editing photos

15 iOS 5 tips and tricks

The time has finally come, and iOS 5 will be available to the general public October 12. During the last four months, we have been covering some of the key features of iOS 5 to ensure we were prepared to help you on the first day of iOS 5's release. Below you will find 15 tips and tricks to help you master iOS 5, and maybe even allow you to show off a bit to your friends. … Read more

How to edit photos in iOS 5

Apple has added a lot of new features in iOS 5, one of them being the ability to edit pictures directly in the Photos app. This feature is very easy to use and almost feels like it has been there from day one, even though it has been noticably absent.

Look through the slideshow below for a step-by-step guide on how to edit photos on your Apple device on iOS 5.

How to edit photos within the Android gallery

Not every photo taken is a masterpiece; some are upside down, or sideways, or have extra "scenery" that you didn't choose to include. For these issues, the Android gallery app offers a few simple editing tools to help correct image orientation and tidy up photos.

Getting to the editing menu:Open a picture from the gallery and then press the menu button. This menu is only available when previewing a photo by itself. Now, select More from this menu.

Editing choices will appear in the new pop-up menu, such as Details, Set as, Crop, Rotate Left, and … Read more

Photo retoucher

Once upon a time, only tabloid newspapers and Soviet dictators had the power to make unwanted objects and people vanish from photographs. Thanks to digital photography and free tools like PhotoWipe from Hanov Solutions, though, anyone can send un-persons down the memory hole. You can also use it to remove signs and logos to meet copyright restrictions, reveal hidden details in your pictures, and make creative images, not just banish old flames and new enemies from your snapshots.

As is fitting for a simple-to-use, highly focused tool, PhotoWipe's interface is sparse; just a basic suite of file menus and … Read more

Clunky photo editing

Dream Photo Editor allows users to create photo collages with a variety of special effects. Unfortunately, the program's clunky interface and sometimes tacky content hinder its effectiveness.

Upon opening the program, we were met with several error messages right off the bat. This was followed by two nonsensical screens with unlabeled buttons. We clicked a couple of them at random, got a couple more error messages, and then the program opened. Nice. The program's interface is somewhat cluttered and not particularly attractive. The functions aren't bad. Users can start with a blank background or use one of … Read more

Photos with style

MagicEffect Photo Editor is an easy, breezy way to add style to your photos. Choose from effects such as Sketch, Star, Amazing, and Dream to make your photos stand out from the rest.

This simple application has a basic interface that includes buttons running down the left side of the program that apply the program's different effects. To the right, the program shows you the original source picture and a preview of what the picture will look like once the selected effect is applied. It shows you 10 versions of what the picture looks like with the effect, ranging … Read more

Freeware optimizes images side by side

Anyone who has posted images to a Web site or blog knows that making the image "Internet-friendly" is crucial to fast page-loading times. Similarly, optimizing images for e-mail is important because sending enormous image files through your e-mail client can cause problems for those with slower connection speeds. There are several software tools available to reformat and optimize your images, but I found one recently that's free, easy, and effective.

RIOT (Radical Image Optimization Tool) (Free) for Windows takes the side-by-side interface approach for painless image optimization. Those who have used Adobe ImageReady will immediately recognize the … Read more

WriteOnIt turns pics into fake magazine covers

WriteOnIt is a simple service that lets you caption and manipulate uploaded photos. Just like BigHugeLabs' Flickr toys project (story), it can take uploaded photos and stick them into magazine covers. It can also slyly insert them onto coffee mugs, billboards, art easels, and fake mirrors within ready-made photos.

You have very little control over the complicated bits, like transparency, placement, and cropping--which are all absent. However, with that simplicity you can very quickly put together something that both looks polished, and that could fool your viewer.

Of all the tools my favorite is the newspaper creator. You have five … Read more

15 online photo editors compared

Tools that let you edit photos in the Web browser have come a long way in the last few years. We wanted to take a moment to do a feature comparison with a grouping of editors--big and small, to see what each one is capable of.

Most of the services on this list take advantage of Adobe's ever-developing Flash platform, which in its latest iteration got a huge boost with support for the large images coming out of today's high-megapixel cameras. On the flip side of that, several of the non-Flash-based editors use AJAX to make the changes happen without reloading the page. The benefit here is that you can run these on machines without the latest versions of Flash installed.

While not an exhaustive list of features, we wanted to focus on some of the ones that really mattered, like how much each service costs to use, how large of a photo you can upload, and what makes each one special. Here are the results:

Service Flash/HTML Max. size Max. resolution Cost Layers Effects Killer feature Flauntr Flash 10MB 2850x1599 Free No Yes Part of a larger suite of editing products. You can take your file to another tool without losing changes. Fotoflexer Flash No limit 4500x4500 Free Yes Yes Handles multiple layers with grace. Includes advanced features like curve tweaks and intelligent lassoing for free. Lunapic HTML 4MB 1330x1330 Free No Yes Can run on machines without Flash installed. Really inventive special effects--especially reflective water that ripples. Phixr HTML No limit 1440x1080 Free No Yes Can run on machines without Flash installed. Does not save your photos on its servers for very long, so you can edit sensitive images and nobody will see them. Phoenix Flash No limit 2800x2800 Free Yes Yes Great layer masking, community support, and tutorials. Work from Phoenix can be sent to another editing tool in the Aviary Web suite. Photoshop.com Flash 10MB 6000x6000 Free No Yes Editing features get previewed in real time. Also runs on Adobe's latest and greatest Flash technology. Picnik free Flash 16MB 4000x4000 Free Yes Yes Default photo editor for Flickr, very slick interface. Picnik premium Flash 16MB 4000x4000 $24.95/year Yes Yes Bigger uploads and more effects filters. App also remembers what you were doing the last time you were using it. Picture2Life HTML 5MB 1600x1600 Free Yes Yes Can run on machines without Flash installed. Floating windows workspace, similar to desktop apps. Pixenate HTML 10MB 1600x1200 Free No Yes Can run on machines without Flash installed. Tooth whitening tool perfects yellow smiles with two clicks. Pixer.us Flash 10MB 6000x6000 Free No Yes Remembers the last photo you were working on and has a wide range of filters and effects. Pixlr Flash No limit 2880x2880 (Flash 9 users) 4096x4096 (Flash 10 users) Free Yes Yes Feels a lot like a desktop application, complete with a workspace which you can rearrange and customize to your liking. Snipshot HTML 10MB 5000x5000 Free No Yes Can run on machines without Flash installed. Can import the first page of a PDF file for editing. Snipshot Pro HTML 10MB 5000x5000 $7/month No Yes Effects filters, face detection, support for RAW camera files. Splashup Flash ~6.25MB 1250x1250 Free Yes Yes Really great handling of layers. Photoshop users will feel right at home with some of the user interface.

Two small caveats about size: In most cases, any difference in the maximum photo resolution is a result of which version of Flash the tool--or the user--is running. In Aviary's case, its Phoenix photo editor uses the Flash 9 spec, thus only supporting images up to 2800x2800 in size. Its next release, due later this year, will nearly double that resolution.

Also, the maximum resolution doesn't necessarily mean if your original photo is bigger, it won't take it. Instead, what many of these services will do is simply scale it down to something that's more manageable both for your machine and its servers. Photos with odd aspect ratios are often constrained within the proportion of pixels any given editing app can render within its available workspace.

So which one is the best?

That's a difficult question. It depends on what you're trying to do. If you want to add glitter graphics to a picture to put on your MySpace profile, you should go with Lunapic. If you're trying to edit the RAW photos you just took on your new SLR, you're only going to be able to do it on Snipshot's paid pro service.… Read more