French company Oloneo has just released a free beta for their product, PhotoEngine. The software is a straightforward HDR creator and non-destructive editor that allows you to quickly merge HDR photos. Additionally, it has features that can adjust specific light sources in the photo, to change the white balance or the exposure. This could come in handy when shooting HDR frames that have a variety of different light sources with different temperatures.
Unshake is a free program available for all operating systems that takes your blurry photographs and attempts to make them clearer. While it’s not miraculous or perfect, it does in fact help in making photographs more usable, especially at lower resolutions (i.e. for the web).
Here’s a before-and-after example using a quick snapshot I took this past weekend with an outdated point-and-shoot camera:
If you have problems using the program on a Mac, try opening the Unshake.jar file directly at the last step. Larger photographs might also take much longer to “unshake”, while lower-res (i.e. 500px wide) photos were completed very quickly.
Unshake (via Lifehacker)
If you’re not naturally an organized person, then figuring out where certain photos are on your computer or external hard drive might be a pain. Adebis Photo Sorter [now defunct] is a free Windows program that uses the EXIF data in image files to automatically rename and/or organize your image files in a new directory, leaving the originals untouched. It supports pretty much all the popular image formats, from JPEG to Raw image formats, and can even help you include EXIF data in the new filenames.
(via Lifehacker)
For those of you who have been itching to try the new Content Aware Fill and Puppet Warp features in Adobe Photoshop CS5, today’s your lucky day. CS5 became available for purchase through the Adobe website, and you can now download a 30-day free trial of the software just to play around with the amazing new features if you’re not sure yet you want to upgrade.
If you’ve tried it out already, do you think the new features live up to the hype?
Photo Magician is a free and lightweight (less than 1MB) program for Windows that allows you to batch convert a directory of photographs. It’s similar in functionality to Photoshop’s “Image Processor” feature, with one difference being you can’t select the output quality like you can using Photoshop.
The program also features a “Quick Convert Mode”, which minimizes the program to a little box onto which you can drag and drop folders of images. If you’ve been looking for a quick way to resize images in Vista (like the Image Resize PowerToy allowed you to do in XP), then you might want to check out this program.
Download Photo Magician 1.0.0.3 (via Lifehacker)
P.S. For a more powerful free program that’s even more similar to Photoshop’s Image Processor, you can check out BIMP Lite.
Easy Release is a new iPhone app designed to make it easy for you to secure model and property releases.
It was designed by Robert Giroux, a photographer of over 24 years who spent eight years on the staff of Getty Images, and uses the same format and legal language as the release forms used by major photo agencies.
The application replaces traditional paper based releases you would otherwise have to carry around with you by packing all of the forms and required fields inside an iPhone application. All the necessary fields are presented in a step-by-step wizard-style interface, and the signatures are entered directly into the application via the touch screen.
Once the release forms are completed, you can email a PDF or JPEG version of the form to yourself.
The app is available from the iTunes Store for $9.99.
(via PhotographyBLOG)
One of the best online photo editors is now completely free to use. Aviary has decided to offer its entire suite of online apps for free, including its popular Phoenix image editor.
The application used to cost $25 per year, and those who subscribed in the past 30 days can request refunds. While there has always been a free version of Phoenix, everyone can now save files privately on Aviary’s servers, watermark their images, and access the tutorials that previously required a subscription.
Offering the service for free should help Aviary better compete with Adobe, which offers its online version of Photoshop for free as well (up to 2GBs).
I wonder if (or when) online editors will rival traditional programs in terms of power and functionality. Any guesses?
(via Lifehacker)
We’re not sure whether it’s worth it in terms of cost, but here’s a way to print your own gigantic photograph posters using your ordinary photo printer. Easy Poster Printer is a free program by GD Software that automatically prints out a poster of any size (maximum is 20×20 meters) in individual pieces using your photo printer.
Obviously you could do the same thing using an ordinary program like Photoshop, but this program takes all the work out of the process, doing all the slicing and printing for you. The 6MB program is for Windows only (sorry Mac people!) and can be downloaded by clicking here [Update: the program is no longer available].
This morning Apple introduced the latest version of their photo editing software: Aperture 3. The $199 program ($99 for existing users) adds over 200 new features to the previous version, including the Faces and Places features that were popular in the latest release of iPhoto. In addition, there is now a Brushes feature that allows you to “paint” adjustments onto photographs, much like the feature that was added to Adobe Photoshop CS4. The new version will also run in 64-bit mode, which Apple claims will allow it to run an “order of magnitude” faster.
The journalism industry is going through particularly tough times, with revenue from ads and subscriptions declining considerably.
However, during the harshest economic climates, innovative ideas flourish more than ever, and news outlets are tapping into the power of convergence: mixing forms of communication to create multimedia packages that deliver stories that are accessible by the “Web 2.0″ generation.
Fortunately for photographers, visuals are an integral part of the multimedia wave.
Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to check out our August post on some of the best newspaper photo blogs out there, as well as some of the multimedia features on most newspaper sites, like the New York Times, SF Gate, the San Jose Mercury News, and some college newspapers, including my alma mater, the Daily Bruin.
Many sites feature audio slideshows, which are one of the simplest and easiest forms of multimedia storytelling–if you’ve got the right tools and elements:
Whether you’re photographing a family holiday, sporting event, or documentary news, try to shoot a variety of images from different angles of different moments. Take close-up and wide photographs.
After the shoot, pick photos that have a narrative or chronological order of events and happenings.
Use a digital recorder that can transfer sound files onto your computer. I usually use a MicroMemo attached to my iPod video (ancient, I know). I’ve also had some hands-on time with the Olympus DS series, which capture very crisp audio. The higher end model, the DS-61 has different modes to capture directional sound, which is very useful when recording specific types of sounds such as ambient noise versus a single person speaking.
When recording audio, find a quiet place to capture interviews and voices, to reduce distracting background noise.
Audacity is a free audio editing program that can be used to cut, edit, splice, and record audio–all very straightforward.
You can also use programs like Adobe Audition for more in-depth editing.
Several publications use Final Cut Pro to put together an audio slideshow. iMovie also can do the job.
For fast production and ready web publishing, try Soundslides. A free demo is available on the site.
Soundslides is a very intuitive program for uploading photos and audio, and adjusting timing points and transitions. It also has a feature for exporting to web if you have an FTP set up.
Share your project on your website. If you don’t have one, check out Weebly.com to make a free customizable site.
Check out some of the links above and explore a bit for ideas.
One of my favorite examples of the simple, yet powerful integration of photography with another medium is the package by New York Times, One in 8 Million.
The project tells one story each week, focusing on one central character, someone you might brush shoulders with on the subway of New York. The subject describes, in his or her own words, anything from their own personal struggles, triumphs, daily life or something that defines them. The images work to visually capture the story with a timeless quality, in black and white.
Together, the two mediums form a very intimate local human-interest story that fosters a sense of community–which is quite an impressive undertaking considering the expansiveness of New York City.
If you’ve got a favorite multimedia site or an audio slideshow to show off, share a link!
Image Credits: Shure SM58 by laffy4k, Shot Glass by S. Su, rage by murplejane, IMG_0864 by emkladil
