imaging

Yesterday was Independence Day here in the U.S., and if you're like many (me included) you probably spent the day with friends and family, and maybe watched some fireworks when the summer sun finally went down. Chances are you dusted off the barbecue for chicken, hot dogs, and burgers, and maybe even had potato salad or other picnic foods. Another common practice with these types of gatherings, of course, is getting out your digital camera and taking a bunch of fun pictures.

Now that the fun is over, you might be thinking about editing and transferring those pictures to your blog or some other photo site. If you're looking for an easy way to get those pictures ready for prime time, I found a little program that offers a lot of useful tools you can download for the Mac.… Read more

The clip above is a demonstration of the newly announced Aviary, a suite of Web tools for tackling "creation on the fly" (the product's motto and URL). You can think of it as having a similar goal for the creative crowd to what Zoho aims to do for organizational productivity: create a diverse set of light but still functional Web-based applications that enable portability and collaboration.

When the suite is final, it will optimally include more than a dozen applications, each named after a different kind of bird. Each one will handle a different niche of multimedia … Read more

I'd put money on the probability that most Internet users have had to grab and optimize screenshots for cyber use. While some of us are lucky enough to have professional graphic artists on our side, it's important to know how to quickly create and touch up an image for the Web. For example, you might want to create your own avatar from a real-life photo or digital graphic.

Editing images for the Web is a different process than editing for print, and it therefore calls for its own approach. That's primarily because screen resolution can affect how easily the eye can interpret graphics. Ever noticed that faint flicker on the screen? Eyes have to work harder to overcome that subtle interference and process a clear image.… Read more

I didn't fully appreciate how much Adobe Photoshop Lightroom changed how I deal with digital photos until I tried the latest version of the regular Photoshop software, CS3.

I shoot raw images almost all the time, and I wanted to try out the new features of Adobe Camera Raw 4.1 that's available only to Photoshop CS3 users. I like its new "clarity" adjustment, and appreciate more control over sharpening, but trying those tools out felt like a trip back to the stone age.

Lightroom isn't perfect, and it doesn't replace regular Photoshop. But … Read more

Apple's update to its operating system Wednesday didn't just fix a security hole. Mac OS X 10.4.10 now also supports raw images from the latest digital cameras, including the Canon's vaunted EOS-1D Mark III.

The update also endows Macs with the ability to decode raw images from the Panasonic DMC-LX1 and LX2; the Leica M8, D-LUX 2 and D-LUX 3; the Fujifilm S5 Pro; and the Nikon D40x.

Raw images are taken directly from higher-end cameras' image sensors without any in-camera processing. They're roughly three times bigger than JPEGs, require processing by software to … Read more

Getty Images, which made a name for itself as a stock photography clearinghouse, announced Wednesday it has purchased Pump Audio, which licenses independent music to advertising and media clients. The price of the acquisition, according to a release from Getty, was $42 million.

This is the most recent in a series of moves on Getty's part to expand beyond photography and into the digital media sector. Last month, it launched a new division in the company to license video footage and other multimedia content, and over the past few months has chalked up a string of acquisitions, from amateur photography site Scoopt … Read more

As I've mentioned previously, independent musicians can fall prey to a lot of questionable business deals that promise to make them rich.

But Pump Audio seems like good way for independent musicians to earn some money. (Full disclosure: Pump is based in Seattle, and I'm acquainted with one of their employees through mutual music connections.) If you own the rights to your compositions and recordings--as the vast majority of independent and unsigned musicians do--you can license them on a non-exclusive basis to Pump. Then, Pump retitles and sublicenses these pieces to other content creators who are looking for … Read more

In-Q-Tel, a private investment firm launched by the CIA to support U.S. intelligence agencies, has invested in image sensor maker Pixim, the company said Wednesday.

The investment was part of a $15 million funding round announced in March that also included Tallwood Venture Capital, Ridgewood Capital and the Mayfield Fund.

Pixim sells digital image sensors and associated software used in surveillance cameras. The technology is geared to work in particular with difficult lighting conditions. The company's Orca chips are used in more than 100 camera models available today.

"In-Q-Tel invested in Pixim because it offers government and … Read more

Microsoft is discontinuing one of its products, and I'm bummed.

Having one less piece of software to write about is no big deal, but this particular program happens to be one I actually used--a lot. Microsoft's Digital Image Suite served as my introduction to photo editing and photo manipulation. I've since taken to using both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, but just this week I installed Digital Image Suite on the Windows portion of my iMac so I could keep using it as well.

Microsoft noted the change with a terse statement on its Web site.

"Microsoft … Read more