Tools for Flash-based image manipulation

Question

I'm building a Flash app (as3) that allows users to embed photos of themselves in a scene--think carnival-style cutouts (or faceInHole). I like the interface design for image manipulation at FaceInHole, which puts anchor points and a skeleton around the boundaries of the uploaded image and lets users drag the image to change its position, resize it by dragging corners, rotate it, etc, similar to the free transform tool in photoshop.

Originally, I was planning on building the application with an interface that just used buttons in a control console to manipulate things like position, rotation, etc, but I find the FaceInHole approach more intuitive.

I have two questions:

a) Will most users find the in-place skeletal manipulation tool more convenient than the button-based tool, or do I just find it easier because I'm used to things like Flash and Photoshop that use a similar interface?

b) Are you aware of any good open source classes / libraries that contain a solid implementation of the photoshop-style free-transform image manipulation interface?

Answer 1

I've done some research, and I've found two good as3 implementations:

Senocular has a nice free as3 transform tool.

Greensock has something similar that looks slightly more polished but costs $300.

Guess which one I'll be using?