There's undoubtedly something striking about the style of photography that draws attention to a focal object by making the rest of the scene black and white (here's a good example). This kind of selected colorization is within reach on your iPhone if you use ColorSplash for iPhone, a relatively new image-editing app from the developer of Juxtaposer and Juxtaposer Lite, two other image editors for iPhone photos.
After you load an image, ColorSplash will turn it into a black-and-white photo--but not permanently. Your full-color image will remain in your iPhone's camera roll. You use your finger as a paintbrush in ColorSplash, and with every swipe, more of the photo's original color is revealed. Keeping control over the brush strokes was our biggest challenge. While pinching and pulling the screen to zoom in is the recommended way to paint the object you want to emphasize, this was in many cases laborious, certainly more so than it would be to choose a smaller brush size.
Although you can't cut a slimmer swath with the brush, you can choose among four brush types that include hard and soft edges and varying transparency levels. An even better feature is the masking button, the red circle on the top navigation bar that lets you see the area you're coloring in bright red. The crimson hue is a sure way to catch your mistakes, especially if the area you're working in is light or the boundaries between areas is otherwise difficult to detect.
While we didn't encounter issues with photo size, the developer's notes warn that images exceeding 1,024 pixels will be shrunk down in the app. ColorSplash can save newly tinkered images in your Camera Roll alongside the originals, and can even let you reload sessions to edit your work. If you frequently share your mobile images with others or online, ColorSplash could be a creative way to add some zing to your photo, though it's not as practical on a daily basis as a classic photo-editing app like Picoli, that will sharpen and color-correct images.
Sure, you're all jazzed about Barack Obama and looking forward to a brighter 2009, but what about the catastrophes of 2008? I'm not talking about the financial meltdown, Sarah Palin, or The Love Guru, I'm talking about the worst downloads of the year.
Every three months, Tom Merritt (of CNET TV renown) and I collaborate on a lighthearted tribute to the software failures that stick out among the many excellent programs on Download.com worse than John McCain supporters at the Inauguration Day gala.
To qualify, these downloads have to meet the minimum requirements specified by Download.com in our software policies. That excludes all spyware, adware, and rogue software--which disqualifies public enemy No. 1, the notoriously annoying Antivirus XP 2008 and its many variants, which continue to plague Google ads.
Without any further introduction, here are my picks for the most inept, most impractical, and outright goofiest Windows software downloads of last year. If you missed them all the first time, consider yourself lucky.
No. 5. SKAT
In all honestly, this unusually unappealing card game makes my top five worst of 2008 mostly because it's German and named "SKAT." Are you kidding me! That sort of "blue" material might be golden for bawdy comedians, but what about the casual gamer? Unless you're well versed in German and enjoy human-size mice sitting around a photo of an old-timey saloon, you're best passing this diversion by.
The basic card game pits you against Speedy and Jerry, two suspicious and ill-drawn rodents. The rules conveniently list topics in English like "Game Introduction" and "The Deck and The Suits." However, clicking on any topic only gets you more explanations in German. You can pick up on the rules of the game by playing a few with Speedy and Jerry, but if the lame graphics and retro (yet very polite) rodents don't scare you off, the tedium of the action should put you to sleep in a few minutes.
No. 4. MB Free Psychic Color Test
It's one thing to exploit users' belief in their own supernatural abilities, but why does pseudoscience have to be so doggone boring?
The free psychic "game" MB Free Psychic Color Test is based on using your psychic abilities to select the color secretly chosen by the computer. The Beginner level starts with five colors; Intermediate brings 10 colors to the mix; and Expert kicks up the fun to 20 colors.
Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and think hard. Then open your eyes and select a color. If you're right, you'll get a "correct" message; an errant response receives an uplifting "incorrect" salvo: "Don't lose hope! Relax, take a deep breath, keep a calm mind, and guess again." Wait a minute...guess? There's no guessing involved in psychic color testing. I call shenanigans!
To top if all off, exiting the test brings up a shameless donate page from mysticboard.com, the publishers of this crock of software. Mystic Board keeps skirting the very lowest level of our quality threshold, with a number of ridiculously simple programs related to astrology, the occult, and the supernatural.
No. 3. Alien Communicator
While I must give this ridiculous program props for winning the unofficial contest for most mind-boggling software program of 2008, it also doesn't do very much of anything remotely useful, aside from randomly generate letters and numbers.
According to "The Story" that comes with this download, the Alien Communicator "translates alien psycho-kinetic control of the random number generation capability of a PC computer into readable letters." Apparently, thoughts travel much faster than the speed of light in spatial dimensions that are scaled smaller than "the four we are familiar with."
If you actually believe that aliens are trying to communicate with us via random numerals sent through the fifth dimension, I might suggest that you undergo some psychiatric analysis. However, what I wouldn't recommend would be the next piece of software on the list.
No. 2. Psychiatric Diagnosis Suite
When you or someone you care about may have a serious psychiatric problem, the last thing you likely need is a poorly programmed set of canned questions in an interface that's horrible enough to push you over the edge, but that's exactly what you get from Psychiatric Diagnosis Suite. While much of the information in this program is accurate and semicurrent, it's nearly impossible for anyone to use it.
After you are done answering a set of seemingly random psychiatric questions in the standard screen, a series of pop-up windows suggest possible diagnoses: "Please consider Panic Disorder," "Please consider Agoraphobia," "Please consider Alcohol/Drug Abuse" (that popped up twice for me, uh-oh!), "Please consider Generalized Anxiety Disorder," "Error on line 6933 ... Object Required," perhaps we should "Please consider another software program."
Constant spelling mistakes only reinforce the amateur presentation, and to top it all off the program costs $100 and only allows one trial use. If you ever end up with a psychiatrist who uses this ridiculous software, run away!
No. 1. Automatic Print Email
In a year of "change" where many scientists and concerned citizens believe that our environment is reaching the tipping point when it comes to natural resources, there's no reason to waste paper unnecessarily, yet that's exactly what this software does. For the low, low price of $50, this program will print all of the e-mail from your in-box, creating pages after pages of YouTube links, Viagra spam, Evite invitations, and other minutiae from your friends, relatives, and random strangers.
In my option, you're much better off using an actual e-mail program to, you know, read your messages, and then print out the images and letters for which you want hard copies after your preview your messages. For those responsible members of Spaceship Earth, a free program called GreenPrint takes on the notion of paper waste from an opposite approach. It lets you remove items from computer printouts to avoid wasting paper unnecessarily. Now there's an idea for 2009!
If you're looking for a way to sift through an enormous image library for specific photos, Photology makes for a quick study.
A simple interface is based on Microsoft's .NET framework and features a dark gray background and large easy-to-read buttons for the programs feature set. Images are displayed as thumbnails, so you can flip through pages if you're just looking to browse. Some editing tools are available for red-eye correction and image rotation, and you can sort photos into groups made easily accessible on the bottom of the interface. Photology's true strength is its capability to quickly sort through giant photo libraries and find images fitting a specific criterion. You can sort by date, time of day, indoor or outdoor location, and content such as faces, flowers, and sunsets. Users can also search by name for previously-labeled images.
Those are a bit basic compared with the coolest thing that Photology knows how to do. You can search by color, simply by using a mouse-over tool to select different gradations. Though some may be turned off by the required extra download of the .NET framework, this program is a great choice for anyone wishing to collect photos and search a large image library.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Though Photoshop rules the roost when it comes to image-editing software, not everyone needs many of the more advanced functions Photoshop has to offer. Many casual digital camera users probably don't want to spend the money on higher-end software, either.
That's where Pixelmator comes in. With Pixelmator ($59) you get most of the tools, color-correction features, effects, and layer management options you would find in a program like Photoshop, but without the steep price tag. The recently released version 1.3 adds several more useful features and fixes bugs from previous versions.
Familiar image-editing tools like the selector, magic wand, pencil, eraser, and paint bucket tools are all included. But you also get retouching tools for blurring hard edges and sharpening tools to improve blurry areas and enhance images to your liking. With the layer manager you can experiment with changes before making them permanent, complete with opacity sliders making it easy to compare between layers. If you really want to get down and dirty, you play with over 130 filters and effects, many of which give you similar results to Photoshop. When you're finished, you can save your work in several different formats making it possible to continue working in other programs or upload your work directly to the Web.
Familiar tools and pallets, color-correction and adjustment features, along with layer management tools make this app easily worth the price
(Credit: CNET Networks)Certainly Pixelmator will not make you want to throw out Photoshop. But if you're not a pro photographer and just need some better than average image-editing tools, this app offers all the right features at an affordable price.
There's a not-so-secret secret that BlackBerry Pearl owners in the know have been using to impress the socks off those astute enough to notice the glowing neon ball at the center of the handset. And that it isn't glowing white.
The trick is owed to a little software application called ColorPearl, which beams out multihued lights from RIM's famous navigation pearl by taking advantage of...well, we don't want to spoil the plot. Tune into this Quick Tip video from CNET Producer Randall Bennett to see the amazing Technicolor sphere in action.
Mozilla has released a third beta version of Firefox 3, bringing about 1,300 changes to the widely used open-source Web browser.
Firefox 3 Beta 3 should be more stable, perform faster, use memory more efficiently, and fit in better on various operating systems than its predecessors, Mozilla said.
Beta 3 of Firefox 3, shown here running on Windows XP, uses new interface elements made of vector graphics. It helps improve performance, Mozilla said.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)Having tried the new version out for a while this morning, my top impression hasn't changed since beta 2: the best thing about the new version is faster performance. Pages load faster.
Other improvements, according to the Firefox 3 release notes, include a better tool for seeing who owns a Web site; better protection against sites known to install viruses, spyware, or other malicious software; the plugging of 350 memory leaks that previously could waste more and more computer memory; the ability to locate downloaded files; a better tool to find and install plug-ins; and , now enabled by default.
The new Firefox beta can be downloaded from the Mozilla Web site, including versions for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux localized for several languages.
The new Firefox beta also adopts more of the native style of Mac OS X, Windows Vista, and Linux--the latter having been a point of some contention earlier given some technical difficulties. Also interesting from an interface standpoint and giving the beta a new look is the use of vector graphics for elements such as the back arrow and reload button.
I like Firefox 3's new location bar drop-down feature, in which Firefox presents various sites I've visited or bookmarked. For example, typing "can" retrieves a list that includes various Canon Web sites I've visited as well as Icanhascheezburger.com. (Alas, though, everyone's favorite LOLcats site seems to have a rendering problem with the new browser in the form of 10 "favorite" buttons.)
Beta 3 apparently improves the "frecency" formula that selects what to display in the drop-down list based on how frequently and recently you visited the sites. My only beef with the location bar drop-down so far is that it's a visually chaotic jumble of URLs, favicons, and titles in different fonts and colors.
Coincidentally, I was able to give the new Firefox 3 beta a short stress test, and it fared much better than its predecessor.
I found a misbehaving Flash ad Tuesday that made Firefox 2 chew up about 98 percent of my CPU power and thereby caused my system--especially Firefox--to slow to a crawl. Today, I found that same ad on another Web site while trying the Firefox 3 beta, and although it, too, maxed out my CPU, Firefox now was usable, though sluggish.
Firefox 3 sports a new add-on manager to find, add, disable, and uninstall plug-ins.
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)There are some reasons I won't be moving full time to the new beta, though.
Unsurprisingly, given warnings in the release notes, several plug-ins I use still aren't compatible: Foxmarks, del.icio.us, Fotofox, and FireFTP. And Yahoo Mail only can be used in its older classic mode for me.
For the Yahoo Mail problem, there's some hope: Mozilla is waiting on Yahoo for a bug fix for the mail site, and the Firefox release notes now offer a less pessimistic warning that the newer Yahoo Mail interface "may not work for all users right away."
The release notes also warn that Windows Live Mail doesn't work; a plug-in must be installed to play Windows Media Player content on Windows; Firefox often will stop responding to keystrokes when using Google Documents on Mac OS X; and printing is broken on many versions of Linux.
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