System and method for managing images over a communication network
A system and method for creating an electronic icon containing information unique to a particular user including information allowing access with respect to a particular digital media file having the icon associated therewith over a communication network by a third party.
1. A non-transitory tangible computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon, the instructions comprising:
instructions for displaying an image icon, wherein the image icon is associated with a selection category, and a network address;
instructions for retrieving a digital image from a plurality of digital images based on the selection category of the image icon;
instructions for categorizing the retrieved digital image according to the selection category associated with the image icon based on a match of image information contained in pixels of the retrieved digital image with pixels of the image icon; and
instructions for transmitting the retrieved digital image to the network address associated with the image icon.
2. The computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the image icon is associated with a corresponding text.
3. The computer readable medium of claim 2 , wherein the image icon includes a subset of contiguous pixels cropped from a matching one of the plurality of digital images.
4. The computer readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising instructions for adding a new image icon for use in categorizing.
5. The computer readable medium of claim 4 , wherein the new image icon is obtained using one of the plurality of digital images.
6. The computer readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising instructions for automatically adding a new category icon associated with a new selection category.
7. The computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the image icon includes a representation of a user-selected category of images.
8. The computer readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising instructions for providing an additional selection feature for adding a customized image icon.
9. The computer readable medium of claim 8 , wherein the customized image icon comprises a subset of contiguous pixels cropped from at least one of the plurality of digital images.
10. The computer readable medium of claim 1 , wherein instructions for retrieving the at least one digital image further includes searching low resolution image collections of the plurality of digital images.
11. A method comprising:
displaying, on a first computing device, an image icon associated with a selection category;
retrieving, based on the image icon, a digital image from a plurality of digital images stored in the first computing device;
categorizing the retrieved digital image according to the selection category associated with the image icon based on a match of image information contained in pixels of the retrieved digital image with pixels of the image icon; and
automatically forwarding the retrieved digital image to a third party computing device associated with the image icon.
12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising automatically adding a new category icon associated with a new selection category.
13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the image icon includes a representation of a user-selected category of images.
14. The method of claim 11 , further comprising providing an additional selection feature for adding a customized image icon.
15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the customized image icon comprises a subset of contiguous pixels cropped from at least one of the plurality of digital images.
16. The method of claim 11 , wherein retrieving the at least one digital image further includes searching low resolution image collections of the plurality of digital images.
17. The method of claim 11 , wherein the image icon depicts a representation of a particular user, and wherein the retrieving of the digital image from the plurality of digital images comprises retrieving the digital image based on a determination of a prior use of the digital image by the particular user.
18. The method of claim 11 , wherein the image icon depicts a representation of a particular user, and wherein the third party computing device is associated with the particular user.
19. A system comprising:
a display configured to display an image icon associated with a selection category; and
a processor configured to:
retrieve, based on the image icon, a digital image from a plurality of digital images;
categorize the retrieved digital image according to the selection category associated with the image icon based on a match of image information contained in pixels of the retrieved digital image with pixels of the image icon; and
automatically forward the retrieved digital image to a third party computing device associated with the image icon.
20. The system of claim 19 , wherein the processor is further configured to automatically add a new category icon associated with a new selection category.
21. The system of claim 19 , wherein the image icon includes a representation of a user-selected category of images.
22. The system of claim 19 , wherein the processor is further configured to provide an additional selection feature for adding a customized image icon.