The curated site features both rarely seen and iconic photos from the 1850s through today. More than 3,000 new photos from Getty Images award-winning photographers will be added to the site daily. Users will be able to rate, email, share, purchase, license photos and explore their world through the world’s greatest images in this user-friendly web site.
Other features include:
Photo Galleries: News, Celebrity, Sports, Travel, and Animals with the most relevant and timely photos featured daily
Gallery of the day’s top photos
Editor’s picks of photo galleries in categories relating to current events and other themes
Celebrity-curated galleries featuring their favorite photos by subject or topic
So during my hours of train journeys last week I checked out a couple of photography apps on my iPod. I’ve given them a brief review below but I should also point out a couple of things. Firstly I randomly chose a few from the top rated free photography apps in the iTunes store. I also reviewed two from BigCanvas who gave me free copies of those two paid apps. Secondly most of these apps were really designed for the iPhone rather than the iPod so even though I don’t have an iPhone I kept that in mind while testing them. The main features that the iPod lack are a camera (you can still use all these apps but need to import photos from your computer) and an internet connection (which the iPod is capable of but only if Wifi is available) although not all these apps need internet access.
iSynth This is just fun to play with, if you like then this is the app for you. I passed the better part of an hour on a train viewing Obama’s inauguration and other exciting events from a huge variety of angles. Using the touch screen actually makes this a little bit more intuitive to use than the original photosynth. iSynth is free and you can download it .
PhotoArtist This is one of the ones BigCanvas provided a promo code for. Basically it allows you to add some of the filters you find in programs like Photoshop to your photos. The filters available are illustration, cartoon, watercolor, mono, pen, & halftone. This is a fun way to very quickly add some neat effects to your photos and the quality of the filters is pretty good. For the price I think they could include a few more filters but if you’re looking for an incredibly easy to use method of adding filters to your photos this’ll definitley do the job. If you want to print your artwork though you’ll be limited to 6 x 4 size at the best as the resolution of saved images isn’t particularly high. PhotoArtist costs $1.99 and you can download it .
A couple of images created with PhotoArtist.
ColorCanvas Plus This is the other one BigCanvas gave me a promo code for. It’s the paid version of the free . It’s a cool app that provides a very easy method of getting an effect a lot of people seem to like. The advantages of the paid version are faster response to your finger movements, three different mono-colour filters (so three different ways of making your photo black and white - normal, enhanced, & hi-contrast), & three different brushes (colour, mono, & tint). Out of those the most useful feature is the mono brush which allows you to convert bits of the photo back to black and white if you’ve gone over the edges while converting areas to colour. ColorCanvas Plus costs $0.99 and can be downloaded .
A very quick product of ColorCanvas Plus - it literally took a minute to do this.
Photo Collage To be honest I failed to see the point of this app. Apparantly the idea is to “participate in the world’s largest expression of photographic creativity” but I got bored of it in less than 5 minutes. The uploaded photos aren’t of particularly high artistic quality - a lot of them are just blurry shots of someone’s friend in a room that could be anywhere. There’s no content filter so there are a few less savoury pics to be seen to0. There’s no way to comment on photos either (although you can vote on them) so even if you do find one you like you can’t give the photographer any feedback. I think this app maybe aimed at a younger MySpace style audience but I just didn’t get the point. Photo Collage is free and you can download it .
Comic TouchLite This one allows you to add speech bubbles to photos. Which is fun for a few minutes but the novelty does wear off. There’s also one filter you can add called “bulge” which does a really over-exaggerated fish-eye effect. Comic Touch’s aim is to provide “the best looking comic balloons on the iPhone” so really it does what it says on the tin but it’s probably not an app you’ll be using regularly. Comic Touch Lite is free and can be downloaded .
The Comic Touch watermark is saved on all the photos you make but you can get rid of it by buying the paid app.
Do you have a favourite photography app? Let us know in the comments.
Photojojo is pumped to be introducing a colorful newbie this week that’s both versatile and tactile: !
Use Stick’ums to display your most precious papery goods — then remove them without damage and re-stick’um elsewhere!
Each delightful decal package contains 28 L-shaped colorful stick’ums with matching nameplates for maximum post-ability.
We <3 the infinite amount of uses for these little corner-shaped ditties. Here at Photojojo HQ we've stick'rd our laptops, walls, and even . But don’t stop there, refrigerators, cabinets, windows, laptops… Nothing too small! Nothing too big! Nothing too complicated!
Well howdy,
p.s. Been meaning to get your hands on something sticky? We’ve got a brand new bundle with Corner Stick’ums and that we think you’ll be interested in.
First off what do textures do? Well, things like this…
Some are more subtle than others, obviously! So how do you add them to your photos? The easiest way is to use textures that other people have created. Some are free and some you need to pay for but either way this is what you need to do with them once you’ve downloaded them:
1. Open both the texture and the photo you want to edit in Photoshop. Click on the photo and check it’s dimensions.
2. Change the dimensions of the texture so that it’s as close to the same size as you can get it ( you can uncheck the constrain proportions box if you need to).
3. Still with the texture selected (rather than the photo) press Ctrl+A or Cmd+A (or go to file, select all) and little running lines should appear around the texture.
4. Press Ctrl+C or Cmd+C (or go edit, copy).
5. Select the photo and press Ctrl+V or Cmd+V (or go to edit, paste). The texture will be pasted over the photo so all you’ll see is the texture and not the photo underneath. Don’t worry you’ll bring the photo back in a moment!
6. With the texture layer still highlighted select the opacity in the bottom right corner of the layers tool box. Move the opacity from 100 down towards 0 until the texture looks the way you want it.
And that’s it! It’s pretty straight forward. Play around with a variety of images, textures and opacities to see what you like best. You can put more than one texture on one photo and you can still do other bits of editing such as converting to black and white, playing with the levels, or adding the built in Photoshop filters.
Here are a few sites to for some free textures to get started with:
- this one’s in German but simply click on the blue links at the top of the page to browse the textures.
There are literally hundreds of other sites too, try searching Google or Flickr for “free textures” and you’ll find no end of choice. Remember to check the terms of use, some are royalty free others are under creative commons licenses of various kinds. So have fun, mess around, and let us know in the comments if you find a favourite texture!
Believe it or not, the Rebel series kit lens is not a bad lens at all to start with. Sure, all the professionals will complain that its not built like a tank, the mount is plastic. But don’t take this to heart you beginner photographers, this kit lens is capable of serious stuff. No joke.
Ever since I started shooting, I have primarily used this lens, since for the time being, I have no money to spend on any new lenses.
Here are just a few sample images of what this lens can do:
That last picture you see there is one of my best pictures that I have ever taken. It is an HDR, with all three shots taken by the Canon 18-55 kit lens. The first shot is not that bad either, but it simply cannot be compared to the second. It just goes to show that the 18-55 kit lens can be a fairly serious lens.
One of the only things that I didn’t particularly like about this lens — setting aside issues about build quality and all –is that the manual focus ring isn’t that much of a ring. It kind of just there at the very end of the lens. Apart from that its a relatively decent lens to start off with. Of course, if you have the money needed to buy better lenses, then by all means, don’t stop yourself. But otherwise the 18-55 serves as a great substitute until enough money for a new lens is available.
I just received an email from Amazon with an (use that link if you’re interested and Photodoto will get a small commission). With magazines and newspapers closing their doors left and right this year, who knows if you’ll actually get all 12 issues.
But it reminded me that it’s been a long time since I’ve bought a photography magazine.
I still browse the racks at the book store but I’m less and less likely to actually pick one up. 5 hot portrait tips! Shoot better photos instantly! 8 new cameras reviewed! Upgrade! Upgrade! Upgrade! They all seem the same.
I was pretty happy with my D70 for years. And, while the articles can sometimes be helpful, I don’t think there’s any such thing as a “recipe” that will give you a good photo every time, as the magazines will lead you to believe.
Do you read or subscribe to any photography magazines? Any recommendations out there for someone who is tired of hot tips and shopping guides?
We’ve been trying out the Lensbaby* Composer lately: it’s an odd little lens that gives you a moveable area of sharp focus, surrounded by a dreamy halo of blurriness.
After knocking around with it for a few weeks, here’s what we think:
The Good:
Easier to focus and sharper optics than the original Lensbaby.
Easier to move the “sweet spot” of focus and get repeatable results.
Good for photos where you want to draw the eye to one particular detail, like food, product or portrait shots.
If you decide you don’t want the Lensbaby “look” for a particular shot, you can reduce the effect dramatically by using the narrowest aperture. A friend of ours uses it as his go-to lens because of the sharp optics and light weight.
Gadgets! Optional, interchangeable and give you lots of different looks from one lens.
The Bad:
Having to change the apertures manually can slow you down a lot.
Manual focus makes it harder to capture fast-moving action, and it’s tricky to focus in low light.
Wider apertures are prone to some pretty serious .
The Lensbaby takes some getting used to. It’s a good idea to practice with it for a while before taking it on an important shoot.
The Ugly:
Sorry, we’re fresh out of ugly.
Conclusion:
If we got stranded on a desert island with only one lens, we might make it this one (with the possible addition of a wide-angle adapter). It’s light, versatile, sharp (when you want it to be) and really fun to use.
*Full disclosure: Lensbaby is a Photojojo advertiser, but our love for them is true. (Their first lens was when we were just starting out almost three years ago.)
p.s. We put our test shots up in case you guys wanna see ‘em.
Survival scenario #117:
You’re trapped in a grocery store. Zombies are closing in from all sides. You have a crucial photo that could end the carnage, if only you had some way to develop the film.
What do you do?
You grab some instant coffee and vitamin C, you develop the film, and you vanquish the zombies.
What, you don’t think we’re serious?
First of all, zombies are an inevitable part of life.
And secondly, you really can develop film using vitamin C and coffee. For reals.
Read on, and we’ll show you everything you need to know. Quick, before the zombies regroup!
Practically every beginner photographer after playing around with his camera for a couple of days begins to wonder what exactly RAW is. Is it better then JPEG? What are the upsides? What are the downsides? Well hopefully by the end of reading this post you’ll just know exactly which image format is going to be better for you.
The text book definition for RAW is this: an “image file contains minimally processed data from the image sensor of either a digital camera, image or motion picture film scanner. Raw files are so named because they are not yet processed and therefore are not ready to be used with a bitmap graphics editor or printed.”
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In English, all that means is that when you take a picture in RAW the format, your camera will not process or tweak images contents like the contrast, color, vibrance, brightness etc… Instead, once you load the images onto your computer, you will have ability to adjust these settings yourself the way you like them. Thus, keep in mind that RAW shots when taken, may not look as vibrant or colorful but that is because the camera has not adjusted those settings and has just stored the image as it appeared on the camera’s sensor. For this reason, RAW images also tend to be fairly larger than JPEGs. Once again, this is because when your shooting RAW, all or most of the information is stored as it appeared on the sensor, unlike in JPEGs where a lot of the data is compressed and lost once changes in contrast, vibrance, and brightness have been made by the camera itself giving you an extremely smaller file size when compared to RAW images.
To break it down in a general manner, I will simply lists the positive and negatives of both formats.
RAW
No data is lost, image is captured and saved directly off the sensor of the camera. This allows you to have a greater control of post processing when editing an image.
When shooting RAW, you don’t have to worry too much about exposure, color, blacks, highlights, saturation, white balance along with many other things because you can go back and change those settings when editing the image.
Takes a longer time to process images when shooting RAW, because you have to process it to your liking — since the colors may not be that vibrant, you may want to increase the contrast etc…, then convert the file to a JPEG file and then make further minor, fine tuning adjustments if necessary.
File sizes are quite large, may restrict the amount of RAW images you can take on smaller memory cards.
Certain software is required in order to convert RAW images into JPEGs and for processing RAW images in the RAW format. Though most camera manufacturers provide their own software for such tasks, I personally prefer Adobe Photoshops plugin: Camera Raw to do all my work for RAW and then use Adobe Photoshop to make all my minor and fine adjustments. Adoble Lightroom is also another great program for dealing with RAW files.
JPEG
Doesn’t take up an excessive amount of memory to store on a memory card. You can take a relatively good amount of pictures on smaller memory cards when compared to RAW.
No software required to process the photos; JPEG is already a common image format and can be taken and used directly off the camera without post processing or file conversion. This is good for general shooting, like when you are just messing around pretty much.
Quick and efficient when compared to RAW. Its not the best quality, but still pretty good. Once again, good for general shooting, messing around.
Colors, white balance, saturation, highlights have already been changed by the camera giving you better looking pictures to begin with. (This can be a positive or negative point, it just depends on the photographer.)
On the downside, lots of data is lost when the file is compressed into JPEG format. This limits the amount of post processing you can do after you have taken the picture (i.e. changes in exposure and color may turn out to look not so great since that data was lost when the file was compressed. So your pretty much stuck with what you shot.)
Less control of the image after the shot is taken.
Overall, both image formats have their ups and downs.
Personally, I use both formats depending on the occasion. When there is just a normal family gathering, or say I’m just hanging out with my friends, 40 RAW shots is a lot of work and takes a lot of time to convert and process each to the way I like it in terms of color, contrast etc… So in that case, JPEG is the way to go because its fast, efficient, and not as much time is needed to process the shots since the camera already provides relatively decent photos in which the contrast is good and the colors are pretty vibrant. Furthermore, you can even tell your camera how much saturation, color, contrast, by taking advantage of the custom user settings if it is available on your camera. By taking advantage of these settings, this will prove to be less work for you when it comes to processing the photos, as the images will already be one more step closer to how you wish them to be. Though JPEG may not get you the perfect results you are looking for, it can be quite a time and work saver when it comes to general shooting.
When taking photos seriously however, there is no other option other than RAW for me. Even though on your camera screen and even on your computer screen the photos may look quite dull and bland, however, with the correct pre-post processing (before conversion) and adding final adjustments in normal post processing after the image has been converted, the results which you get are simply amazing. I feel that the extra time that goes into pre-post processing and conversion is well worth it for the results that you get. Also having more of control over the image will cut you some slack when a photo turns out to be overexposed or underexposed, since all the information is retained, stored, and can be changed later in pre-post processing. Lastly, by being able to change so many things like color, contrast, exposures, saturation, white balance, you can tweak a RAW image changing all these settings until you are satisfied without damaging the way the photo looks.
When it comes down to it all, RAW is simply the best in my opinion because you can change settings as much as you want until you feel that you have “perfected” your photo. However, JPEG is also a good choice and more convenient even though it may not exactly nail the way you want a photo to be, and is limited in terms of how much processing can be applied before the photo starts looking fake, it still gets pretty close to being that perfect photo.
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Additional Websites:
If you are interested in actually seeing the difference in the image quality between RAW and JPEG files or wish to see a more in depth article regarding the two formats, here are some of the websites that I learned from when I first came across the RAW image format and how it differed from JPEG.
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