Tag Archives: software

Picasa 2 Out of Beta

By Chris Garrett | Published September 20, 2006

Recall my review of Picasa 2 + web albums a little while ago? Well it is finally out of beta and comes with a few fixes and updates …

We’ve also fixed a whole bunch of things in Picasa. Folders finally work as you’d expect, so people who’ve kept their photos meticulously organized in folders and subfolders can see them displayed the same way in Picasa. And we’ve added a shiny new feature to photo-editing: Save. Your Picasa edits can now be preserved when using other programs. The save feature is even undoable, so you never lose your original files.

And there’s more — you can import into any folder you like, make time-lapse sequences into movies, search by color, create a screensaver with beautiful visual effects, and even re-arrange Picasa’s buttons. Oh, and we also made Picasa work with Google Earth, so you can put information about where you went on vacation into the photos themselves, and then, view your shots on a 3-D globe. Try it all out for yourself at picasa.google.com

Via: Google Blog

On of the things I have been waiting for is now present, you can more easily import into an existing folder. I hope it is more robust too, it used to crash for me when importing many gigabytes of files at once.

I have got to test how flickr reacts to the Google Earth / Picasa geo tagging, that might be the solution I have been looking for if flickr reads them.

Interesting is the time-lapse movie export – I have had a time lapse set hanging around my laptop for ages, will be good to try that out.

All good stuff, please do try it out and let me know in the comments what you think of it!

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Adobe Photoshop Elements 5 Announced

By Chris Garrett | Published September 12, 2006

Photoshop Elements users might be interested to hear Adobe have upgraded the product. Not wanting to spend the kind of money required for the full CS package I bought Elements 4 and have been reasonably happy with it so far. I had to patch it up to be able to use layer masks in elements, after that it does everything I need I think. The new Elements 5 upgrade seems to be mostly consumer-oriented features as far as I can see, stuff like scrap book style layouts and mapping (as you might expect).

They have added some editing functionality, not sure of the detail as info is patchy right now at the Adobe Site

Make good photos great with superior editing tools. Fine-tune color, brightness, and exposure using new color curves adjustments; create rich black-and-white conversions; easily correct camera lens distortions; and sharpen blurred edges.

Personally I will be looking out for reviews before upgrading, and even then there will need to be something very compelling!

More Photoshop Elements 5 product info here and the press release is here.

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Future DSLR Camera Feature? – Digital Face Beautification

By Chris Garrett | Published August 16, 2006

This new software from Tel Aviv University in Israel aims to “beautify” photographs by subtly tweaking the subjects features to appear more pleasing. From the examples it seems to work too!

Digital Face Beautification

given a frontal photograph of a face (a portrait), our method automatically increases the predicted attractiveness rating of the face. The main challenge is to achieve this goal while introducing only minute, subtle modifications to the original image, such that the resulting “beautified” face maintains a strong, unmistakable similarity to the original

Can you imagine this built into photoshop, or even your camera? Of course this could be taken to extremes – point it at an old street hag and the result looks like a supermodel, heh.

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3D Photography Navigation and Exploration from Microsoft Labs

By Chris Garrett | Published July 31, 2006

Introducing Photosynth

The Digital Photography Weblog has pointed us to a great new innovation from Microsoft Labs called Photosynth

Photosynth takes a large collection of photos of a place or object, analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed 3-Dimensional space. With Photosynth you can:
  • Walk or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle.
  • Seamlessly zoom in or out of a photograph whether it’s megapixels or gigapixels in size.
  • See where pictures were taken in relation to one another.
  • Find similar photos to the one you’re currently viewing.
  • Explore a custom tour.

Can you imagine this built into Flickr? Click on a tag like “glastonbury” or “New Years Celebration” and then go there and explore, zooming in and out and examining details?

It’s not ready to try but there is an impressive video.

Update: Now you can try it in your browser!

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Adobe Lightroom for Windows Beta released

By Chris Garrett | Published July 20, 2006

So have any of you tried out the Windows beta of Adobe Lightroom? I plan to try it out this weekend when I may or may not be informal-shooting another wedding. As it is beta software I will not be using it as my primary tool of course, it will be though a good test I think.

I would love to know your opinions too, Windows or Mac. Is this the workflow solution to beat all others or a bag of pants best ignored? Go download it from Adobe Labs – Project: Lightroom and let us know!

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Strobist putting on the breaks

By Chris Garrett | Published July 19, 2006

It seems running the most popular photography lighting blog on the interweb has taken its toll on the Family Strobist. David writes that the thing has taken much of his precious time and needs to be less taxing in future.

One thing led to another, and the site pretty much went nuts. Word spread faster than I ever thought possible. Not because it is better than anything else — it’s not. Because a lot of people would like to know more about using flash, and there really isn’t anything like the site anywhere else on the web.

He also outlined his “Next Phase” which includes seminars, etc. I think this is a great idea for him. He should also consider digital learning materials, audio/ebooks etc. While his blog is very educational, his seminars and workshops I am sure will be brilliant, there is a limit to how many people can afford the cost or the time off to go to a physical class and with electronically delivered tutoring he will be able to reach a much bigger market.

Good luck to you David!

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The Best Free RAW Conversion Software – RawShooter – No More?

By Chris Garrett | Published July 13, 2006

I was going to review the 2006 version of Pixmantec Rawshooter Essentials but it looks like the product will be disappearing soon. PhotographyBLOG has an Open Letter from Pixmantec

As we work to integrate Pixmantec technology and expertise into Adobe’s raw processing pipeline, we will no longer be working on new versions of the RawShooter | premium product, and have stopped selling this product. Of course, your RawShooter | premium product will continue to work and serve you well

They do say Canon 30D support will be arriving later so perhaps all is not lost …

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GIMPShop – Free, Powerful Photoshop-Style Photo Editing Software

By Chris Garrett | Published June 23, 2006

I might be a Photoshop Elements user but I would hardly say I was a fan, there are a lot of things I find different or missing from its older bigger brother, such as curves. Also when your parents need a tool for sending Aunt Whatshername a quick email with the latest birthday/anniversary/holiday etc picture they don’t really want to splash out much cash.

Enter The GIMP. Famous with Linux aficionados but also available on other platforms. The only problem with GIMP is it is different again to what you are used to if you have grown up with Photoshop. These kind gentlefolks have developed a modified GIMP to be more familiar (although obviously not identical) and it is now available for Windows users; GIMPshop for Windows

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Canon Adds New DSLR Camera Photo and Raw Software Tutorial

By Chris Garrett | Published June 15, 2006

Rob Galbraith has pointed out that Canon has added a couple of new New Digital Photo Professional tutorials. If you are an EOS owner and haven’t tried out the bundled software yet, get on over and download an update and try it out, you might be surprised at how good it is.

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Flickr Screensaver

By Chris Garrett | Published May 30, 2006

Photodoto points us to Slickr screensaver and you know what, I am glad he did. Creating a flickr screensaver is not difficult, the difference with this screensaver is the stylish implementation.

I have mine set up to view my Flickr favourites and have switched off the pan and zoom feature which other people find cool but I think is annoying. You can choose to go through your contacts, sets, groups … well, check it out, it is well worth having a play with.

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