effects

Although it didn't earn the critical acclaim of "Toy Story 3," "Up," or "Ratatouille," Pixar's 2012 film "Brave" joined those three hits, as well as three other Pixar predecessors, in winning the Oscar for best animated feature.

Beating out fellow nominees "Wreck-it Ralph," "Frankenweenie," "ParaNorman," and "The Pirates! Band of Misfits," "Brave" became the seventh Pixar film to nab the Oscar since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences began awarding the honor in 2002. No other studio has … Read more

With the advent of high-resolution and quality cameras built into mobile devices there has been a surge of camera applications. Most of these applications do not actually make it possible to edit the photo extensively, but rather apply a filter over the image to achieve the desired effect. Camera Effects is one of these applications, but it offers high-quality effects and fairly decent picture quality.

Since it's a pretty light application, Camera Effects loads very quickly. The main screen is a full-size viewfinder. This app only allows the user to edit photos taken with the application, and it will … Read more

Do movies look weird on your new TV? Does everything have a hyper-real, ultra-smooth motion to it? Are you sure something is happening with the TV's image you don't like, but you can't figure out what?

Chances are, what you're seeing is called the "Soap Opera Effect," as descriptive a moniker as we get in tech, in that this feature makes everything on your TV look like a cheap soap opera.

Here's what it is, what it does, and how to turn it off.… Read more

PicsArt Photo Studio is a popular, feature-rich photo editor that was formerly for Android phones only, but it's now available for iPhone.

There are several apps that let you add effects and edit your photos, but PicsArt Photo Studio does those things and quite a lot more. In fact this app has so many features it can get a little overwhelming -- particularly with the number of interface elements on the screen.

Like most photo effects apps, you can snap a new picture or pull one from your photo library. With an image onscreen, you can use the buttons … Read more

Camera+ (99 cents) Camera+ is a solid image-editing tool that makes creating cool-looking shots easy, and all the upgrades since its release mean it has tons of useful tweaks. You can use digital-camera-like scenes to apply common camera effects in specific situations like simulated flash, sunset, backlit images, and portraits. You also can crop your images to your specs or select from several standard sizes.

When you want to add filters and effects, Camera+ makes it easy with a gridlike layout you can touch to see nuanced or drastic changes to your original image. The filters are organized by category … Read more

The Sound Recorder that comes with Windows will capture the audio stream and save it as a WAV you can edit or convert later on. But there's room for improvement, and there are more than a few choices, when it comes to recording digital audio with your PC. It's possible to spend staggering amounts of money on pro audio suites that really don't handle most users' needs any better than Free Sound Recorder by CoolRecordEdit. Like the Windows tool, it records whatever your sound card is processing, but Free Sound Recorder adds scheduling, more output formats, hot … Read more

Since we take our pictures with us wherever we go on our smartphones, the need for real picture frames has fallen to the wayside. But if you like to add a little extra something to your pictures in the form a frame, Imikimi HD Free Photo Frames & Effects offers tons of ornate options to do so.

Imikimi has three simple steps for selecting a frame: search for a frame, add a photo, and share via Facebook, e-mail, or text. The frames are categorized by Hot Staff Picks, Samples, Most Used, Trending, and Newest. We have to admit that the … Read more

If you snap tons of photos on your smartphone, you need a full-strength photo editor. With a price tag of $1.79, you would think Photoshop Effects-Photo Editor would do all the editing you need and more. Instead, this app offers some of the most common filters and limited cropping features instead of real Photoshop effects.

By cashing in on the name of the popular desktop photo editor, Photoshop Effects-Photo Editor makes you think you're paying for quality. Instead, you're getting a simple filtering app that adds effects that would have been cool 15 years ago. Now, they … Read more

Now that Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" has opened in theaters around the world, the most controversial thing about it isn't even that he somehow is making three 3-hour movies out of a 300-page children's story. No, it's the way the movie has been shot that has the most people talking.

The "Hobbit" trilogy has been captured using James Cameron's 48-frames-per-second 3D technology (HFR 3D), which Jackson says leads to less eyestrain and a sharper picture.

Only a limited number of cinemas will be showing the movie in HFR -- Jackson says it's only 1,000 out of 25,000 theaters.

"On the first day of shooting 'The Hobbit' in 48 frames, there was not a single cinema in the world that could project the movie in that format," Jackson said, according to CinemaBlend.

While we're not going to go into how the technology works here, CNET editors David Katzmaier and Ty Pendlebury have just come out of a showing in HFR 3D and wanted to share their thoughts.… Read more