Smartphones don’t have the best cameras in the world, but you can still take some really good shots with the right lighting and timing. Wired.com readers proved that in our recent iPhoneography contest, where we asked you to submit your best smartphone snaps.
You created, you submitted, you voted, and the crowd favorite was David Chen’s photo (above) shot in the banks of the Charles River in Boston, using his iPhone 3GS. We agreed that’s pretty cool: Those people sure look like monkeys, don’t they? (Er, they are people, right?) Congrats, David! We’re featuring your photo for a week here at Wired.com.
Dozens of you submitted really neat photos, too, and clicking through this gallery, you can see 14 others who received the most votes, as well as some favorites handpicked by Wired.com. Enjoy.
This article was written on October 28, 2007 by CyberNet.
Have you ever wanted to morph multiple images together? You know, take a picture of your friend and have it morph into a monkey or something? I accidentally came across a free application today called Sqirlz Morph that will do just that.
A screenshot of the program can be seen above, but don’t let the stripped-down toolbars deceive you. This program has a powerful array of options that will help you morph images with ease. With that being said it took me 5 or 10 minutes before I fully understood how the program worked, and so I thought I would give some pointers:
You can use as many photos as you want in the morphing process, but the more images you use the more work you’re going to cause yourself. So you may want to be selective.
After you have your images open you’ll need to add a few morphing points to start with. This is done with the green plus sign on the side toolbar. When you add a morphing point on one image it will be added to all of them.
What you need to do now is switch over to the other photos that you’ve opened, and move the points around so that the key features match up between all of the images. You can move the points around by clicking the black arrow in the side toolbar, and then clicking on a morphing point. In the example above you can see that I made sure the eyes, mouth, and edges of the face matched up.
Go to Image -> Animation Order if you want to change the image morphing order.
I chose to output my morphed images in a GIF format so that I could easily post the result in this article, but you can also save it as an AVI. When saving the image it asked for a frame rate, and 15 frames per second is pretty standard. I, however, chose just 3 frames per second so that you could clearly see the morphing process:
Adding the morphing points to the photos are a critical part of how Sqirlz Morph works. The result will not look right if you don’t take the time to properly align the points on the photos. That’s why in Step 1 I told you to be selective in how many photos you choose to use.
I have to admit that this is a pretty cool program, and I haven’t seen any other freeware that does the same sort of thing. You may not see a purpose for it right now, but at some point you may realize that this is just what you’re looking for. Bookmark it even if you don’t plan on using it right now.
Post links below to any images you decide to morph together. Can’t wait to see what some of you come up with.
Hello, beautiful! The clock just struck midnight here in the wilds of Cologne, Germany, and it’s safe to say that Photokina 2010 is underway. Fujifilm’s press event isn’t scheduled until Tuesday, but it looks as if it’ll be teasing us all by releasing information on its drop-dead gorgeous new FinePix X100 tonight. This rangefinder-esque cam packs a 12.3 megapixel APS-C sensor, and it’s obviously designed to go mano-a-mano with Micro Four Thirds and the slew of other mirrorless / interchangeable lens compacts that are hitting the market. Aside from supporting 720p movies, boasting an EXR processor and shipping with a 23mm F2 Fujinon lens, this new handheld includes a Hybrid Viewfinder that enables users to toggle between optical and electronic viewfinders and display intricate shooting information right into the OVF.
There’s also a 2.8-inch rear LCD, a hot shoe on top and a magnesium alloy top / base plate that might be the sexiest we’ve ever seen on a camera in this sector. Low-light shooters will appreciate the ISO range of 200 to 6400, and there’s also 5fps continuous shooting, a full-on manual mode, SD / SDHC / SDXC card support and dimensions of 127- x 75- x 54mm. Something tells us a lot of to-be DSLR buyers will be shifting to this far more portable alternative when it drops in early 2011… provided it doesn’t cost a small fortune, of course. Needless to say, we’ll be first in line come Tuesday to (prayerfully) get some hands-on time with this beaut. Video after the break.
Just a quick note, true believers: If you’ve been all over the Windows Live Essentials 2011 Beta that’s been making the rounds (and who hasn’t?) you might want to keep an eye on those updates. And if you’re not? Hit that source link, ‘cos Microsoft has done gone and refreshed aforementioned beta, as of 11 am (Pacific time). If you’re brave enough to take the leap, you can look forward to: Facebook Chat Integration in Messenger, Bing Maps Geotag integration in Photo Gallery, and Flickr video publishing in Movie Maker, according to the kids at ZDNet. So what are you waiting for? Go, get!
Flickpad is a Flickr (and Facebook) client for the iPad. There are seemingly endless Flickr clients for the iPad, but this is the one I use most. Why? Because it is the first one that actually makes it feel like you are browsing real printed photographs.
The app, which comes in paid and lite versions, uses a wooden table as a presentation metaphor, and pulls photos in from your Flickr and Facebook contacts. These photos are scattered over the table, overlapping just as if you had emptied a shoe-box of pictures. Flickpad isn’t designed to be a full-on Flickr browser. It does one thing: let you keep up with your friends’ photos.
The interface makes heavy use of touch, to the extent that when you have to actually tap a button, it is jarring (but necessary, like editing settings, for example). Instructions can be called up in a popover at any time, but the basic controls consist of tapping and swiping to move the stacks around: Rearrange photos by dragging with one finger. A two-finger drag magically pulls together all the photos in a set into on pile. Pinching or double-tapping lets you zoom fullscreen, and long and triple-taps offer extra functions.
If you flick a picture off to the side it scoots off the table and is marked seen. You can also view all photos from a friend, add to favorites and even take a look at the “Interesting” photos from Flickr.
The deeper controls take some getting used to, but the fingers-on manipulation is so perfect for the content that it is worth a little effort.
Currently, no photos are cached, so you’ll need to reload everything on launch. Some of the settings are a little tricky to find, too, so deep are they hidden, but one you know about them it seems obvious.
For instance, hit the little settings cog and you can drill down to choose which friends’ photos you want to pull down. This last is essential if you use the app to show your mother your baby-photos, but also have contacts who share more erotic images. You can switch them off easily.
The addition of an offline mode would make this app truly killer. As it is, you’ll find big chunks of the day disappearing as you flick through Flickpad. Remember when you’d be looking in the closet for something and you’d come across a shoe-box of old photos and lose the rest of the afternoon going through them? Flickpad is just like that.
Flickpad is free (with limitations) or $7 (adds multiple user accounts and more). And yes, I know the video at the top of the post comes off like a commercial, but it’s a great way to see the features in action.
This article was written on July 19, 2007 by CyberNet.
Tutorial Thursday
Have you ever wanted to create a cool panoramic image yourself? No, you don’t need an expensive camera to do it and you don’t need to purchase any software…instead you can do it all for free using AutoStitch.
A program like this can serve several purposes, but I use it the most for assembling photos of objects I can’t capture all at one time. The most common panoramic scenes that you see are probably of mountains because a much larger area can be covered, but it can be used on buildings or monuments as well. For example, let’s say that you want to take a picture of the Statue of Liberty, but you’re too close to get it all into one shot. What you can do is take a picture of the upper, middle, and lower portions of the statue and then use AutoStitch to put the different photos together.
AutoStitch is fairly straight-forward, and I’m sure you could figure out how to use it in no time at all, but there are some helpful tips that I can give to make using it extremely easy. Here’s how you do it:
Note: AutoStitch says that it is a demo version, but there is no limitation or trial period
Download and install the free AutoStitch program on your Windows computer. There is no installation required so it is a piece of cake to get running
Start AutoStitch, go to the File menu, and choose the Open option. Then Ctrl+Click on all of the images that you want AutoStitch to put together.
If AutoStitch was successful you should see a file named “pano.jpg” located in the folder you picked the images from. A preview of the image should also popup on your screen.
That’s all there really is to it. The program comes with some images that you can use to test the panoramic assembler with, but you should find that it has pretty good results. If it doesn’t you can mess with some of the settings, although many of them are pretty advanced (and the program won’t remember your settings after you close it):
So how about the tips on getting the best results? It’s all about redundancy! I had tried several different image compilations that I had done in the past, and the results that I had were a little mixed. The ones that I had the best results with were the ones that had a lot of overlapping portions. Here are four photos of a bridge that I had AutoStitch assemble for me:
As you can see in those images there are a lot of portions that are redundant from one photo to another. That’s a good thing because it gives AutoStitch a lot more area to match up. The resulting photo looked like this:
You’ll notice that there are some missing areas that are represented by black blocks, but I can easily crop the photo and remove those by using something like PhotoScape. My example is a very simple one, and if you want a more complex panoramic photo, checkout the 57-image “collage” on the AutoStitch homepage. It’s complete with before and after photos!
Could Windows Live Essentials really be “better than Mac for photos, hands down,” as per the gauntlet Microsoft’s Brian Hall tossed earlier this month? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s by trying it out yourself with the free download at our source link. The software suite just hit beta with not only the face-recognizing, photo-stitching new rendition of Photo Gallery, but also new versions of Mail, Movie Maker, Messenger, Writer and a Mac-friendly version of the Dropbox-like Sync (no, notthat Sync) as well. So… what are you waiting for? Oh, you’re still “awwing” at the image above, aren’t you?
A new camcorder lets consumers play James Cameron at home by creating their own 3-D videos.
Hammacher Schlemmer has started selling what it claims is the first camcorder to shoot 3-D video and let users see the resulting content on the device’s screen, without the need for any special glasses.
With help from a 4-GB SD card, the $600 camcorder can store up to four hours of video or 2,000 3-D still images.
Don’t expect high-quality video though. The camcorder’s two lenses have to work with a 3-megapixel image sensor.
The videos are recorded in 640 x 480 pixel resolution as AVI files. The camcorder can also take standard 2-D movies and pictures.
With the success of films such as Avatar and Up, the 3-D format has made a big comeback this year. Major TV makers including Sony, Panasonic and Mitsubishi are offering large-screen 3-D TVs, even as broadcasters such as ESPN and Discovery prepare 3-D programming.
But it’s amateur content that could be the real catalyst for 3-D’s popularity. Already, some DIYers are rigging cameras and using software tricks to produce 3-D short films, postcards and home videos. Maker Faire had a section this year showcasing 3-D photographs and video from amateurs and professionals.
YouTube started offering a 3-D display option for videos on the site last July.
To create a 3-D image, you need to connect two cameras together, so each shoots the same scene from a slightly different perspective. Software helps synchronize the two sets of images. With some help from 3-D glasses, the brain can be tricked into perceiving depth in these images. There are also ways to offer 3-D–capable small screens that don’t require viewing glasses.
So far, DIYers have hooked together standard Canon cameras, iPod Nanos and Flip camcorders to create a home-brewed 3-D camera.
Consumer-electronics companies are now trying to step in to offer off-the-shelf gadgets. Last year, Fuji released the first 3-D point-and-shoot digital camera, a $600 gadget that, for now, is largely available only in Japan. Earlier this week, Nintendo announced the 3DS portable that allows you to take 3-D photos and play 3-D games with it.
Hammacher Schlemmer’s 3-D camcorder doesn’t require glasses to watch 3-D videos. It includes a media player with a 7-inch screen, speakers and a headphone jack that can display the 3-D content off the device’s storage card.
The battery life of the camcorder, though, seems disappointing. It offers just two hours of operation from a six-hour charge.
This article was written on May 07, 2007 by CyberNet.
If you have a Flickr account set up, or maybe there’s an account owned by someone else that’s filled with pictures that you enjoy, you can put those photos to good use.A program called Flickr Desktop Wallpaper will select images randomly from a Flickr account of your choice and turn them into a pattern of tiled images.
Features:
Select the opacity of the images (lighten, darken)
Choose how often you want the wallpaper to change
Go to the system tray when minimized
The image below (source) shows what Flickr Desktop Wallpaper looks like.
There are many great photographers who post their photos publicly on Flickr, so if you don’t have an account of your own, you could find one that you like and use their photos.
Another great source is the Spectacular Landscapes Group over at Flickr where there are mounds of great photos from thousands of members who become part of the group by invite only. Nearly every photo I’ve seen in this group deserves to be there.
The developer appears to be pretty open to new features, so if there’s something you’d like to see, let him know.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Have you ever wanted to create a cool panoramic image yourself? No, you don’t need an expensive camera to do it and you don’t need to purchase any software…instead you can do it all for free using 
A new camcorder lets consumers play James Cameron at home by creating their own 3-D videos.
