photography posts

Learn to take better photos with Nikon's iPhone app

by Sebastian Anthony Oct 31st 2009

Nikon, never satisfied with merely standing still, have brought out a lovely new iPhone app that acts as an always-there photography guide. If you're an amateur, semi-pro, or even a professional wondering how certain effects or styles are pulled off -- this app would make a great addition to your iPhone's arsenal.

This new app, Learn And Explore, allows you to hunt for professional examples to show you what's possible in a given situation. There are guides that will show you how to take photos in tricky conditions -- indors, outdoors, low-light, long-exposure -- it's al lhere.

They're promising continuos updates and access to their Nikon World magazine through the app.

No reason this would only be of use to a Nikon user either -- though if there's any kind of Nikon branding on the software, I'm not sure a Canon user would be seen dead with it...

[via CNET]

Tags: app store, AppStore, camera, iphone, photography

Filed under: Photo, Windows, Macintosh, Adobe, Commercial

Get Adobe Lightroom 3 for free! (kinda)

by Sebastian Anthony Oct 27th 2009

Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta -- photo credit: Adobe Systems

Until April 30th 2010 -- six whole months! -- Adobe Lightroom 3 is available for public beta testing.

In the last week there's been a lot of news regarding Lightroom 3's advanced feature, and now here's your chance to actually give it a whirl!

Lightroom is great for every kind of photographer -- casual, avid snapper or professional. It's not a full-featured editing suite like Photoshop, but it does have most functionality that photographers (note: not 'digital artists') might require -- but if you're the kind of artist or photographer that likes to airbrush his works into submission, Lightroom isn't for you. It is a 'digital darkroom and presentation' tool -- so from downloading photos, to sorting through them and producing pretty presentations/contact sheets, Lightroom's the program to use.

For those of you that have used it before, and are wondering why it might be a good time to upgrade (or at least try the beta), here are the new or enhanced features that Adobe are touting:

Brand new performance architecture, building for the future of growing image libraries
State-of-the-art noise reduction to help you perfect your high ISO shots
Watermarking tool that helps you customize and protect your images with ease
Portable sharable slideshows with audio-designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slideshows as videos and include audio
Flexible customizable print package creation so your print package layouts are all your own
Film grain simulation tool for enhancing your images to look as gritty as you want
New import handling designed to make importing streamlined and easy
More flexible online publishing options so you can post your images online to certain online photo sharing sites directly from inside Lightroom 3 beta (may require third-party plug-ins)*

And if those bullets got your juices flowing, here's the download link again: Adobe Lightroom 3 Public Beta

Tags: adobe, beta, digital camera, DigitalCamera, free, lightroom, photography, testing

Filed under: Photo, Windows, Freeware

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

by Sebastian Anthony Oct 21st 2009

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?

Tags: digital-photo, photography, photoshop, raw, windows, windows 7, Windows7

Filed under: Photo, Utilities, Windows, Freeware, Open Source

CuteCanonCapture enables hands-free photography via a USB cable

by Lee Mathews Aug 4th 2009

When I look at the elaborate setup our driver licensing bureaus use to photograph people, I've often wondered if there isn't a less expensive solution. A decent Canon camera and CuteCanonCapture looks like it would be up to the task.

CCC is compatible with ten different PowerShot models: the A620/640, S80, S3/5 IS, G7/9/10, and SX100/110 IS. Plug in a USB camera to your camera and click to connect. Once active, you'll get a realtime view of what the camera sees. The program also allows you to adjust the exposure mode, flash, auto focus, and zoom.

It's fairly similar to the applications that come packaged with webcams, except the image quality is much better.

CCC is open source and available for download from the project's wiki site or from Freeware Files.

Tags: canon, digital-camera, photography, remote-control

Filed under: Photo, News, Web

Can software determine the aesthetic value of a photograph?

by Jay Hathaway May 21st 2009

Professional art critics endlessly debate the merits of various photographs -- heck, that's the entire premise of a photography contest! -- but what if a computer could reliably do the same thing? Researchers at Penn State put together a photo ranking algorithm that you can now test for yourself on the web. It's called Acquine, and it's based on data from large numbers of human ratings that determined what people find aesthetically pleasing in a photo.

For best results, give Acquine a high-resolution color photo, at least 600x600 pixels. It will give the photo an unbiased rating between 0 and 100. There's a library of the photos people have already uploaded, and you check them out in rank order to see if the algorithm gives the same results you would have. It's definitely an interesting exercise, and a thought-provoking comment on the challenges of replicating human aesthetic judgments through software.

Tags: acquine, aesthetics, photo, photography, rating

Filed under: Photo, Web services

Turn your high-res images into zoomable widgets with Closr

by Jay Hathaway Apr 8th 2009

If you shoot high-res photos, and you're looking for a way to show them off that doesn't take up as much space as the full-size image, but doesn't hide all the details like a thumbnail, you might want to give Closr a look. Closr lets you upload a photo, and transforms it into a widget that viewers can zoom in and out of. That way, they can either see a thumbnail, or zoom way in and drag to look at different parts of your image.

The widgets also have some other useful functions, like a full-screen button, and another button that resets the photo to its starting size. There's minimal branding and excess junk attached to them, too, so they're not going to make your site look terrible when you embed them. If you have the particular problem of finding a way to display your large photos, Closr might be the solution.

Tags: closr, high-resolution, photography, photos, sharing, widgets

Filed under: Fun, Photo, Web

Create tilt-shifted photos with Tiltshiftmaker

by Jay Hathaway Jan 7th 2009

Tilt-shifting, that spiffy photo effect that makes real people and objects look like part of a tiny toy set, has become really popular lately.

Tilt-shift time lapse videos by Keith Loutit were recently featured all over the Internet, inspiring others to figure out how to achieve the effect in their own photos. You could Google a step-by-step tutorial, or you could save yourself the trouble and use Tiltshiftmaker.

Pop a photo into Tiltshiftmaker, move the sliders around to choose the area you want to focus on, and that's all there is to it. It seems to work best with photos that are shot from above and from a distance. If you need some inspiration, there's also Tiltshiftmaker's gallery you can check out and add your own photos to.

Tags: photography, photos, tilt-shift, tiltshift, tiltshiftmaker

Filed under: Photo, Macintosh, Commercial

Hydra 1.5.3 (beta) for Aperture

by Joey Celis Jun 17th 2008

Attempting to capture the different ranges you see with your eyes on camera is quite difficult. For the most part, digital cameras attempt to accurately capture an image but sometimes details are lost in the shadows or in the highlights. In high dynamic range (HDR) photography multiple photographs of varying exposures are taken of the same subject and later combined to produce a photo with a greater dynamic range than if only 1 photo was taken.

There are many ways to go about creating an HDR image and if you're an Aperture user, the folks at Creaceed may have a solution for you with their Hydra 1.5.3 plug-in. While currently wearing the beta badge, Hydra allows Aperture users to select up to 4 photos to create their HDR image and also offers the option to auto align your selected images, allowing you to take photos without the use of a tripod. This is an important feature, as when you are overlaying multiple photos it's important that they all line up perfectly. Controls are well laid out and results are fast and impressive.

While producing a quality HDR image is more than just having the right software, Hydra attempts to ease the post production work allowing you to concentrate on the most important part... what's happening through the lens.

Tags: aperture, macintosh, noise, photography, plugin

Filed under: Design, Fun, Photo

Dumpr: unfortunate name, neat photo effects

by Jay Hathaway Jun 15th 2008

If you're no Photoshop guru, but you have fun applying different novelty filters to your pictures, you might like Dumpr. It's web-based, very simple to use, and has a pretty decent library of effects: sketch, Lomo, reflection and jigsaw puzzle, to name a few. You can upload photos from your own hard drive, or paste in URLs from some of the major photo hosting services, including Flickr and MySpace.

Dumpr isn't really meant for advanced users, although buying a Pro account will get you access to a few more effects. Despite the ... interesting ... choice of name, Dumpr is pretty fun to play with, and it's great for quickly doing things to photos that would take a while for a novice to learn in Photoshop. It also has a few Flickr-specific features, like searching for pictures similar to your favorites, and rating Flickr photos. We're still not sure about telling our friends we're going to Dumpr some photos of them, though.

Tags: Dumpr, effects, Flickr, photo, photography, unfortunate

Filed under: Internet, Photo, Video, Features, Social Software, web 2.0

Photosharing - comparing Flickr, Photobucket and Zooomr

by Dolores Parker May 20th 2008

How do you do decide which photosharing site to go with? If free is your criteria, there are certainly many options to choose from. Most free photo sharing sites are ad supported and come with a certain GB capacity limit. If you upgrade to a pro account, which can run anywhere from $20-$25 per year, there are typically no limits and no advertisements.

We took a look at the most popular photosharing sites' features and did a comparison to help you decide which photo site is best suited for your needs. We compared Flickr, Photobucket and Zooomr and then test drove each of the sites to see how well they did. Check out our unscientific findings after the jump.

Tags: Facebook, flickr, flickr vs facebook vs zooomr, FlickrVsFacebookVsZooomr, Fotoflexer, myspace, photobucket, photography, Photosharing, Picnik, zooomr

Filed under: Photo, Web services, Beta

Photie, for your huge photo upload needs

by Jay Hathaway Mar 31st 2008

Does the world really need another photo sharing website? Maybe, if that site is Photie.com. Photie's design is strikingly simple. It's easy to navigate, signup is a snap, and there are plenty of interesting photos to check out on the front page. The main attraction here, though, is the ability to upload photos of any size.

Photie doesn't have all the pro features that sites like Flickr and Smugmug offer, but there are plenty of users out there who think of those as frills. A free service with a nice, clean design and no cap on file sizes looks pretty good if you don't want to deal with stuff like social networks, mobile uploads, and signup fees. This is just uploading and tagging, like nature intended it.

The site is still in beta, so we'll keep an eye on it and see how it evolves. Frankly, we're hoping it stays with the friendly "less-complicated-than-Flickr, much-classier-than-ImageShack model". Before you start with the "not another photo site!" comments, give it a look. We think some users will find it's just what they needed.

Warning: Because Photie displays recently-uploaded photos on the front page, you might not want to click through at work. There was nothing controversial up front when we took the screenshot above, but it's best to be careful. Thanks to readers Alex and Todd for catching this.

Tags: beta, photie, photo, photography, photos, sharing, upload

Filed under: Design, Internet, Photo, Features, Web services, Adobe, web 2.0

Adobe Photoshop Express Beta launches

by Christina Warren Mar 27th 2008

Gallery: Photoshop Express Beta

Digital photography has become a way of life for lots and lots of web users and there is no shortage of services out there to host your digital pictures (Flickr, SmugMug, Picasa, Windows Live Spaces, not to mention social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace). As more and more day-to-day computing tasks move to the cloud, the market really needs a solid, web-based editing suite. With Adobe Photoshop Express, which launched its beta today, we get just that.

We look at a lot of web software and services, but have to say that Photoshop Express one of the slickest web-based applications for photos that we have ever used. Although services in the past like Picasa or Picnik have offered some basic photo editing capabilities, what Photoshop Express is doing is in a completely different league. Like many other photo services, Photoshop Express will let you share and display your online photos; each user account is given 2 GB of space to store and share photos (this is free, additional space and extra features will be available in the future, pricing TBD) and you can embed links to the Photoshop Express hosted galleries or direct-embed individual images.

Tags: adobe, facebook, flickr, online editing, OnlineEditing, photography, photos, photoshop express, PhotoshopExpress

Filed under: Design

HDRwalls: stunning wallpaper for your computer or portable

by Todd Ritter Feb 1st 2008

HDRwalls offers a welcome change from hum-drum single color desktop backgrounds or the limited selection of built-in OS wallpapers. They currently have about 500 High Dynamic Range (HDR) photos in resolutions ranging from 800x600 to 1920x1200. They also provide sizes for iPod Touch, PSP, Blackberry, and iPhone.

HDR photography is the result of increasing the dynamic range of a photo through tone mapping and combining multiple exposures. The HDR group on Flickr has great examples and offers tips to create your own HDR images (and maybe even use them as desktop backgrounds).

[Thanks Michael!]

Tags: background, desktop, hdr, photography, wallpaper

Filed under: Business, Design, Developer, Internet, Web services

Stock photography care of Lucky Oliver

by Chris Gilmer Apr 18th 2007

buy and sell stock photography with lucky oliver

Are you a digital photographer? Like to bring your camera wherever you go and snap like crazy? Why not enter the world of buying and selling your stock photos?

Lucky Oliver is a community of photographers, designers and artists who all buy and sell stock photos. The images and illustrations in Lucky Oliver are high enough quality for both web and print work, and are pretty affordable and starting at only $1.00. For people interested in submitting images to the image portfolio, there is a photographer's guide on what type of images the team is looking to sell. Photographers have to prove themselves to get started in the system by submitting their three best photos. When they are in the system though, royalties can be range from $0.30 to over $12.50 per use.

No more stealing images from Google for projects, this is an affordable way to get the job done without breaking the bank on high priced stock photos.

Tags: buy, camera, lucky oliver, LuckyOliver, photography, photos, sell, stock

Filed under: Design, Developer, Fun, Internet, Photo, Web services, Social Software

Picli, the Digg of photos

by Chris Gilmer Apr 2nd 2007

Forget about all the text on Digg, this is all about pretty pictures. Picli is a social image voting gallery. Their system closely resembles your typical Digg / netscape / Reddit social voting system, with a twist, it's for pictures only. This interesting gallery twist to the social voting scene provides a constantly changing image gallery for showcasing creative work.

Users sign up for a free account and submit photos to be ranked and voted up. Users can also vote and comment on the photos of others, getting them up higher on the Picli list, and sharing insights and opinions. There are some great pieces of artwork displayed here, including fractal outputs, drawings, photography, and image manipulations.

Tags: art, digg, drawings, gallery, images, netscape, photography, picli, social, voting

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 ...

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