I'll describe PhotoSketch, but you really have to watch the demo video to believe it. If you make a living putting together composite images in Photoshop, you may want to stop reading right now, and start looking for a new line of work. Photosketch takes rough, even stick-figure-like drawings you do in Photoshop, finds real images to match, and puts together a montage that looks a lot like what you were imagining when you drew those sticks. You do need to add some text labels to the elements of your picture to help with search, but PhotoSketch does the rest. And, surprisingly, it looks pretty darn good.

You might expect something as advanced as PhotoSketch to come from a huge company like Google, but it was actually developed by a group of 5 computer science students in China. Their bandwidth isn't enough to stand up to all the hype, though, so PhotoSketch is down right now. The very impressive demo video shows a bit of how it works, though.

PhotoSketch uses a combination of your text labels and the rough shape of what you drew to find appropriate elements for your image. The results, at least the ones in the video, are incredible. The video also reveals that PhotoSketch isn't perfect - you don't want a baseball player for your Frisbee throwing scene, for example - but it generates several decent options for you to choose from, so one of them should be what you're looking for.

[via Mashable]

Odosketch is a drawing tool that's been around since 2006, but just caught my eye this month with its latest relaunch. It's a quick Flash-based way to do some drawing on a background that looks like a page in your trusty Moleskine sketchbook. You may not be as talented as some of the artists in the Odosketch featured gallery, but because of the way the app is designed, pretty much anything you draw with it looks good.

There's a selection of several brushes that vary in color and thickness, and it's just plain hard to make something look bad with them. The colors in Odosketch's limited palette all go together well, and I found myself accidentally achieving effects with my mouse that probably look better than anything I could do with a real brush. Also, Odosketch has an important feature that we take for granted in desktop apps, but some Flash projects unfortunately lack: you can actually save your work.

Imagine you had a drawing program in which you couldn't draw what you wanted because each tool had a mind of its own. Also imagine you couldn't select the colors to use as it would decide it for you. If this is your idea for a drawing program then you should definitely check out bomomo.

In all fairness, bomomo never claimed to replace any drawing program you may be already be using. Actually, it never claims to be anything really. Maybe its just a web based application that just draws shapes in pastel like colors.

Using bomomo is pretty self explanatory. Select an available brush/tool and start moving your mouse around while holding your button to draw. Shapes are random so don't expect to be able to draw right angles or parallel lines, just think organic.

Bomomo might be used more for the creation of abstract art instead of drafting up plans for a multi story building so that may explain the hours of frustration we had while trying to use the program. Then again we're not really art experts as we think the velvet picture of dogs playing poker is a classic.

Doozla is a drawing application (Mac OS X only) designed for children from Plasq, the geniuses behind Skitch and Comic Life. There are 4 main ways to use Doozla: free drawing on a plain white background, drawing on a webcam capture, drawing on one of the included background pictures, and coloring-book mode.

The interface is fullscreen and child friendly since it provides large icons and a simple feature set. There are standard tools like a color chooser, eraser, paint bucket, and ellipse tool, and clicking any of the tools triggers a jolly voice to vocalize the name of the tool or color that was chosen.

Unfortunately Doozla only saves drawings in .doozla files (not .jpgs, .gifs, etc.), so it's not very easy to share creations. However, you can print the drawing to a standard printer or to a PDF.

Doozla costs $24.95, but a 30-day trial is available.

Scriblink is an online digital whiteboard that allows you collaborate with others online through writing on a digital whiteboard. You can invite up to five people to join your board at a time and can talk to your guests through an in-screen chat function. You can write on your board using different colors and shapes and theres a layout toolkit to help you with the complex stuff.

If you don't have people to collaborate with but feel the need to draw the site also has a "Universal Board" where you can get together with random people from around the world and get your scribble on.

[via EmilyChang]

Though it's possible that web-based drawing tool Sketchfu could be used for some kind of sensible business application, the truth is, it's just plain fun. Sketchfu lets you draw, doodle, and create your own sketches, or build on the drawings of others. There are dozens of colors to choose from and brush sizes range from tiny to the aptly-named "BIG." That's about all the site offers by way of tools at the moment but since Sketchfu is still in its infancy, expect more options to emerge over time.

What makes Sketchfu really spiffy, though, are the options available to you after you're done drawing your picture. Every brush stroke you make while creating your masterpiece is automagically captured and turned into a movie of sorts that shows step-by-step how your drawing came to life. Sketchfu also offers a few ways to share your illustration via email, StumbleUpon, Facebook, MySpace and even a few popular blogging platforms.

In true Web 2.0 community-building fashion, users can comment on and critique the pictures of other users and also vote them up to the "Most Cheered" page. Sketches at the site range from one writer's terrible attempt to try her hand at drawing, to some staggeringly awesome work by the truly talented folks of the interwebs.

I have seen many apps in the social online collaboration space, and few are as easy to use as Thinkature. Besides, the name "Thinkature" is just plain cool without having to be all web 2.0 and stuff. It just goes to show you that a traditional product name can still hold it's own in today's "freeky" world of strange software titles. Anywho, on the the main event, thinkature has simple collaboration tools, color-coding for categorical emphasis, integrated chat and voice features, user list editor, images search, and a helpful collaborative object selector, helping you (the presenter) keep your users collective focus on whatever object you decide to target. Thinkature's approach is that simplicity is sophistication, which makes the overall feel of the app more hassle-free than making you feel like you aren;t smart enough to use it. This is a tool that almost anyone can pick up an use for an online meeting without any prior knowledge. Setting up initial content before your debut might be a good idea, however. Almost no learning curve, along with powerful tools, and AJAX-rich site controls make this package worth a gander. Lend it an eyeball, invite a few folks, and you'll get some use out of it. It is free to use and no plugin is required.

When I originally posted about Flash game/drawing toy Line Rider, I had no idea that it was already well on its way to becoming a huge cult hit. If you check YouTube you'll find dozens of breathtaking runs in which the little sledder is sent around huge loops and over immense gaps, and, more often than not, subjected to intense--but entertaining for us--pain toward the end. In my original post I lamented the lack of an eraser tools in Line Rider. Some fans have gotten impatient waiting for a new version that fixes this and other limitations, and several have released modified version of the game with enhanced features. The best I've seen so far is Line Rider ZaDa (if you have trouble with that link in Firefox, try this one). It makes four major additions to the original game: 1) An eraser tool that lets you remove individual line segments. 2) A flag tool that lets you set a particular position (and vector) for the sledder to start his run at, handy if you have a five-minute run and want to test something toward the end without watching the whole thing over again. 3) Accelerator lines, which appear red and make the led speed up and even sled uphill, great for loops and jumps. 4) A "background line" tools that lets you draw lines that don't affect the sledder, i.e. for decoration.

Unlike other Line Rider mods, Line Rider ZaDa doesn't change the game's physics (with the exception of those accelerator lines), so it doesn't make it any easier to keep the little guy on his sled--it just makes the drawing process easier and a little bit more fun.

Are you a Line Rider addict? What features do you hope then next (official or unofficial) version has? Post your wishes and favorite runs in the comments.

Games that have a drawing components seem really big these days. The blame, or perhaps the credit, should probably go to the Nintendo DS. Scribble is a great free Flash game that's kind of a combination between Kirby: Canvas Curse and Lemmings, though the sketchy graphics are reminiscent of Yoshi's Island. Your goal is to get your "Blots," which are walking, anthropomorphic drops of ink, to the flag at the end of each level. Just like in Lemmings, the Blots walk continuously in one direction until the hit an obstacle, whereupon they do an about-face and start walking in the other direction, or until they're killed (with a heartbreaking squish sound) by an enemy, hazard, or long fall. Unlike Lemmings, however, in Scribble you have just one tool: Your mouse, with which you can draw lines. Lines can make bridges, ramps, or barricades for the Blots, or they can be used to kill or otherwise interact with enemies, serve as fuses for bombs, and more. You can have a limited amount of "ink" on the screen at any one time, but your lines gradually disappear and replenish your ink supply.

Scribble is an extremely addicting game with many levels. It has a very welcome save feature, a great variety of challenges, and, happily, and unlimited number of retries. If you enjoyed Lemmings I really recommend Scribble.

[Via Jay is Games]

Say you need the ability to add a drawing program to your website. It could be very time consuming and expensive to have one written. Instead, why not install Draw, an open source online drawing program released by Cumulate Labs. Check out the demo of this very full-featured drawing program powered by Ajax.

Draw offers basic shapes as well as flow-chart shapes, so it can be used as a poor-man's Visio in a pinch. It also allows for text labeling, color fills, and all the other drawing tools you'd expect to find in a drawing program.

Maybe I'm strange, but my 3 year old son has his own computer. Now, it's not a fancy computer - in fact, it's one I was given for free when a friend finally upgraded. It's woefully slow and underpowered, even for many of today's websites. But it plays some older kids games (Windows 95 / 98 era) we were given just fine, and a few fun websites that are geared towards kids.

Recently my son has become enamored with a site that lets him paint, but it's painful to watch him struggle with the Flash interface, since the computer simply can't keep up. So when I heard about TuxPaint, I had to give it a try.

TuxPaint is an open-source painting program geared towards kids aged 3-12. It installs rather painlessly, and you can download an optional package of stamps (think of it like clip art, with associated sounds) or install it without them. On my son's computer, the program works very nicely, but the stamps are a bit slow. Drawing tools are quite snappy, and the newly added feature of stereo sound is really remarkable - as you paint on the screen, the sound that comes from the paint brush (or really anything you're using in TuxPaint) is mixed between the left and right speaker depending on how close you are to either side of the screen. When I read about stereo sound being a feature of a drawing program, I was skeptical, but this truly adds to the experience of using the program.

I also really appreciate that there is a control panel utility that allows you to simplify the user interface for younger users, or enable advanced features for older kids. This is a program that will grow with your children.

Other features introduced in version 0.9.16 include animated brushes that will effectively draw a critter following the cursor (leaving impressions as it goes), and brushes that can change shape depending on the direction they are moved, resulting in more natural looking strokes.

All in all, TuxPaint is a "must have" for any computer that is regularly used by children. It's free, full-featured, and fun. Oh, did I mention it's available for Windows (all versions), Mac OS X, and Linux (& even FreeBSD and NetBSD)?

quickmaps is a cool new Google Maps-based web service (or mashup, if you prefer) that lets you get really creative with your Google Maps. Quickmaps gives you a bunch of tools, including a couple dozen markers, line and doodle tools for drawing, and text labels that you can place anywhere on a Google map. Drawing is done with the mouse, and markers and text labels are conveniently drag-and-drop. There's a lot of ways you could quickmaps, but the front page has a few suggestions: "drawing a map to your house, sketching out a cycling or hiking route, or telling everyone where you saw the grizzly bear." quickmaps is super-easy to use, but I was frustrated that in order to remove "doodled" lines you must remove them one segment at a time, which gets old fast. Maps that you create can be saved and shared with your friends. Registration is optional, but if you don't register you can't go back and edit maps that you've saved. And, of course, once you save your map you can embed it in your web site and share it with your friends. I have to say that apart from the doodle-removal issue, quickmaps is one of the slickest applications of the Google Maps API I've seen yet.