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Laughter like an anomaly...

...and hiccups like a vortex

Posts tagged with "internet tools"

Tracking your photos/art with Photoshop + Google Alerts

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Since almost everyone who uses internet eventually uploads/publishes some stuff. Photos and art are most common. And since this forum contains lots of posts with photos of your work or photo tutorials, I think this might come handy (at least to those who have PS...).
There is a simple way to protect your image without a big visible (and ugly) watermark..

METADATA...

Metadata is essentially information embedded into your media that stays there.

Through Photoshop (most versions CS, CS2, CS3 for sure) all you have to do is go:

FILE> FILE INFO, and it will bring up all your embedded info. Simply embed a copyright warning in the correct box (if in doubt, use the HELP function on your software)

For instance, i might use "©Sound_Of_Vision_2008"

Now my image is protected with an invisible, digital watermark.. but lets not stop there.. Lets have the internet tell us any time someone posts my image with my invisible copyright!

God bless google! Google alerts, one of the best kept secrets on the interwebs.

From here, i can enter into my Search terms:©Sound_Of_Vision_2008, tell google to notify me once weekly (more if you are a big shot) and have them sent directly to your email!

Just like that, you are informed of every infraction that takes advantage of your work!
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Online photo editing tools

Reminded by the recently launched Adobe Photoshop Express, I remembered two other online photo editing sites I love, so I'll post it here, in case you didn't know. :D
¤ Adobe Photoshop Express ¤

I expected much more, since the Photoshop is worldy famous for all their gadgets and options for creativity and manipulation. Simple interface, looks professional and serious, easy to navigate, a bit slow.

* you must have account to use it * option to connect to your Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa accounts. * you can upload pictures up to 2GB * creating albums. * Basics: crop&rotate, autocorrect, exposure, red-eye removal, touchup, saturation * Tuning: white balance, highlight, fill light, sharpen, soft focus * Effects: pop color, hue, black&white, tint, sketch, distort * embedding photos

It's still in beta, and I'm sorry to say, it's obvious. I just tried to edit my photo and it keeps saying Preparing photo for Edit...and that bar just rotates but not loading...But when I tried it 2 days ago it worked fine, so maybe it's just a little glitch. I hope they'll be adding much more options in the near future. Right now, they offer you almost the same thing as you can do in Picasa.

¤ Picnik ¤ I discovered Picnik accidentally on Box.net. Then I saw it on Flickr, which is awesome. Picnik's look is adorable, makes it more fun and simple to use. Recently it made much more options available for Free users (they also have Premium users).

* option to connect to your MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Webshots, Photobucket, Picasa accounts, Yahoo search and even your webcam * you don't have to have account to use it * they don't offer storage, but after editing you can save it to your computer or one of your photo hosting sites (Flickr, Photobucket...etc) * Basics: auto-fix, rotate, crop, resize, exposure, colors, sharpen, red-eye * effects black&white, sepia, boost, soften, vignette, matte, infra-red film, lomo-ish, holga-ish, HDR-ish, night vision, cinemascope, orton-ish, 1960's, tint, invert, duo-tone, heat map, cross process, focal b&w, focal soften, focal pixelate, focal zoom, pencil sketch, neon, doodle, gooify, pixelate, posterize, film grain, snow (many of this stuff weren't available for free users until recently so I was thrilled when I got notification e-mail...:smile: - text lots of different fonts - shapes hearts, stars, flowers...etc. Additional ones for special occasions: Christmas, Valentine's, Easter, St. Patrick's... - touch up Unfortunately only 2 options: teeth whiten & blemish fix. - frames 5 frames - advanced Curves and Levels - this is for Premium members only * You can find an add-on for Firefox
I hope they'll keep improving and adding more and more options, which seems to be possible, how they started. :D

¤ FotoFlexer ¤ I started using FotoFlexer after I saw it on Photobucket (Picnik is associated with Flickr and FotoFlexer with Photobucket). It offers almost everything I said about Picnik. Only difference is between shapes they offer for creating.

* uploading photos on your FotoFlexer account, not sure about limit * after editing you can save it to your computer or one of your photo hosting sites (Flickr, Photobucket...etc) * you can connect to your Facebook, Picasa, Photobucket, Flickr, Phanfare, SmugMug, MySpace accounts, Yahoo search, webcam * you don't have to have account to use it * Basic: same as for Picnik * Effects: Blur edges, blueprint, neon, greyscale, invert, painting, cartoon, pop art, bronze, sepia, old photo, ink stamp, color rotate, pixelate, soften, tint, duoe-tone, heat map, sketch, color cketch, fresco, film grain, night vision * Decorate: stickers, text, draw, erase, fill, grab color, speech and thought bubbles, insert-a-face, fun cards, borders (frames), poster * Animate: stars, lovies, stickers * Beautify: smooth, sharpen, fix blemishes, smooth wrinkles * Distort: twirls, stretching, squishing, bulge, pinch * Layers: complicated to explain, go and see and play a bit * Geek: smart resize, smart recolor, smart cutout, smart scissors, curves, morph, webcam

And additionally
¤ Picasa ¤

Picasa is a photo organizing software you download to your computer. It offers simple editing, such as,: cropping, resizing, saturation, color, auto-fix, red-eye removal, back and white, sepia, sharpening and some other stuff. If other editors are too much for you and you don't need that much, Picasa is great for you. Only as I said, Picasa is not online editor. You must download the software. Also, if you use Picasa web albums, Picasa organizer has a button which allows you to simply send the photo to your online album.

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I hope any of this comes useful to you! :D --------------------------------------------------------------------------

December 2009
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