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Edit photos big and small with Pikifx

Pikifx (pronounced "pickie-fix") is a new online photo editor for adding a bevy of effects and tweaks to photos without resorting to software apps. It comes from the same folks who made Web-based comic creator Comeeko (review), which has renamed itself Pikisnips. It's also a sister site to Pikipimp, which is virtual paper-doll-like prop tool for mucking about with digital photos.

Like other solutions that have cropped up in the past year, Pikifx lets you easily upload a shot from your hard drive or snatch it off the Web with a URL. From there you can choose … Read more

Photos: RCA Opal

We've had an influx of inexpensive RCA MP3 players lately. Jasmine posted her reviews of the RCA Jet and the RCA Pearl last week. Now we've got the RCA Opal, which is probably the most unique player RCA has released. It has a great list of features, including support for DRM WMA and Audible formats. I thought the user interface was a little confusing--not helped by the fact that the control pad is a little slanted.

The claim to fame here is that the Opal supports photo and video playback for under $70. If you're interested, click … Read more

'Effortless perfection': Much Photoshopping required

Girls and women are under all sorts of pressure to look perfect--and to make it look easy in the process. Duke University identified this new unattainable standard as "effortless perfection."

As individual women, it can be easy to wonder why we fall into the trap of trying to live up to an unattainable standard. It's something we absorb on an almost subconscious level. Deconstructing this month's Redbook magazine cover shows us just how manufactured the images of beauty we see really are.

I didn't think twice about the cover image of country singer and actress Faith Hill when I first saw it. But an untouched original photo obtained by Jezebel shows just how much "digital magic" even a certified star needs to be ready for her close-up. … Read more

FotoTagger: Molly Wood's fave new digital-photography tool

We all goof, but we don't all do it as visibly as CNET TV star and executive editor Molly Wood, nor do we often relish fessing up. Molly does both with wit, charm, and FotoTagger, a handy digital-photography freeware tool for annotating digital photos via movable captions.

Read Molly's hilarious confession, Anatomy of a Buzz Report screwup, to see why FotoTagger has become her "new favorite thing." While you're at it, try it out.

Publishing your photos

Taking digital pictures is simple; transforming them into a constructive project is a whole 'nother story. Web services like Flickr, Picasa, Shutterfly, Webshots, Snapfish, and countless others let you create photo galleries that are hosted on their servers, but what if you want to create a gallery for your own Web site?

Personally, I'm the sort of guy who wants to start with my raw images and my trusty NoteTab Light text editor, but I seem to have lost my patience for HTML and CSS (not to mention JavaScript and XML) over the last five years.… Read more

A $6,000 mirror for your megapixel mug

If you could spend $6,000 on anything right now, it would certainly be a photomosaic mirror comprised of a 30-inch LCD screen and a Mac Mini, right? If so, you're in luck, because The Barbarian Group is now selling custom-made, limited-edition, real-time photomosaic mirrors. They come as a large box that you need simply hang up and plug in. Its built-in Web cam will take your image and display it as a photo mosaic with about a second of lag while it processes many teeny-tiny pictures to reflect a live image (see video here).

To build up its … Read more

Share and organize vacation photos in a snap

Each time I go shutter-happy, I'm reminded of digital photography's beautiful myth. Yes, impressive megapixel loads deliver in-your-face resolution that elevates photos from the usual point-and-shoot quality. However, there's that time-sucking task of cropping, editing, captioning, and distributing the sprawling photo collection, and those are things even the fanciest camera on the market won't do.

The time and effort it takes to process a large batch of photos can be off-putting, but here are a few media-organization tools from the CNET Download.com library to move along the sometimes-arduous process of getting photos from the desktop to your friends.… Read more

Photos: RCA Pearl

Plug-in-style MP3 players--that is, those with the USB interface built right in--have been enjoying a bit of a renaissance lately, as evidenced by the recent release of the SanDisk Sansa Express. RCA has now joined the trend with the Pearl, one of three players in the company's new Gem line. Like the Express, the Pearl is also aimed squarely at the budget-conscious, with 1GB and 2GB versions retailing for $39 and $48, respectively. Click the pic to see the Pearl in glorious detail, or head over to CNET to read the review.

Canon unveils three new printers

Canon announced three new additions to its printer lineup today--two home inkjet all-in-ones and one standalone photo printer. The two inkjets are part of the Pixma line: the Pixma MP470 and the Pixma MP210. The $100 MP470 offers 4,800x1,200 dpi color printing with 2pL droplets, 2,400x4,800 dpi scans, a 1.8-inch color LCD, and a USB 2.0 connection. Using its built-in memory card reader and PictBridge port, you can print photos without touching your PC. The PictBridge port also doubles as a USB port for the optional Bluetooth adapter that lets you print wirelessly. The … Read more