data usually contains everything from aperture to shutter speed, camera type and sometimes even lens information.
  5. GMiF: Although I haven’t yet seen tremendous benefits of so-called “geotagging,” this extension for Firefox embeds Google Maps into any page on Flickr, allowing you to see where an image was taken. Of course, it only works if the image was geotagged in the first place. But it’s still kinda fun.
  6. PictureThis: This is another extension that falls into the “fun” category. It’s pretty simple: highlight any word on a page and this extension will pop up an image related to that word. PictureThis taps into Google Images for the photographs.
  7. Pix2Fone: Ever see a photograph on a web site that you’d love to use as wallpaper for your wireless phone? This extension can make that a pretty easy process. It does come with a cvaeat, though, and a big one at that: some wireless carriers block images from third-part web sites so the extension won’t work with those. Unfortunately, according to Pix2Fone, that’s a pretty significant list of carriers so check first to see if yours is on there. If not, dial away!
  8. Gspace: One of the really great things about Google’s Gmail - and there are many great things - is the enormous amount of web space you get… for free. It’s more than 2.8-gigabytes of space and Google has said it will increase that amount. But do you really need that much space for your e-mail? I’ve used only about 5% of my total allowance and I figure by the time I get close to the limit Google will probably have added more space. So this extension is a great way to tap that space for other purposes. Online storage or backup for your most important photographic work? No problem. Gspace can help you tap it.
  9. ShutterStockBar: I don’t sell to Shutterstock so I haven’t used this extension, but it looks great. Essentially it places the number of your current downloads from Shutterstock right in your status bar. I have a similar extension that updates my Adsense revenue, so it seems very plausible. Please leave a comment below if you’ve tried it.
  10. Snipshot: This may be more useful to webmasters than us photographers, but the Snipshot Firefox extension offers pretty easy access to Snipshot’s online image editing software. With a simple right-click, you can resize, color, crop - whatever. It won’t work on any of my personal photographs, though. Mine are perfect and impervious to any outside attempts to manipulate them. :-)

Phew… that’s it. But a pretty good list. If you have Firefox, try them out. And if you don’t, you should. Go get it!

And as always… leave a comment if you have any ideas you’d like to share.

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27 Responses to “10 Best Firefox Extensions for Photographers”

  1. Brian Auer May 24th 2007 at 10:25 am 1

    Some of these are pretty great! I’ll be installing the Image Zoom, AutoSlideshow, FxIF, and Gspace. Thanks!

  2. photographyVoter.com May 24th 2007 at 10:29 am 2

    10 Best Firefox Extensions for Photographers…

    A good list of extensions for photographers and photo enthusiasts alike. Some are fun, some are useful….

  3. YooBus » 10 extensiones de Firefox útiles para fotógrafos May 24th 2007 at 12:40 pm 3

    […] este link pueden ver el top 10. Comparte el artículo:Estos íconos enlazan con webs de marcadores sociales […]

  4. Paul May 24th 2007 at 01:00 pm 4

    Anyone manage to get FxIF working?

  5. Andrew Ferguson May 24th 2007 at 01:13 pm 5

    FxIF and Pix2Fone are probably the most useful for me.

    I like this list; good roundup :)

  6. photogv7 May 24th 2007 at 01:18 pm 6

    Paul -
    It works. At least I’ve got it working. But it won’t work on EVERY photograph. This, I suspect, is because when you try it on some sites, the EXIF data is either missing, or masked somehow. For example, I haven’t managed to get it to work on Flickr. On the other hand, try it on most of the images on this site and it should work fine - just right click and view “properties.”
    Hope that helps.
    Chris

  7. photogv7 May 24th 2007 at 01:21 pm 7

    Thanks, Andrew.

  8. Brian Auer May 24th 2007 at 01:28 pm 8

    The ImageZoom extension is pretty cool — it’s so easy to use without adding extra buttons and toolbars to the browser.

  9. FOTOGRAFIE » Firefox-Extensions für Fotografen May 28th 2007 at 07:01 am 9

    […] Adaptiert (oder ehrlicherweise geklaut) von Photographer’s Journey […]

  10. Ade Jun 1st 2007 at 06:59 pm 10

    Nice finds. Thanks or the FYI!

  11. gregorius agung Jun 2nd 2007 at 10:57 am 11

    that’s great…I will install it as soon as possible!

  12. HitNews » 10 Best Firefox Extensions for Photographers Jun 28th 2007 at 07:37 pm 12

    […] and More : http://photographersjourney.com Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and […]

  13. A.Travel Aug 1st 2007 at 05:05 am 13

    I am alternating between Firefox and Explorer. I have never used its extension or other features of the browsers except the bookmark. Maybe it’s time to check out all these features. Thank you this information.

  14. Christopher Scholl Aug 1st 2007 at 08:57 am 14

    You are more than welcome. I have personally found Firefox addons to make all the difference. Besides, if you don’t like one of them, it’s very easy to uninstall. Then, just keep playing until you discover those that are indispensable for you.

  15. Nathan Oct 7th 2007 at 12:04 pm 15

    Thanks for bringing these up! I’d lost fxif and kept forgetting to get it again!

  16. Christopher Scholl Oct 7th 2007 at 09:11 pm 16

    Absolutely, Nathan. My pleasure.

    Chris

  17. Fikra Merkezi Jan 4th 2008 at 01:08 pm 17

    VERY BEATIFULL THANKS

  18. Filme noi Jan 17th 2008 at 06:38 pm 18

    Nice list, i was looking for some of this plugins, Image zoom is very useful

  19. Delete DMOZ Jan 25th 2008 at 02:46 am 19

    So at last I founf some plugins for my FF horse to tame the Smugmug website, thank you so much. I just adore lists like this.

  20. Chris Jan 25th 2008 at 08:12 am 20

    yeah thanks for these, very helpful :) fxif especially

  21. Dogs Feb 23rd 2008 at 11:40 pm 21

    thanks for this list….i haven’t used many of these, but hopefully i will give all of them a try :)

  22. cmiper Mar 6th 2008 at 08:33 am 22

    I am surprised that there is no mention of Piclens. It’s by far the best slide-show add-on I have seen yet for FF.
    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579

  23. Christopher Scholl Mar 6th 2008 at 08:36 am 23

    You are quite right. It’s not an exhaustive list and there are many other great ones out there. Thanks especially for that one!

  24. Terry Straehley Mar 12th 2008 at 12:08 am 24

    I read your list and downloaded ShutterStockBar. Once I approved the installation, it logs right in since I ‘ve been logged in to SS today (or because the browser stored my logon) and displays the data.
    As noted on the web site, it only displays the data for the current month. This has to do with the Shutterstock API as I have another program that acts the same. Also as noted on the web site it is not compatible with FF 3 Beta.

  25. Mozzilla Firefox Mar 23rd 2008 at 11:50 am 25

    i will also say that Piclens should be on this list.
    great post and collection

  26. Firefox Apr 2nd 2008 at 01:08 am 26

    i gess fotofox is a very good plugin that should be considered.

  27. Michelle Potter Apr 14th 2008 at 11:35 pm 27

    Thanks for letting me know about FxIF! The best part is the “copy” button — that will make it so much easier when I am posting photos to photography forums and want to include the EXIF. :)

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