gHacks technology news » images

FastStone Image Viewer 4.0

Martin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:29:47 +0000

A new version of the image viewer FastStone Image Viewer has been released today by the developers. Version 4.0 introduces several new and enhanced features including better Windows 7 compatibility, improved performance in network folders, display of GPS information with a link to Google Earth, favorite folders and several minor improvements and bug fixes.

The image viewer is available in several editions including a portable version and an installer. It supports multiple languages and is completely free for personal use. The main interface of the software looks a bit cluttered and very colorful at first glance. Especially the two icon bars at the top of the window can cause some confusion at the beginning. It is possible to make changes to the skin but not the the interface itself. The designs itself looks professionally done and the three program windows for browsing folders, previewing images and thumbnails are intuitive to use after all.

A click on a thumbnail image will display a larger preview of that image in the preview window in the left sidebar. A left-click in that preview window will zoom in on the image. It is even possible to move around with the mouse as long as the left mouse button is pressed.

FastStone Image Viewer comes with an assortment of image editing tools. Not as much as image editing software programs like Paint.net, Gimp or even Adobe Photoshop offer but enough to perform the most common image editing operations like resizing, rotating, cropping, changing colors, brightness or contrasts or removing red eye effects.

There are also options to perform batch operations like converting or resizing multiple image formats at once. A handful of other interesting modules are available that include the ability to create slideshows, remove JPEG metadata, change timestamps or compare images. The program supports file tagging and is a solid program for these kinds of tasks.

FastStone Image Viewer 4.0 is a fast comfortable image viewer that can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

Tags: faststone image viewer, image viewer, images, photos, portable software, windwos software

Convert Photos To PDF

Martin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:09:21 +0000

Converting multiple photos into single pdf documents has several advantages. A single file can be stored and managed more comfortable and it’s also easier to distribute them without running into the problem of missing photos in the process. One interesting use would be for instance to convert photos that have been taken on the last holiday into one pdf document to send the document to friends and relatives.

Zilla JPG To PDF Converter is a software program for the Windows operating system that has been designed for this exact purpose. It can be used to convert multiple photos into a single pdf document. The process itself has been streamlined for ease of use. It actually takes less than a minute to configure the program to turn selected photos into a pdf document. The time it takes to create the pdf document itself depends largely on the amount and quality of the selected photos and the processing power of the computer system.

Only two steps are mandatory and a few additional ones option. The mandatory steps are to select photos or folders containing photos that should be included int the pdf document and to initiate the conversion by pressing the convert to pdf now button.

Optional steps include selecting a document title, author, creation date, subject, keywords, the output path and the compression quality.

The result is a pdf document that is made up of all the photos that have been selected during the selection process.

Zilla JPG To PDF Converter is an easy to use program that can create pdf documents showing selected photos in no time. The developer could improve it further by allowing layouts added to the pages that can contain text or other objects. An option to select several photos from one folder simultaneously is also missing as it is only possible to either select one photo or a folder full of photos in the application.

The software program is available at the developer’s website. It is there available for most Microsoft Windows operating systems including Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Tags: images, pdf, photo to pdf, photos, windows software

Take screenshots with Shutter

Jack Wallen — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 11:07:14 +0000

Previously I wrote about taking screenshots in Linux with various applications (see “Taking screenshots in Linux“). In that article I left out one of the most powerful tools for taking screenshots – Shutter. Shutter is the new name for the project that was once called GScrot. GScrot is the GUI version of the handy Scrot command line screenshot tool.

Shutter’s feature list includes:
Fullscreen, window, area screenshots
Website screenshots
GNOME integration with tray icon
Session collection (each screenshot will be opened in a different tab in the Shutter window)
Embedded drawing tool
Upload/Export tool

I have used many tools for screenshots before. Shutter, however, blows them all away. No it is not as simple as hitting the PrntScr button, but it is far more flexible and powerful than anything like it. With that said, let’s install this tool and see how it’s used.

Getting and installing

I will be installing this in Ubuntu 9.04, so this tutorial will reflect that choice. You won’t find Shutter in your standard repository. You have to add the Ubuntu PPA repository. To do this you need to open up a terminal window and issue the command:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

You want to add the following to the bottom of that file:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/shutter/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Once you’ve added the repository you will need to then add the PPA gpg key with the following command:
wget -q http://shutter-project.org/shutter-ppa.key -O- | sudo apt-key add -

With the key added you can now update your sources with the command:

sudo apt-get update

and then install Shutter with the command:

sudo apt-get install shutter

Accept the dependencies and let apt-get do its thing. Shutter will be installed and you are ready to go.

Using Shutter

Figure 1

Basic usage of Shutter is simple:

Open up the tool from the Accessories sub-menu of the Accessories menu.
From the main window (see Figure 1) click the button that corresponds with the type of screenshot you want to take.
Save the screenshot in the filetype you desire

Here are some notes specific to each type of screenshot you will take:

Selection: When you opt to take a screenshot of only a section of your screen the screen will dim and an instructional window will appear telling you exactly what to do. You can scroll in to enlarge a section but this does not appear in your screenshot.

Full Screen: The full screen screenshot will not include Shutter in the picture.

Window: A hand cursor will appear for you to click on the window you want to take the screenshot of.

Figure 2

For the most part Shutter works exactly as you would expect. There are some nifty features that you might not be aware of. For example, Shutter has an outstanding set of plugins to take advantage of. To use the plugins click on the Screenshot menu and select the Execute a Plugin entry. This will open up a new window (see Figure 2) where you can select a plugin to use. Say, for example, you wanted to add a watermark to your screenshot. You can do this by first taking the screenshot, and then opening up the Plugins window and selecting the Watermark plugin. You can then be specific about what you want your watermark to say, where you want it, and what font size you want.

There are a number of other cool plugins to use. Scroll through the list and play around to see which ones you like.

Website screenshots

Taking a screenshot of a website is simple. Click on the Web button and then enter the URL you want to snag. There is one thing you should know about taking a screenshot of a web site: Depending upon how long the page is, the screenshots can get rather tall. Taking a screenshot of the Ghacks page renders an image that is 1025×3459 pixels in size. Fairly large for a screenshot. Of course you can crop that image to use only what you need.

Final thoughts

Shutter is one of the finest screenshot tools available to Linux. If you haven’t used it you should immediately install it and use it. Be warned, you will wind up spending a lot time playing around with Shutter. It’s handy and it’s fun.

Tags: gscrot, images, screenshots, scrot, shutter

Display Full Images That Are Posted As Links Or Thumbnails

Martin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:44:40 +0000

Chance is you have already stumbled upon a few websites that are posting images as links or thumbnails. The only way to view the full images would be to click on the links to be taken to another page or website where the images are then displayed in their normal resolution. The majority of users might have experienced those links on web forums, directories or blog posts.

Unlinker is a Firefox add-on that can display full images on the very same pages the image links or thumbnails have been posted thus eliminating the need to click on the images to view them in full resolution. There are two ways to make the add-on work after installation. It integrates itself in the right-click menu of the Firefox web browser. Users who want to view the full sized images on the active page may therefor right-click on that page and select the Unlinker option from the menu.

The second option is to customize one of the toolbars of the Firefox web browser and drag and drop the Unlinker add-on on one of them to be able to access the functionality with a left-click as well.

Unlinker is available for the Firefox web browser. It can be directly downloaded from the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Tags: firefox, firefox images, firefox-add on, full images, image links, image thumbnails, images, photos, unlinker, web browser

4Chan Grabber

Martin — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:44:22 +0000

We reviewed a small command line application a few days ago that could be used to grab all images that have been posted to one of the boards over at the popular forum 4Chan (read Download all 4Chan Pictures). The command line tool worked fine but was kinda uncomfortable to use as it required the full url to one of the 4Chan boards as a parameter.

That’s probably the main reason why Chris Motch created the 4Chan Grabber, a graphical user interface that mimics the functionality of the command line program. 4chan Grabber is a software program for the Windows operating system that requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0 to work.

The program comes with a list of all 4chan boards. All that needs to be done to download all pictures from one of the boards is to select the board from the list and to click on the Grab Images button. The program will respond by starting to parse the available pages containing the images. This can take quite some time and the downloads start right after the parsing has been finished.

The 4chan images will be downloaded to a directory specified by the user after clicking on the Grab Images button in the application. 4Chan Grabber can be downloaded directly from the developer’s homepage.

Tags: 4 chan, 4chan, 4chan downloader, 4chan pictures, forum, images, windows software

Free OCR Scanning

Martin — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:41:16 +0000

If you are looking for an online service that offers free OCR scanning then you might want to point your web browser to the Free Online OCR service. The service allows users to upload images that will then be processed immediately. The OCR scanning does not take longer than a few seconds after uploading the image. Results are immediately shown in a text form on the same page from where they can be copied and pasted into other software programs or services.

The free OCR scanning service supports PDF, JPG, GIF, TIFF or BMP files with a maximum file size of two Megabytes. The OCR currently supports the six languages English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Dutch.

Best results are achieved if the images have a dpi setting of at least 150. That’s problematic when taking screenshots as these usually are taken at a lower value.

Results range from impressive to workable and it is a good idea to check the recognized text and correct any errors made during the OCR scan. Free OCR has a few additional limitations that are mentioned in the faq on the website. Probably the two biggest restrictions are a one page limitation when scanning pdf documents and that it will not recognize document layouts which means that a two column layout will be processed as a single column layout.

The developers of Free OCR promised to update their service in the near future to remove these restrictions and limitations. Thanks go to JoJo for sending in the tip.

Tags: documents, free ocr, images, ocr, ocr scanner, ocr scanning, ocr service, online service

Taking screenshots in Linux

Jack Wallen — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:44:24 +0000

So you’ve been reading about Linux on ghacks for a few months now and you’ve noticed plenty of screenshots or images of applications in action. Now it’s time you found out just how those images are taken. No it’s not magic, but in one instance it’s ImageMagick. Actually there are a few ways to take screenshots in Linux, ranging from a simple keypress to a command line tool.

In this article you will learn how to take screenshots with the help of The Gimp, the GNOME menu, the Print Screen button, and ImageMagick. Each way has its advantages, so it’ll be up to you to decide which method suits you best. With that said, lets’ dive in head first.

ImageMagick

I wanted to start with this method because it can be a little flaky. The primary issue is that ImageMagick has trouble with Compiz. If you’re not running Compiz, you won’t have any issues with this method. Otherwise you’d be best served to skip down to The GIMP.

One of the benefits of this method is you can use it to grab screenshots automatically. You could even set up a cron job to take screen shots at specific times, or log into a machine remotely and snap a shot. I won’t get into the “why” you would want to do this – decide that yourself.

The basic command for taking a snapshot with ImageMagick is:

import FILENAME.png

Pretty simple. The only catch with the above command is that you will have to specify what portion of the screen to grab. When you issue that command a cross-hair will appear which you click and drag to select what portion of the screen to grab. There is an easier way. If you want to take this screenshot without interaction you issue the command:

import -window root FILENAME.png

What the above command does is take a screenshot of the root window (that’s the entire screen basically.) The screenshot will be saved (in the case of the example above) as FILENAME.png

Print screen

This one is simple (and not much different than using the GNOME menu) you press the Print Screen button. When you do a window will open (see Figure 1) asking you to give the file a name, decide on a destination, and click save. You can save the screenshot in .jpg, .png (default), .tiff, .gif, and .bmp formats. From this same window you can also copy the image to the clipboard for later use.

GNOME Menu

If you look in the Accessories subment of the GNOME Applications menu you will see the entry “Take Screenshot”. If you click on this the same window will open that opened when you hit the Print Screen key. This works in the exact same way. If, for some reason, you have a different keyboard mapping or a Print Screen key that does not work, this menu entry is sure to work.

The GIMP

Figure 1

The GIMP is my standard means for snapping screenshots. Within The GIMP click on the File menu and then click on the Create submenu. From within the Create menu click the Screenshot entry which will open up the screenshot dialog (see Figure 1).

There are three types of screenshots you can take:

Single Window: This will grab only the window you click on after you click the Snap button.

Entire Screen: This will grab the entire screen after you click the Snap button.

Select a Region: This allows you to select the portion of the screen you want to grab after you click snap.

You can also configure a delay (in seconds) which will allow you to open up menus or take an action to grab.

When using The GIMP for screenshots you will have to save the image manually. But you can also edit the image before you save it.

Final thoughts

As you can see there are a number of ways to grab a screenshot in the Linux desktop. Each method is simple and should have you snagging screenshots all day long.

Tags: ImageMagick, images, Linux, screenshots, The GIMP

Portable Image Editor Fotografix

Martin — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 15:53:43 +0000

Webmasters and bloggers usually need at least basic image editing skills to work with images that they post on their websites. These image editors need to provide access to a basic set of features that include resizing images, highlighting parts of them, copying part of the image and saving the images in various image formats. Advanced image editing options that include working with layers, maskings, macros and the like are usually not needed.

Enter Fotografix, a lightweight portable image editor, that might be suited for the needs of webmasters and bloggers who want a simple image editor that supports all the features that they need. While Fotografix does not come with the functionality of Adobe Photoshop or GIMP it does offer access to all those features that most webmasters and bloggers require, and then some.

The image editor opens images as fast, if not a tad faster, than the popular Paint .net image editor. Webmasters have fast access to the image edition features that they require the most and it usually takes only a few seconds to edit an image so that it can be posted on a website. The only feature that seems to be missing is the ability to quickly draw a rectangle or circle around a part of the image to highlight that part.

Fotografix is an impressive (for that size) image editor that fits perfectly in every tools collection. It is compatible with computer systems running Windows XP and above.

Tags: edit images, fotografix, image editor, images, photo editor, portable software, windows software

How To Identify Manipulated Images

Martin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:09:08 +0000

Is an image in its original stage or has it been manipulated in an image editor? Image editors have become that good that it is virtually impossible to tell by looking at the image in question unless it contains flying elephants or similar unrealistic footage. But what about that ufo image that your friend send you, the images from the girl that you met on a dating site or the images that have been published on digital camera manufacturers site?

JPEG Snoop is a tiny portable software program that can analyze the ins and outs of any digital image that the user loads into it. Supported are various image formats including jpg, pdf, crw, dng, cr2, new, orf, pef, thm and even mov and avi.

The software program will display many information about the image in a text editor like interface. The interesting part for users who want to identify if an image has been manipulated is at the end. The program will compare the compression characteristics of the image and assign an assessment class to it in the end.

Four assessment classes are defined:

Class 1 – Image is processed/edited
Class 2 – Image has high probability of being processed/edited
Class 3 – Image has high probability of being original — NOTE: Please see description below!
Class 4 – Uncertain if processed or original

We mentioned earlier that JPEG Snoop is able to process video formats as well. It can analyze a single frame of a video that is loaded into the software. The program might be interesting for users who regularly need to analyze the ins and outs of images.

Tags: image information, images, jpeg snoop, manipulated images, manipulated photos, photo manipulation, photo software, portable software, windows software

Photo Software: Photology

Martin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:43:13 +0000

Photology is a digital photo software for the Windows operating system that helps the user find and view digital photos on the computer system with ease. The application will automatically monitor selected locations on the computer’s hard drive for digital photos and display them in its interface. Initially only locations in the user’s documents and settings folder are monitored but it is possible to add additional locations during setup and afterwards in the settings.

The digital photo software will automatically recognize new digital photos that get added to monitored directories on the computer system. This is an excellent way of monitoring the default locations that photos from the digital camera get synced in. All photos will be displayed by default in the interface as thumbnails. It is possible to enter a full screen view mode for images by double-clicking them. Other options that are accessible from the interface are image rotation and deletion.

Two interesting additional features of the photo software are photo groups and the extensive filters that are offered. Photos can be added to groups by the user. Groups can be created freely by the user to add photos to them. Possibilities include parties, holidays and basically anything that the user can think of.

The extensive filter list makes it possible to filter the digital photos in various ways including time, orientation, photo content, dominant colors, textual filters or location based. The detailed view contains some additional features like Flickr, Picasa or SmugMug upload capabilities, setting images as wallpapers or printing photos. All in all a very clever great looking photo software.

Tags: digital photos, flickr, image software, images, photo, photo software, photology, picasa, smugmug, windows software

Photobucket Upload

Martin — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:12:45 +0000

Photobucket is one of the most popular image hosting sites on the Internet. It is currently hosting more than 6.5 billion images on its servers. It is only natural that some users create applications that make use of the service. One of these applications is the Photobucket Upload extension for Mozilla Firefox. It has been uploaded just a day ago and is currently tagged as experimental on the Mozilla homepage. Experimental simply means that users have to log into the homepage before they may download and install the extension. Add-ons lose their experimental stage once they get enough votes from the Firefox community.

The Firefox add-on adds an option to upload any image to a Photobucket account to the Firefox right-click menu. The process is effective and simple. The user needs to be logged in or log into Photobucket during the first upload. This is not necessary again as long as is logged into the site which usually means per session or even longer.

A right-click on any image will display Upload to Photobucket entry which can be used to send the image right to the Photobucket account. The user will be notified if the upload was successful by an overlay bar on top of the page. This bar displays two additional buttons which can be used to view the uploaded image or to open the Photobucket album organizer.

The Photobucket Upload add-on can be downloaded on the Mozilla homepage.

Tags: image host, images, photobucket, photobucket tips, Photobucket Upload, picture host, pictures

Getting at good quality free images

Daniel Pataki — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:44:54 +0000

As a blogger and general designer person, I often have the need for some cool pics. I could in theory take photos of stuff, but I don’t have the time or the expertise to come up with something good. My companion throughout my blogging days has been sxc.hu.

I was quite surprised about the domain, since it’s Hungarian (wohoo!), but the quality is absolutely spot on. Searching for any term will yield pages of relevant stuff. The top line of photos is from their stock photos site for cash, but all the others are free and of the same quality. The most you will have to do is five acknowledgement or notify the author, which is the least I can do for a godo image.

You can also use Flickr and DeviantArt, but in this case you will have to ask for permission in advance and I’m an impatient guy, so I only do this if I really love an image. It isn’t nice, but in theory you can use any image you find on the web. Where do you get your free images, I’d love to get some more sources!

Tags: images, pics

XnView Add-ons and Format Plugins

Martin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 17:52:58 +0000

XnView is a popular image viewer that is pretty fast and lightweight which are two of the most important traits that an image viewer should posses. What most XnView users do not know is that the developer’s website contains additional files that can be installed to extend the image viewer’s functionality.

Format plugins will add support for image formats that are not included in the main release. About 35 image format plugins can be downloaded from that page. Most of them are exotic formats like jng, wic or bmf which most users probably never heard before.

The plugins can be downloaded separately or as a plugin pack and have to be unpacked into the XnView plugin directory where they will be automatically recognized by the image viewer.

Add-ons on the other hand add support for external services like Imageshack, Nero, archive or ftp support. It usually means sending pictures to another application or adding new functions in XnView like viewing images in archives or adding basic image editing support.

The add-ons and format plugins add new features and functions to XnView which could be interesting for some users.

Tags: image viewer, images, photos, pictures, viewer, xnview, xnview add-ons, xnview plugins

Pixolu Semantic Image Search

Martin — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 16:37:17 +0000

Pixolu is an academic reasearch project on semantic image search. It does increase the quality of the search results by asking the user to refine the first batch of results and using the selected pictures to discover images that are closely related to them. The process is made up of three steps. The user enters a search term in the first step which loads a batch of 150 images from the three sources Google, Yahoo and Flickr. It is possible to deselect a search engine before starting the search.

The 150 images will be displayed in a zoomable and movable area. The mouse wheel can be used to zoom in and out of the area to inspect images closely. Pressing the left mouse button in the area makes it possible to move around which is handy if some images are not displayed because of the zoom level.

It is also possible to use the zoom slider on the right sidebar to zoom in and out of the main area. The second step is the refining phase. The user drags and drops images that fit best to the right sidebar. A double-click is the alternative method of selecting those images. To give an example. A user searching for the game Diablo might enter Diablo in the search form. The resulting pictures will show images of Diablo 1, Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. It is then possible to only select Diablo 3 images from the first batch to tell the search that these are the images to find and display from then on.

Pixolu will then search for and display images that are closely related to the selected images of step 2. The url, resolution and source of selected images will be shown. The only way to view images in full resolution is to load them by clicking on the source url in the sidebar.

Tags: flickr, google images, image search, images, photos, pictures, pixolu, semantic image search, semantic search, yahoo images

High Dynamic Range Image Creator

Martin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:05:37 +0000

High dynamic range Imaging is a technique that allows for a greater range between light and dark areas. The results are often breathtaking colorful images.It basically produces a high dynamic range image from multiple images of the same object taken with different exposures. To create high dynamic range images one needs therefor multiple images and a software program that can extract the information from these images and create a combined image.

Qtpfsgui is such a high dynamic range image creator. It basically takes a set of images in jpeg, png, ppm, pbm or tiff (8-bit) format and transforms them into a high dynamic range image. This works best with identical images of the same scene taken at different exposure levels.

The software program is Open Source and available for Linux, Windows and Apple Macintosh computers. It can also load HDR images directly to edit them in the program’s interface.

The biggest advantage of Qtpfsgui is that everyone can create high dynamic range images with just a few mouse clicks. Advanced users will like the editing options that the program provides but they are not necessary for creating great results.

Tags: digital photography, hdr images, hdr imaging, high dynamic range, high dynamic range imaging, image-editing, images, photography, Qtpfsgui, windows software

Image Optimization With Smush It

Martin — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:43:21 +0000

One important task of being a webmaster is optimizing the elements of a website to provide visitors with a fast loading page. Unoptimized images can increase the page loading time tremendously. It was not uncommon ten years ago to see site headers with 100 Kilobytes and more. This has thankfully changed and it is only occasionally that someone visits a website that makes use of big images like that.

Image Optimization has become a tad easier with Smush It. Smush It is a web service that can optimize all images on a specific website in one go. It comes as a Firefox extension that adds a button to the Firefox status bar. The other option is to enter an url directly or upload images from a local computer so that Smush It can optimize them.

The system works nicely for webmasters who want to optimize all images on their pages. All that needs to be done is to either click the Smush It button in Firefox or load the website directly on the Smush It page.

Smush It (via Genbeta) will process all images from the selected page and optimize them. The optimized images are then listed on the page with the the size savings shown in percent and bytes.

Each image can be previewed by hovering over it and downloaded the usual way. Ghacks is not using that many images and they had been optimized in the past but Slush It managed to reduce the size by about 2 Kilobytes.

That might not sound much but a size reduction of 2 Kilobytes equals saving 60 Megabytes of bandwidth per day on a site with 30000 visitors and 1.8 Gigabyte per month. It also means that the website will load just a tad faster especially for slow connections.

Tags: image optimization, images, slush it, webmaster, website optimization, websites

Microsoft Image Composite Editor

Martin — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 13:47:36 +0000

Combining several images into one bigger image seems to be a center of research in the last years. Microsoft Research released multiple applications that combined several images of the same object. The latest release from Microsoft Research is called Image Composite Editor which can create a panoramic image from multiple images of the same object.

The program is very easy to use. The user needs to pick at least two images of the same object which are then processed automatically by the image editor. An error message will pop up if the software program was unable to compute the new panoramic image. If the process is successful the new image will be shown in the program’s interface.

Several post processing options are available to manipulate the newly created image further. The user can choose one of five camera motions, crop functionality like automatically cropping the image and image projection.

The image can be exported in various formats including jpeg, tiff, Adobe Photoshop psd and the HD Photo Image format. Microsoft Image Composite Editor is a nice tool that can combine multiple images of the same object into one larger image of the object. This is great for objects that are to large to fit in one picture taken with the digital camera but also for detailed images that should be combined.

Microsoft Image Composite Editor was tested on a Windows XP Service Pack 3 test system. It should run fine on other Microsoft operating systems and comes as a 32-bit and 64-bit version.

Tags: digital camera, image composite editor, image editor, images, manipulate images, microsoft image composite editor, microsoft research

Picture Tourist Remover

Martin — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:55:13 +0000

It is virtually impossible to get a clean shoot of a tourist attraction in most parts of the world. Since that is rarely the case most pictures that are taken while on holiday show a few or even many tourists on the pictures that block part of the object from sight.

Several image editing technologies have been developed that analyze and process a set of pictures from the same object removing any unwanted noise in the resulting picture. The Snapmania Online Image editor offers a tourist remover algorithm which can be used to process the images online to receive one clear image of the object or person on a set of photos.

The tourist remover is just one of the features of the image editor. The user can store images, use some basic image editing functions like red eye removal, auto correction and some special effects or create panoramas.

A set of pictures can be uploaded and selected while holding the CTRL key. These pictures can then be dragged on the Tourist Remover function at the bottom of the online application.

The only other step after this is to order the photos from left to right starting with the best approximation and to select a artifact removal quality level. The job is then send to the server which will process the images. This can take some time though. During tests the lowest queue rank was 550. This is probably the biggest weakness of the service. It might take a while before the pictures arrive in your photo storage. Thankfully though they are processed in the background and it is not a problem to logout and come back later to see if the photos have been processed.

Another problem is the storage space of only 100 Megabytes. The basic commercial plan offers 2 Gigabytes of storage space and so called Service Points which can be used for all kinds of actions like sending an MMS. There is also an unlimited plan which provides unlimited storage. Plans can be upgraded all the time.

Tags: edit images online, image editor, images, online editor, photo editor, snapmania, tourist remover

Pictomio Photo Software

Martin — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:47:42 +0000

Pictomio is a beautiful picture and video organizer that comes with a wide variety of features and an impressive looking interface. The photo software uses a library like system to catalog images that the user adds to the application. Those images can be sorted and grouped in numerous ways, for example by rating, file size, date or type.

Importing new photos into the application can be done easily. The user can use the navigation pane on the top left side of the application to select folders that contain images from his hard drive or use the Import function to pick folders that way. Photos that get imported are automatically categorized and sorted. It is for example possible to browse the photos by year after importing them.

Some categories like the rating category are empty at the beginning and will be filled when the user begins rating photos in the library. One interesting category is to view the images by equipment model which would be really great for photographers who use different equipment for different purposes.

Other options include to view photos by copyright holders, software, exposure time, flash and about a dozen more categories.

Images can be viewed as thumbnails, image strips, slideshows, single images, flip-book like or on a map that is showing their geographic location. This photo software has so many functions that it is hard to keep an overview over all of them.

One feature that is missing are those basic image editing functions that most other image viewers posses. It is not possible to resize an image and save it on the computer afterwards.

Pictomio raises the bar for other image viewers with its beautiful interface and image viewing functions. It does lack behind in image editing options and suffers a little bit from the amount of functions and features the developers have packed into the interface.

There is another drawback. Beauty has its price and users who like Pictomio simply because of its looks will have to cope with a much higher computer memory consumption as in related image viewers.

Pictomia is available for Windows XP and Windows Vista in version 1.0 and as technology preview version 1.1 which includes the Pictgeo software add-on which adds geotagging to the photo viewer.

Tags: image viewer, images, photo software, photo tools, photo viewer, photos, pictomio

Fleace Flickr Wallpaper Changer

Martin — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:18:13 +0000

Fleace, which stands for Flickr-Enabled Automatic Changer for Everyone, is an interesting wallpaper changer that uses Flickr as the main source for wallpapers. The system works straightforward. The user enters a few tags into the application or keeps the default tags (beach and puppy), changes a few options like the size of the source that should be downloaded, the countdown timer of the preview window or if a image that does not fit on the whole screen should be centered or stretched.

He can then change the wallpaper immediately by pressing the corresponding button. This button will open a smaller preview window that is displaying a thumbnail image of a random image that got pulled from Flickr. The image was tagged with at least one tag that have been set in the application itself.

A click on the Change button loads another image. This can be repeated until a suitable image has been found. There is no immediate acceptance button. The user has to wait until the countdown reaches zero which will automatically have the effect that the full image will be downloaded from Flickr and set as the system’s wallpaper.

A click on Install / Save Changes will add the application to the system startup process. This will have the effect that Fleace will be autostarted and display its window so that the user can pick a new wallpaper. If he sets the countdown timer to 0 the whole process of selecting and setting a new wallpaper from Flickr will be invisible to the user. The application will terminate after changing the wallpaper on the computer system.

Fleace is compatible with all Windows operating systems beginning with Windows 95 including Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Tags: fleace, flickr, flickr tools, flickr wallpaper, images, pictures, wallpaper, wallpaper-changer

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