Filed under: Photo

Liquid Scale is an iPhone / iPod Touch app that allows you to resize images by removing unimportant elements in the photo, leaving the important ones untouched. It's a technique called seam carving that we've previously mentioned, but what's interesting here is that it's now available to be used on the iPhone.

For those that are unfamiliar with it, the seam carving technique analyzes images to determine the most and least important elements, and when you use it to decrease the size of an image it removes the least important parts first, in tiny 1 pixel wide slices. It can be a slow process, particularly on larger images, but the result is often much more compelling than what can be done with a simple crop. Of course, if you're not careful to use the effect sparingly, the results can go from impressive to flat-out weird pretty quickly.

Liquid Scale is available for $2US in the App Store.

[via Daring Fireball]

iPhone owners might not have access to iPhone OS 3.2 yet, but it's already running on the new iPad. Our sister site, Engadget, was able to score some of the details of the new features in 3.2, and it sounds like it's going to be great for both the iPhone and the iPad. The biggest surprise might be the inclusion of some video calling code that even includes multitasking while on a video call. This suggests a couple of things, either one of which would be awesome:

1) The next version of the iPad is getting a camera. This is the least immediately helpful possibility, but it also sounds completely likely. A lot of tech pundits assumed the first-gen iPad would include a camera, so I'd bet on seeing it next time around.

2) Multitasking is coming to the iPhone sooner rather than later. Although a video call and another task at once might be a lot to ask on the small screen - and not that useful, either - we can at least hope that the next software update brings the ability to run third-party apps in the background. The iPad already has wicked multitasking potential, with the introduction of new popover windows that don't take up the entire screen.

Another useful new feature rumored for 3.2 is the ability to download and locally store files using Safari, and open them in other apps. The lack of access to the iPhone's filesystem is one of the biggest reasons that fans of more open mobile operating systems scoff at Apple, and, although this wouldn't totally shut down that line of criticism, it would be a step in the right direction. File uploading is also reportedly included in the update.

Check out the Engadget post for more info, including possible SMS support on the iPad and some slightly more far-fetched rumors about a stylus and a handwriting keyboard.

Divvyshot is a new photo-sharing service that makes it ridiculously easy for friends to combine all their photos from an event into a single album that everyone in the group can access. There's an iPhone client and a web interface (desktop apps coming soon) providing numerous ways to view and edit albums.

The flashiest way to share photos with Divvyshot is to put two iPhones together and shake them. This method allows you to quickly share tons of photos between two phones without having to actually transfer the files – the person you're sharing with just gets access to the already-uploaded photos on Divvyshot, and their phone pulls files from the cloud.

The iPhone-quality versions of the photos aren't too shabby -- and anyone who has access to a particular album can manually download high-res versions via the web. The service also integrates with Flickr, Twitter, and Facebook, making sharing on multiple sites a snap.

If you don't want to have a Facebook or Flickr account just to share photos with your friends, Divvyshot is worth a look as it seems to be positioning itself as the easier-to-use alternative.

Pop quiz: what's the largest photo site on the web? Flickr? Photobucket? Picasa? Nope, it's Facebook.

Like me, you might find that fact a bit surprising, since we don't immediately think of Facebook as a photo sharing site -- that's just one of its features.

What's even more interesting when thinking about Facebook as a photo sharing site is that it has a built-in permission system that says that if you are tagged in a photo, you are given permission to see that photo.

A new Mac and Windows application called PhotoGrabber uses that permission (and your credentials) to go harvest all of the photos it can find of you on the service, and download them into a local folder. It can also download all the photos you have access to of your contacts.

Interestingly, it doesn't appear to download profile pictures, but sticks strictly to photos where the target person has been tagged.

[via Lifehacker]

Talk about your Photoshop disasters! Gaspar Llamazares, a member of Spanish parliament, discovered that his hair and some his facial features had been used by the FBI in a new Most Wanted poster of the world's most notorious terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. The FBI claims to have used "cutting-edge" technology to create the image, depicting what Bin Laden probably looks like today. In that case, Adobe will be glad to hear that the Bureau was so impressed with Photoshop. Is it just me, or does most of this high tech mockup look cut-and-pasted from Llamazares campaign photograph?

The FBI says that they often use stock photos to find the features they include in such mockups, but in this case, the right features weren't available. Llamazares' photo was pulled from the Internet, and "the forensic artist was not aware of the identity of the individual depicted in the photograph. The similarities between the photos were unintentional and inadvertent." That's all well and good, but it might be smart to make sure the guy whose photograph you're using isn't a celebrity or, in this case, an elected official of a foreign government.

Llamazares is reportedly considering legal action. "Bin Laden's safety is not threatened by this but mine certainly is," he said.

[via BBC News]

PhotoBook allows browsing by friend's name or by recently-added album, and it also has a search feature that makes finding specific photos so much easier than it is on Facebook. Not only does PhotoBook save you a lot of clicks when you're browsing, it also eliminates all that clicking of "next" and "previous" when you're browsing an album.

Photos pop up in a lightbox, so you don't have to deal with reloading a thumbnail page if you want to go back and select a new one. You can use the arrow keys to navigate within an album, and there's also a slideshow mode, in case you don't want to click at all. If you're a Facebook junkie, you should not be without this app.

Something else every Facebook junkie should do: become a fan over at Download Squad's new and improved Facebook page. Sebastian has recently done some remodeling over there, and it's looking mighty nice, if we do say so ourselves.

There's a chance you might already have seen this 'sneak peek' video, in which case forgive me. For those of you that haven't seen it, read on and take the jump to view it.

This is actually old news, but I only just stumbled across it a couple of days ago. You see, news of Adobe's next Creative Suite is so hard to come by that this is still the latest Photoshop development! In fact, since October, the only news they've released was to announce the cancellation of their Flash CS5 public beta. But can I say, having just watched the the 'sneak peek', I am now very, very excited about the possible applications for Adobe's CS5. Give us more news, Adobe!

Ever since Palm and Apple started their dance about the Pre's ability to sync with iTunes, I've been keeping an eye out for alternative ways to move media to my Pre.

Over the last few weeks I've been putting three applications through their paces with my Pre to find a suitable workaround for this glaring omission on Palm's part: MarkSpace's GoGadget for webOS, Salling Software's Media Sync and doubleTwist. All three applications are available for Windows and Mac OS X, however in this review were tested on Mac OS X.

Photo by whatleydude

From the massively-nerdy-but-really-quite-cool news department, I bring you the coolest thing I've seen since unwrapping my presents on Christmas Day. 120 years of amazing discoveries, eye-opening editorial and mind-expanding stories form The Complete National Geographic. Maps, stories and every single damn photo, all lovingly reproduced in 'stunning high resolution'... and distributed on a hard drive!

What you see here is the beginning of the end for the librarian. It's also great news for trees and climate change! (Unless someone can turn around and tell me that a hard disk drive is actually more harmful to the environment than 120 years worth of printed magazines).

For a third of the price you could also get the entire collection on six DVDs... but that's not quite as cool, is it? They also mention that 100 of the 160GB is freely available for your own use -- or future content updates, because the National Geographic shows no sign of slowing down yet!

The National Geographic is a frickin' institution -- and unlike some others that I don't care to mention, we should be damn grateful it exists and continues to thrive. If I had children, this would be my first gift to them.

[a nod, conspiratorial wink and thanks to Yanksy for the tip!]

Kenji Kojima's RGB MusicLab is an app that does the neat trick of converting images into MIDI music. As Kojima points out in the app description, this isn't some subjective or artistic interpretation of an image, it's an algorithm based on the RGB (Red, Green, Blue) values in the image itself. It creates a pixelated mosaic of the original image, and adjusts notes up and down from middle C based on how far each pixel's color is from an RGB value of 120 (mid-gray).

RGB MusicLab does give you some control over the music it produces. You can change tempo, select different MIDI instruments, and change the way the program determines how long each note should be. The results can be pretty jarring, but with the right combination of instruments and a little fiddling I was able to get some listenable compositions out of it.

Over at Cult of Mac, they tried out the interesting idea (borrowed from Synthtopia) of seeing whether Hollywood beauty Megan Fox sounds as goods as she looks. This is what they concluded: "The resulting music is a little unnerving, probably because they went with Ambient Piano and Eno Voices for the tempo and instrumentation, all under the user's control. (Trite, but perhaps she'd sound more like she looks with an allegro agitato or samba)."

[via Cult of Mac]

If you're looking for some extra motivation to take photos this year, how about turning it into a game? Noticings is a clever location-based photo game built around the popular photo-sharing site Flickr. Noticings has a lot in common with another well-known location-based game, Foursquare. The difference is that you score points in Noticings by taking a photo of something interesting at a location, instead of just checking in there.

Each player can upload three photos a day for points, and you get them scored by tagging them "noticings" on Flickr. There are no set rules as to what a "noticing" is, except that photos of people don't count. Some things are worth more than others, like being the first to upload a noticing from a new neighborhood, or spotting a sign with a typo. All you need to play is a Flickr account and a camera.

There's a good rundown of the rules of Noticings on the game's website. If you get really into it, you can also check out the Noticings iPhone app. It'll run you three bucks in the App Store.

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Of all the novelty photo apps we've seen on the iPhone, Younicorn might be the weirdest. It turns anyone into a glowing, psychedelic unicorn, and it's based on the simple philosophy that everyone looks better with a long, pointy horn growing out of their head. Younicorn is to photos what Cornify is to websites, but better.

There are several backgrounds to choose from, including sparkles, rainbows, and an array of space-themed scenes. You can place anyone - even your dog, which I find totally hilarious - into one of these backdrops, and position a glowing horn on their forehead. All this magic can be yours if you have enough rubies for 99 cents in the app store!

For extra Younicorn fun, check out a video of the Younicorn team enacting a real-life version of their app, after the jump.

SimpleViewer, a customizable image gallery package for displaying photos on your site, just hit version 2.0 and added some slick new features. SimpleViewer can now grab photos directly from Flickr, and it also has the ability to automatically create galleries from Lightroom and Photoshop. The latest free version offers three gallery styles, it's also customizable via XML.

Other new features include full-screen mode and the ability to add links to your gallery images. The free version of SimpleViewer handles 50 images per gallery, which ought to be enough for most people's needs. Going pro ($45) gets you 500 images per gallery. SimpleViewer is Flash-based and cross-platform, so it should work on any site. If you need to set up a gallery without a lot of fuss, SimpleViewer is worth checking out.

[via John Nack on Adobe]

Framed! is a fun photo app for iPhone/iPod touch that allows you to drop your photos in 34 different scenes such as taxi billboard, album cover, wanted poster, cereal box, TV, etc. After you select the scene and input the text, you can share your creation via email or Facebook.

At .99, this 4 star rated app is a pretty good investment as it will probably keep kids and tweens occupied for hopefully longer than the usual 5 minutes. I timed my own kids using it and at a full 45 minutes of entertainment, I consider that just about priceless.

Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later. There's also a free "lite" version does the same thing with less - only 14 frames.

It seems Santa left us with 3 copies to give away to DLS readers, as well as 1 copy of Xmas Frames, the eggnog version for the holidays.

The rules:

• Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.

• To enter, leave a comment below. The comment must be left by Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time.

• You may enter only once.

• Four winners will be selected in a random drawing.

Prize: One free license of Framed! or Xmas Frames (retail value US$.99).

Click here for the complete official rules.