Skip to Content

Submit your nominations for the Luxist Awards' Best in Decor
AOL Tech

digital-photo posts

Filed under: Photo, Windows, Freeware

How to add Mac-like RAW image support to Windows 7, Vista, XP

Well, not natively, but with the free FastPictureViewer codec pack you can now view your camera's high-resolution files within Windows 7's Explorer. All in all this codec pack has almost every camera type covered, from Canon's CR2 to Sony's SRF and Nikon's NRW -- and many others.

But how will this help me...? Well, if you're not a photographer, this is utterly insignificant. If you are a photographer though -- and I'd hazard a guess that most or all of us here have a digital camera -- it means that you no longer need to rely on manufacturer's own-brand image browser, or Adobe's Lightroom or Photoshop. You could now, in theory, manage your photography portfolio through Windows -- you can already tag and star-rate images, but with this codec pack there's absolutely no reason to use other tools.

And best of all it's free and devoid of any malware. It installs into the background and you'll never hear from it again. It's yet another good reason to install Windows 7...

P.S. Taken a little wind out of your sails, eh, Apple-centric photographers?

Filed under: Business, Design, Fun, Internet, Photo, Beta

Pictomio photo browser, for professionals and fast graphics cards

Pictomio photo browser for super fast graphics cards

There are photo management tools, and then there are Photo Management Tools. Pictomio is one of those Photo Management Tools professionals seek that sets the standard for 3D accelerated browsing, and its packed in a free download.

Pictomio requires graphic cards with a minimum 128 MB video RAM. The main differentiator between this application and say Picasa or Apple iPhoto is the Exif Editor. This feature lets users view, edit and save meta data associated with JPEG files. The Exif menu will display file system attributes, main information like equipment used, X&Y resolutions, date and time, compression, exposure, and F-number.

Another memory intensive feature is the Liquid Zoom which uses mip levels to reduce aliasing for a continuous zooming experience. When photos are browsed, they can be viewed in a standard thumbnail view, filmstrip, single image, or in a carousel view in the style of Apple's Cover Flow. Images can be rated and tagged with appropriate keywords, and fields like artist, equipment, model and software used can be added to keep adequate records of image information. As for tools, designers will appreciate the Color selecting tool that precisely determines the color values of pixels in RGBA and Hexcode formats. Other than that, the toolbox is empty.

Pictomio holds basic photo tools for the beginner or average photographers, but also has important features that the professional photographer must utilize when analyzing and keeping track of photos. One big feature that users crave, and that missing from Pictomio is the ability to adjust and tune pictures. Other than that, this is a great tool to use when analyzing how to increase the quality of the photos you take. And hey, its free!

Featured Time Waster

Graveyard Shift - zombie-busting Time Waster

With Halloween fast approaching, it's a great time to get in some practice defending your territory against zombies. In Graveyard Shift, you take aim at zombies and other creepy-crawlies, blasting them into splatters of cartoony green guts. It's a casual first-person shooter, and it's very easy to get the hang of - use the mouse to aim, click to fire. Graveyard Shift has at least 15 levels, and it might even have some secret stages I haven't unlocked yet. They key to getting good at Graveyard Shift is learning to use ...

View more Time Wasters

Featured Galleries

Defective by Design, London: Protest Pictures
Microsoft Security Essentials
Chromium Pre-Alpha on CrunchBang Linux
Safari 4 Beta
10 Firefox themes that don't suck
IE8 RC1
Download Squad at the Crunchies After-Party
Download Squad at the Crunchies
WordPress 2.7
Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Windows 7 Hands On
Comodo Internet Security
Android First-look: Amazon.com MP3 Store
Android First-look: Twitroid
Google Reader Android
Android Hands-On
Twine 1.0
Photoshop Express Beta
Mozilla Birthday Cake
Palm stuff
Adobe Lightroom 1.1

 


Follow us on Twitter!

Flickr Pool

www.flickr.com

More Tech Coverage

AOL Radio

Joystiq

TUAW

Daily Finance

Autoblog

Urlesque

Engadget

WoW

Switched.com

FanHouse