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Edit, Resize Photos With BImageStudio

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:24:22 +0000

It takes time to manually edit or resize photos. While it is not possible to automate every photo editing tasks, some can easily be automated to save time and speed up the process.

BImageStudio is a free photo editing software for the Windows operating system that can batch process a set of photos that are loaded into the application. The program supports many popular image formats including jpg, png and gif.

Photos can be loaded into the application by dragging them into the program interface, or using the Add Image or Add Folder controls at the top of the screen.

Photos are displayed in thumbnail view by default. Pane, gallery and detailed view modes are available as well, and can be switched to from the main interface. A double-click on a photo displays it in a new window in an internal photo viewer. All or some photos can be selected in all views.

The left sidebar of the application contains all photo editing options. It is for instance possible to resize, crop, rotate or flip the photos, set filters, add watermarks, rename the processed photos or convert them into a new format or the same format with different quality settings.

Lets take a look at the options in detail:

Resize: A click in the width or height fields in the resize photo control displays an overlay window with pre-defined image resolutions and an extra field to define a custom resolution. Available resolutions range from 320×240 to full HD 1920×1080.
Crop: configure a size in width and height, and a margin.
Rotate, Flip: Fairly self-explanatory. Rotate can rotate the selected photos by 90°, 180° and 270°.
Set Filters: Opens the image in an extra window. Here it is possible to change the photo’s brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma.

Watermark: Available are text and image watermarks. Both open a new window with configuration options. For the text watermark, font style and color, and text position can be configured. An image is required for the image watermark. This image can be resized automatically, and its position on the photos can be defined as well.

Rename: Simple renaming, in the format name, delimiter, number
Convert: Option to convert the processed photos to jpg, tiff, png, bmp or gif.

A click on process displays another window to configure the process sequence. Here it is possible to define how the photos should be processed. It is for instance possible to begin with crop, then resize, to finally apply a watermark to the image, or to only select one or a few of the available image processing options. The same screen offers controls to process all images, or only the selected ones. A file save dialog is spawned in the end, to pick a folder for saving the processed photos.

BImageStudio is a free photo editing software for Windows. The program requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0.

Add brushes to The GIMP

Jack Wallen — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 23:01:23 +0000

The GIMP has a ton of tools for the user to take advantage of. From editing tools to drawing tools to filters to script fu to a whole host of other possibilities. One tool that many don’t take advantage of is bushes.

Brushes in The GIMP allow the user to extend The GIMP’s flexibility by creating different ways to draw with effect or style. Brushes can be any number of styles from either standard drawing tool brushes to more artistic brushes. Regardless of the type of brush you want to add (you can even create your own), you have to know how to add them, before you can use them. In this Ghacks article I will show you how to add new brushes to The GIMP in Linux.

Where to find brushes

Obviously you have to have brushes in order to add them. If you are not creating your own brushes, you will need to find them online. There is a wealth of resources for The GIMP on line. Here are some great sites to find brushes to add to The GIMP.

TechZillo: One fine collection of artistic brushes. This site includes blood splatter brushes, grass blade brushes, scratch brushes, grunge brushes, and more.

deviantArt: A small collection but includes spiderwebs and firework brushes.

Free Brushes: A site dedicated to free brushes for not only The GIMP but also Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.

1000 Free Brushes: That’s right, 1,000 free brushes for The GIMP.

Installing brushes

When you download a brush (or set of brushes) you are going to find either a single .gbr file or an archive of collected .gbr files. Once you have downloaded the file(s) (we’ll assume they have been downloaded to ~/Downloads) open up a terminal window and unpack the file (if needed). Now, from the terminal window follow these steps:

Make sure The GIMP is closed.
If you are using a distribution that requires you to su to the root user, do so first.
Issue the command ls *gbr to make sure you are in the correct directory and the files are there.
Issue the command sudo mv *gbr /usr/share/gimp/2.x/brushes Where x is the release of The GIMP you are using. NOTE: If you are using a distribution that does not require sudo leave that portion out of the command.

That’s it. You can now fire up The GIMP and begin using the new brushes. Let’s see how this is done.

Usage

Figure 1

I have downloaded a fun set of brushes called Doodle 2. After installing the brushes, I open up The GIMP and when I click the Brushes button, I can see all of the new Doodle 2 brushes in the tool (see Figure 1). As you can see, near the bottom of brushes window, the Doodle 2 brushes are there. All you need to do is click a tool that can use brushes, like the paintbrush, and then select the brush you wan to use.

Final thoughts

That’s it. Adding new brushes really is a great way to make The GIMP easier and far more useful. And don’t forget, you can also create your own brushes for The GIMP.

Remove Background From Photos With Instant Mask

Martin Brinkmann — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 17:52:13 +0000

It is sometimes necessary to remove backgrounds from images or photos to continue working with the remaining part only. This can for instance be interesting when trying to copy and paste several objects or people from different photos into a newly created image or when the background needs to be exchanged with a different one.

Instant Mask is a very basic but capable software program to remove the background from photos. A single photo can be loaded into the program at a time. The removal of the background is a three step process. It begins by using the red marker to mark the background area of the photo. After that the green marker is used to mark the foreground area of the photo. A click on the preview button will process the request and display the results based on the user’s selection of the background and foreground marker.

The basic nature of the program becomes apparent if it is necessary to tweak the marker settings as there is no way to remove existing markers from the photo. It might therefor be necessary to reload the image and apply all markers again to remove the background properly from the photo.

The zoom can be used to mark both areas more thoroughly on the photo to avoid that hassle. Photos can be saved as new images or as the same image. Instant Mask is available for download at the developer’s website. It is compatible with most Microsoft operating systems including Windows 7.

Photo Editing Software Image Tuner

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:28:10 +0000

Image tuner is a free photo editing software for the Windows operating system. It can be used to perform a basic set of operations that include batch resizing, converting, watermarking and renaming digital photos and images. The photo editing software has been specifically designed to assist webmasters and users in publishing optimized photos on the Internet but can also be used for other photo editing purposes.

Photos can be added by dragging and dropping them into the program interface or by using the file browser which offers a handy option to add all images located in a folder. Each photo is displayed with its name and size in the interface. The photo editing options are located in the right sidebar and allow a user to resize, convert, watermark or rename the photos that have been added.

Several presets are available in the resizing section that allow the user to resize the photos to match devices like iPods or iPhones but also websites like Twitter or Facebook. It is also possible to select a custom size for the images. The photo conversion supports the most common image formats that include jpg and png among others.

A few photo editing options can be changed in the program’s settings. This ranges from the opacity level of the watermarks to the compression level of the jpg images. Image Tuner (via Neowin) is a handy photo editing software that’s especially useful to batch process photos on the local computer system.

Free Photo Editing Tool

Martin Brinkmann — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:51:10 +0000

Photoscape is a versatile free photo editing tool that can be downloaded as a portable software or an installer. The photo editing tool combines many of the most popular functions that are needed when editing photos. Many of the functions are available by clicking on tabs in the main interface.

One of the main features is the photo editor which can be used to perform basic operations such as resizing, sharpening or removing red eyes from the photos. The same menu provides access to a few effects that can be applied, among them interesting looking ones like changing a photo to a black and white image, adding text or additional objects to the photo.

The batch editor makes it easy to resize multiple images at once with the usual options to reduce, adjust, crop or stretch the photos using various interpolation settings and filters. Another interesting option of the free photo editing tool is the animated gif creator. It can create animated gifs seconds. All the user needs to do is select the photos and effects.

Everything works smoothly and results are most of the time shown in previews to give the user the chance to accept or undo the changes. The list of features include:

Viewer: View your folders photos, slideshow
Editor: resizing, brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming
Batch editor: Batch editing multiple photos
Page: Make one photo by merging multiple photos at the page frame
Combine: Make one photo by attaching multiple photos vertically or horizontally
Animated GIF: Make one animation photo with multiple photos
Print: Print portrait shot, carte de visite, passport photo
Splitter: Divide a photo into multiple parts
Screen Capture: Capture your screenshot and save it
Color Picker: Zoom in screen on images, search and pick the color
Rename: Change photo file names in batch mode
Raw Converter: Convert RAW to JPG

The portable version of the free photo editing tool can be downloaded at the portable freeware website.

Remove backgrounds from photos using FotoFlexer

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:09:43 +0000

This is a guest post by Aseem Kishore, a technology enthusiast and lead blogger for Online-Tech-Tips.

Looking for an easy way to remove a background from one of your digital photos? Commercial photo editing programs like Photoshop have the tools necessary to erase complicated backgrounds from digital photos, but unless you are a professional, you probably don’t have this installed on your computer.

Luckily, there’s a way to remove backgrounds without needing Photoshop and actually without needing any software! There are many online photo editing services that you can use, one of which is FotoFlexer, a free online photo editor with many advanced features.

It is by the far the most advanced online editor in terms of the GUI interface, which is super fast, and in terms of the number of tools available, including morphing, recoloring, layering, effects, animations, and lots more.

To remove a background from an image, first upload a picture to FotoFlexer. You do not have to create an account if you already have photos on your computer. You can also grab pictures directly from Picasa, flickr, Facebook, MySpace, and Photobuck, but you’ll have to create a free account.

Now click on the Geek tab at the right and you’ll see a couple of buttons like Smart Cutout and Smart Scissors. The Smart Scissors tool is what we want to use here. It’s very similar to the magnetic lasso tool in Photoshop.

Now you will want to begin drawing a boundary around the part of the image you want to cut out from the background. Click at the starting point and then continue clicking in small increments along the outer edges of the object. You’ll notice that on each click, the Smart Scissors will automatically snap the curved lines around the the object like shown below:

Continue clicking around the object until you get to the end. Then you’ll need to join the last dot with your first dot in order to create a closed selection. Only then will you see that the option “Create Cutout” become available. When you hover over the first dot you had created, you’ll see it turns green, click on it and the background will darken.

Your final image would look like something below. You’ll have to play around with the scissors tools, but basically if you want a better cut, you’ll have to create more points at smaller distances.

You can use this free service to remove a person from a large group or to merge two photographs together, i.e. take one part of one picture and join it with a different part of a second picture. Enjoy!