MakeUseOf.com: “Cool Websites and Tools [December 21st]” plus 8 more |  |
- Cool Websites and Tools [December 21st]
- 3 Tips To Easily Add Images To Your iPhone
- ComicRack – An eComic Reader For The Joys Of Web Comics
- DOWNLOAD: The MakeUseOf Shopping Guide
- 10 Common SEO Mistakes that can Destroy Your Website [Part II]
- The Best Free Alternatives To Top Commercial iPhone Photography Apps
- Four Simple Steps To Improve Your Sleep Patterns
- How To Change The Background Of A Photo In Photoshop
- Find Great Local Restaurants To Dine With Urbanspoon For iPhone
| Cool Websites and Tools [December 21st] Posted: 21 Dec 2009 07:31 PM PST
(1) Themeleon – is a free service provided by ColourLovers.com, which offers an easy way to make your Twitter page look good without adding clutter. You can chose from amongst 690,603 patterns and 1,049,085 color palettes all designed to make aesthetically pleasing backdrops for your microblogging. Read more: Get A Slick Well Designed Twitter Wallpaper From Themeleon
(2) a2z Wordfinder – is a useful site for players of games like Scrabble, Literati, Jamble and WordOx. The site has different wordfinder boxes according to the game you are playing. Enter the combination of letters and click on find words to look up various words that are ranked according to the points they'll earn you in the game. Read more: a2z WordFinder: Online Scrabble Dictionary & Word Generator (3) BillPDF – BillPDF is a free online invoice generator that allows you to create professional-looking PDF invoices quickly. To create an invoice with BillPDF, enter the sender information, recipient, invoice details, and invoice items. The invoice information applies common invoicing standards such as a document number, payment status, etc. Read more: BillPDF: Create PDF Invoices Online (4) CheapRiver – is a nice service for international customers who regularly buy books from Amazon. The site searches Amazon stores across the US, Canada, UK, France and Germany to get you the best offer on books. Not only does it compare the book prices at the current exchange rates, it also calculates and compares the total shipping cost from each store to the destination. Read more: CheapRiver – Compare Book Prices At Amazon Stores (5) Dishpointer Augmented Reality – is an iPhone/Android phone application that allows you to locate television satellites nearest to your area with your phone. This useful application can help you find the most optimal setup in installing your own satellite dish. Read more: Dishpointer Augmented Reality: A Satellite Finder For Your Phone These are just half of the websites that we discovered in the last couple of days. If you want us to send you daily round-ups of all cool websites we come across, leave your email here. Or follow us via RSS feed. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| 3 Tips To Easily Add Images To Your iPhone Posted: 21 Dec 2009 05:30 PM PST
The iPhoto and Aperture Way When you connect your iPhone to your computer and access it through iTunes '09 (for Mac user; read the next section if you’re a PC user) you'll see the Photos section of the iTunes interface where you can select to "Sync photos from" iPhoto or Aperture. You get various options for selecting an album(s) or groups of photos you want to sync to your phone. By using this option your iPhone will be synced and updated with photos that you add (or delete) from your selected image editor.
The benefit of this option is that you can take care of syncing your photos to your iPhone while also managing other data, including audio and video files and applications. The Finder Way
The Web Gallery Way MobileMe Gallery Photoshop.com To view posted photos on your Photoshop.com gallery, download the free iPhone application of the same name (iTunes Store link), and sign onto your account through the application.
The benefit of using this photo sharing gallery is that you don't have have to add images directly to your iPhone, and thus you avoid using sometimes precious hard drive space. Of course, if you find yourself in places where you can't get Wi-fi or 3G Internet access, then this method is not the best option. Flickr And Shutterfly.com
Unfortunately, as for as I know, there is no way to get photos directly from your camera’s media card onto your iPhone. An accessory for such a process exist for the 5th generation iPod but not for the iPhone. There is, though, a special wireless SD memory card called Eye-Fi that will transfer photos from your camera to a selected photo sharing site. Photos thus could be downloaded from the selected site and viewed on the iPhone. If you have any other suggestions for getting photos on your iPhone, please let me and MUO readers know about it. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| ComicRack – An eComic Reader For The Joys Of Web Comics Posted: 21 Dec 2009 03:30 PM PST
If eBooks are gaining ground can web comics be far behind, especially when today's kids come toting iPhones and netbooks? Like the others, comics too are hugging the freedom and freeness of the web. After all, it's the best publishing platform that's going around. My fellow comic book lover Jeffry showed us something on web comics with his post on How to Find and Read Comic E-Books Online. Following his recommendation, I tried out ComicRack – a free eComic book reader. By the looks of it on its website, it promised smooth and silky page turning. Perfect for the Buck Jones eComic I had lying around. Buck Jones on ComicRackBuck Jones is packaged in an ebr file. Most web comics come in any one of the following formats – cbz, zip, cbr, rar, cbt, tar, cb7, 7z or pdf. ComicRack supports all these and can also export in the cbz, cbt, cb7 or pdf formats. Here's how my eComic looks, all opened up on the cover page.
Turning the pages of my web comicAn eComic reader might not give you the glossy feel or the dog eared feel of an actual comic. And you have to give pillow reading a miss, but the ComicRack tries to compensate by offering flexible ways to read the adventures. You have different page layout options and the choice of viewing the pages in full screen mode (my choice) or in a separate window altogether. To simulate a real world comic, you can also opt to view two pages side by side. Auto-rotation modes for fitting it on other devices like tablet PCs are available with a click. And like all things these days, ComicRack too has a multi-tabbed interface.
Navigation is easy with the page arrow keys. A scrollable thumbnail preview helps us to jump to any page of the web comic. With Bookmarks you don't have to remember where you left off.
Another useful little tool is the Magnifier which like its name helps to blow up any part of the image you like. Could be especially useful for those who like artwork.
Delve into the Preferences, if you want more hands on control with settings like contrast, brightness and saturation. A lot of other viewing features are configurable of course. Managing my web comic collectionBundled alongside the reader features are a few more which make ComicRack a one stop solution for all your eComics. ComicRack captures all the details of an eComic like page details. You can set Page Filters to include or exclude parts like the covers or the advertisements. The filters thus help to leave out the parts you don't want to read.
The Library is very similar to iTunes with Smart Lists for quick access to your collection of web comics. You can scan entire folders which have readable content and bring them into lists using your own custom lists. Just like playlists, these lists can be managed and exported. Thumbnail previews and advanced sorting help out with managing your collection.
Try out the advanced Search Browser if you have a large collection.
ComicRack handles most of the formats that eComics come in. Add to that its ability to convert between formats and you get another tool to handle those pdf to cbr jobs. ComicRack – does it deserve graphic praise?ComicRack does all that you would expect a full featured collection manager to do. But quite surprisingly, it does not provide a help file. In my opinion, a reader could do without one, but a collection manager should have a guide behind it. I would have loved if it could have doubled as a PDF reader straight out of the box, but it can only handle those ones which have scanned images as part of the PDF. A separate 12MB sized Ghostscript install makes it a fully compliant PDF reader. That is the only chink I could find. Not quite on the pillow, but ComicRack does allow me some of those childhood pleasures on the desk. ComicRack (ver. 0.9) runs on Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7. Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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| DOWNLOAD: The MakeUseOf Shopping Guide Posted: 21 Dec 2009 02:30 PM PST
With the holidays on the horizon, the shopping hysteria has kicked in. The result? Retailers telling you what to buy and malls filled to bursting. It’s Disney World all over again. We’re proud to be able to present The MakeUseOf Shopping Guide, a free PDF manual for all your shopping needs! In this guide, MakeUseOf’s very own Tina achieves three things; to improve your shopping experience, improve your shopping success, and save you money.
Learn how to hunt down bargain sales online, and how to implement the internet in your offline shopping experience. This guide is filled to bursting with incredible tips and an array of cool, useful sites. Download the free MakeUseOf Shopping Guide now in PDF, no strings attached, or read it online on Scribd! No reason to wait, there’s shopping to do! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| 10 Common SEO Mistakes that can Destroy Your Website [Part II] Posted: 21 Dec 2009 01:30 PM PST
Now, when you have to make a living doing this, the only way to survive is by learning what actually creates positive traffic growth. When many people think about search engine optimization, they don’t consider the possibility that by attempting to optimize, you could actually be doing more damage than if you’d done nothing at all. This is because Google has had to deal with unscrupulous characters attempting to “outsmart” the Google algorithm, so now that algorithm is arranged to penalize anyone attempting to use those tactics – whether it’s intentional or not. If you happen to make one of those top SEO mistakes, your website rank will actually drop and you’ll see much less search engine traffic than normal. So how do you avoid those pitfalls? The following tips will guide you through the process. SEO Mistake #6 – The Cardinal Sin – Keyword SpammingThere is nothing that Google hates more than a website that attempts to hijack the crawler with an overabundance of particular keyword phrases. You can be certain that if you are targeting the phrase “make money online,” and plaster the phrase all over your article a dozen times (this is known as keyword “stuffing”), you may actually see an immediate short term spike in traffic to that page. However, you can also be certain that in time, not only will that traffic drop off quickly, but your entire domain will struggle to rank very highly (if at all) in Google search results under every keyword phrase you write about. An example of keyword spamming is shown here, from Team-Schuman.
On this single page, I counted the occurrence of the keyword phrase “make money” a whopping total of 30 times. This approach may achieve temporary success, but don’t be fooled. Before long you’ll be wondering what happened when your site is nowhere to be found on Google. Don’t get me wrong, distributing high-value keyword phrases is essential to quality SEO, but it needs to be done in a measured and careful way. SEO Mistake #7 – Spamming for BacklinksNow, don’t get me wrong, I’ve always preached that you should post on forums and blogs in order to generate quality backlinks to your own site. This is what I described in my recent article on increasing blog traffic when I mentioned engaging the blogosphere every single day. However, simply posting for the sake of achieving a link back to your site is a major social networking no-no. A somewhat humorous example I saw take place was on a MakeUseOf article on how to remove false information about yourself online. It appeared that one of the folks posted repeated comments was trying to hijack the comment area into an area for self-advertising.
Some folks even “stage” conversations within the comment areas of blogs to generate interest. If your only purpose for posting comments to a blog or forum is to generate a link to your site, don’t bother. It won’t win you any fans within the industry or niche that you’re trying to target, and secondly, the transparency of the effort will make most readers skim right past your comment, or even worse you could get banned. SEO Mistake #8 – Not Optimizing ImagesIn 2007, on the Google Webmaster Central blog, Google’s own Ríona MacNamara provided a very important clue to SEO enthusiasts with the statement, “As the Googlebot does not see the images directly, we generally concentrate on the information provided in the ‘alt’ attribute.” So, what does this mean for your SEO efforts? It means that you better start taking advantage of your image alt-text tags if you want to have some advantage over your competition.
In the example above, this is an upcoming article I’m writing for my blog, FreeWritingCenter. As you can see, the entire phrase that I’m targeting is “writing a research paper,” so I’ve inserted that as the alt-text for my first image. However, you’ll notice that the title is simply a description of the picture itself. You only need to target the alt-text picture tags for your keywords, and only add them to a few pictures, otherwise you’ll run the risk of getting labeled as a spammer. As always – distribute the keywords carefully and sparingly. SEO Mistake #9 – Producing Stupid, Poorly-Written ContentOne of the worst symptoms of black-hat SEO scammers trying to outsmart Googlebot’s crawl algorithm is the evolution of “content-mills.” Now, given just about every blog out there is a content mill to some extent, at least when there’s a certain level of investment and quality checks in place, you know that the articles you read are going to be written using proper grammar, offer a decent style of writing and provide useful content. However, there are countless blogs and writers out there who simply churn out 500 word blocks of text as fast as they can with the hopes of capturing search engine traffic. If you want to see an example, just review any of the major free article directories, such as EzineArticles.
Now, I’m not knocking EzineArticles. I’m a registered author there, and whenever I need to publish something online quickly and there’s no other place to do it, I’ll publish it there. However, there are countless authors who just publish the first draft of whatever mindless drivel comes out of their heads. There’s no editing, no spell checking and in most cases I’m pretty sure there’s no writing background to speak of. This phenomenon is leading to an Internet that’s cluttered with some of the most atrocious writing imaginable. What does this have to do with SEO? The SEO lesson to learn here is this: Yes, Google prefers websites and blogs that are fresh and constantly updated with new content, but that doesn’t mean you should ever overlook quality just to get your content published quickly. Focus on producing high-quality, valuable content that people will want to link to and return to again and again. SEO Mistake #10 – Submitting Your WebsiteDo you remember the days when trying to get your website noticed online meant submitting your URL to as many search engines as possible? The fact is, these submission forms still exist on many of the major search engines even though they are completely outdated and unnecessary.
In fact, if you look at Yahoo’s own submission page and read the text carefully, you’ll find that Yahoo makes the case that you’re really wasting your time. The page reads, “The Yahoo! Search index, which contains several billion web pages, is more than 99% populated through the free crawl process.” Now, with 99% chances that the Yahoo crawl process will discover your website (especially if you’ve properly optimized it), do you really think you need to fill out these silly submission forms? SEO experts unite! What lessons have you learned during your own optimization efforts? Do you have any of your own tips for MUO readers? Share them in the comments section below! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| The Best Free Alternatives To Top Commercial iPhone Photography Apps Posted: 21 Dec 2009 11:30 AM PST
World-renowned photographer Chase Jarvis acknowledges that the best camera you can have is the one that’s with you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 20- or 2-megapixel camera as long as you’re able to capture that moment. One of the many reasons why the iPhone has gotten so popular since its birth wasn’t because it has a really great camera. Definitely not. On the contrary, the iPhone’s camera has really disappointing performance. Slowly but surely, photography apps started trickling into the iTunes App Store. These jewels gave the iPhone a little a bit of a nudge in the imagery department. Now, you are able to snap a picture, edit it colour-wise, add effects, crop the image, build a frame around the photo and send it out to various social networks like Twitter and Facebook; all from your iPhone. Absolutely staggering. Most of these photography apps are commercial. However, hidden away in the nooks and crannies, I’ve found a few free apps that pack quite a punch. How much “punch”? Let’s find out. Here’s our starting point: a dreary photo of the crossroad outside my window, taken with the iPhone’s built-in camera. Let’s see what we can do to make it better.
Giveaway: We have 10 promo codes for every commercial app listed here to be given away to our readers. Find out how to win one after the jump.
Shooting UtilitiesShooting utilities provide you with the tools you need to actually take a better picture. Commercial: Camera GeniusThere were several challengers in this department but Camera Genius lulled me towards it. Actually a pretty simple to use application, it supplies you with digital zoom, the ability to snap a picture by yelling, “Cheese!”; it helps everyday folks cope with the iPhone camera’s innate flaws. It also has an anti-shake function that’s quite useful when taking night shots.
Free: GorillacamWhen I first started this app (after testing Camera Genius) I was amazed at the numerous tools that it had. Gorillacam felt so refined, it was hard to believe that I didn’t need to pay for it. Having almost the same features as Camera Genius, it sports a self-timer, time-lapse and burst modes, a bubble level, grid view and a larger capture button. The only thing missing was the voice-activated capture function, which may sound like a gimmick but I think could be useful in some situations.
Post-ProcessingThese apps add effects and allow you to edit the photo once it’s taken. They can turn a boring image into something spectacular. Take a look. Commercial: Best CameraWith a name like that, what else is left for me to say? Best Camera is endorsed by Chase Jarvis himself and there’s good reason for it too. The interface is totally out of the ordinary. At the bottom of the screen, there is a Mac-like Dock holstering “filters” with predefined image effects. Just tap on any one of them for a preview and tap on Apply to set the effect.
There are 4 image effects and 8 colour editing tools: lighten, darken, fade, contrast, warm, cool, desaturate and vignette; followed by the crop and frame tools. After you’ve applied the filters, you can re-arrange them by tapping on the filters button at the top right. By re-ordering the filters you can achieve several different varieties of effects.
Best Camera allows you to save your processed images in their original size or a smaller if you wish. After all that, you can select where you’d like to share your photo: Facebook, Twitter, via email or thebestcamera.com, a website dedicated to featuring photos taken and edited with Best Camera.
Commercial: CamerabagCamerabag is another application that comes with a set of predefined image effects, 11 to be exact. You can preview these effects by taking a snapshot with the app or by loading an existing photo. Camerabag takes a while to render the previews but the effects are jaw-droppingly awesome. This could be one of the easiest ways to quickly add a beautiful colour filter to an otherwise bland photo.
Commercial: HipstamaticThe new kid on the block, Hipstamatic isn’t shy to flaunt its uber cool app. The interface is a joy to play around with and will make your friends go, “Waaa.”
Hipstamatic comes with 2 types of film and 2 different lenses. The film determines the type of frame the output picture gets and the lens controls the colour.
Altogether, you only get 4 different combinations of effects with the set of film and lenses it comes bundled with. Purchase the expansion “Hipstapak” and you’ll get 2 more types of film and an additional 2 lenses.
After you’ve shot your photo, it appears in the prints library. Tap on the image once and you’ll be able to find out the combination of film and lens used. Hipstamatic takes a different approach to image effects — instead of post-processing the image, it allows you to be creative and manipulate the variables to come up with your own, original image effects.
Compare this with the starting right at the beginning of the article. Notice any changes?
Commercial: Retro CameraRetro Camera, as the name implies, adds a retro look to your images. By selecting the type of film, grain, textures and frame; it can actually create a surrealistic photo as though it was taken back in yesteryear.
The only problem I have with this application is while the selection menu is active, the photo’s view is blocked. So choosing the right effect is like taking a shot in the dark.
Retro Camera does have a free version but it adds a pretty large banner at the bottom of the image, which you can easily crop out.
Free: Mill ColourThis application gives Camerabag a run for its money. Mill Colour has a selection of 10 predefined image effects that is absolutely stunning for a free application. It also renders the image previews much quicker than Camerabag.
Once you’re done choosing your preferred effect, you can tweak the image further by adjusting the gain, lift gamma and saturation. If you’re not sure what each setting does, tap on the info button at the top of the screen. It’s pretty well documented.
Free: MorelomoThere’s not much to say about this simple app. Point, shoot and save. I’ll let the picture below do the talking.
Free: Photoshop MobileI won’t go into detail about Photoshop Mobile since Bakari has always written about it not too long ago. What PS Mobile does offer which Mill Colour doesn’t are the crop and frame tools. I suppose both of these apps work really well with one another, one provides stunning effects, the other wraps it up.
ZoomingThese apps offer the ability to digitally zoom in on distant objects. I’ve found Camera Zoom 2 to be a really great tool and I know just the free app to challenge it: Zoom Photo. The major difference between these two apps (besides one of them being free) is the output size. Camera Zoom 2 saves the images at 600×800 pixels whereas Zoom Camera only saves them at 300×400. Initially, you will think that Zoom Camera’s images look smoother and more refined compared to the jagged photos from Camera Zoom 2. It’s only when you put them side by side will you see the difference. Camera Zoom 2 actually has a lot more detail albeit a bit more noise as well. Nevertheless, Zoom Camera is a worthy contender.
What are your nominations for the best iPhone photography apps? Did I miss any of your favourites? Voice out in the comments. And oh… Giveaway: We have 10 promo codes for each commercial app listed here to be given away! Valid for US iTunes Store accounts only. To get your hands on any one of these great photography apps, either:
2. Click on the retweet button to share on Twitter or; 3. Do both! Then tell us where you’ve shared it and which app you would prefer. You’re only allowed to choose one but you may list another as your second choice. Don’t forget to enter your email address so that we can get in touch with you. The giveaway ends on Christmas day. Winners will be chosen randomly. Enjoy! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| Four Simple Steps To Improve Your Sleep Patterns Posted: 21 Dec 2009 09:30 AM PST
There might be times when we have stubbornly distracting noises or overwhelming thoughts that keep us rolling around in bed, or we do things that make us go unaware of time passing and we are more interested in keeping the activity going than disrupting it. In this state of mind, it's hard to regain the awareness of our bodily needs, but with the right mindset, a few small changes, and practice, you might be closer to achieving a better sleep routine. To Improve Sleep Patterns – Prepare mentallyFor this routine to work, you should convince yourself of all the benefits you will gain by converting and how much of your body you are damaging by staying in your irregular sleeping pattern (perhaps you can stick a reminder list of these somewhere you can constantly see it). This works the same with exercise: To want to do it, you have to be convinced psychologically of the purposes behind your goals. Now think about a time that you want to shut all electronic devices by and go to bed. Does this time allow reasonable amount of sleep hours till the time you will wake up? If so, seriously commit to these bed times and waking times by setting them as priorities in your head. AvoidNow that you have a set time to sleep by, you should also remember to do a pre-sleep ritual that will help you be ready to sleep at that time every day. This includes minimizing and slowly cutting contact with all kinds of electronic devices and stimulants that keep your attention running wild, which instead should be winding down at this phase.
Try avoiding (for best results) or reducing these activities and foods (including fluids which may keep waking you up in the middle of the night to attend to your bathroom needs) within three hours of the new sleeping time:
AdjustFor those who do try to stick to a bed time but end up lying in bed and rolling around for what seems a lengthy amount of time. A number of additional factors may be stopping you from being able to improve your sleep patterns:
Practice
Help fellow readers improve sleep patterns by telling us your suggestions in the comments. Image credits: star5112, herval, SashaW Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section! New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too. Related posts
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| How To Change The Background Of A Photo In Photoshop Posted: 21 Dec 2009 08:30 AM PST
Photoshop has the excellent “Extract” filter built especially for such tasks. Photoshop CS4 however, no longer features the Extract filter. So we will first look at how to use the extract tool to pull off the maneuver, then briefly see how you can enable the extract filter in CS4 or use an alternative to the Extract filter. Let’s get working straight away, shall we? Change the Background of a Photo with The Extract FilterIf you have pre-CS4 version of Photoshop, you can find the Extract filter under the Filter menu. The Extract filter is very useful to cut out or extract a person/object from the photo and then use it on another photo to change the background of the original photo. The tool is very simple to use. Although it opens a giant dialog box there is really no need to be intimidated by it. First off, go ahead and check the Smart highlighter box right away. Now choose the highlighter tool and draw around the object you want to extract. Make sure you cover the edges, this means that the highlight stroke should roughly lie half on the object you want to extract and half on the background. You don’t have to be precise or want a Wacom tablet. Photoshop will help you along. Somewhat like this:
You can change the brush size of the highlighter for greater precision in corners and smaller areas. Then choose the fill tool from the extract filter toolbar and click once inside the area you want to keep. Hit the preview button and you will be shown what the final image will look like once extract finishes its work. Click OK if the results seem close to what you are looking for, or else you can start over once again. Expert Tip: Duplicate the layer before starting the extract filter. That way, you still have the original image when extract finishes. Now Ctrl + Click on the extracted layer’s thumbnail to load it as a selection. You can now use Select > Refine Edges to improve the selection and hence the extract. Once done hit Ctrl + C and then Ctrl + V to get the extracted-refined object on its own layer.
The Extract Filter in CS4As I mentioned earlier, the extract filter is no longer present in Photoshop CS4, the latest offering from Adobe. You can simply copy and paste the ExtractPlus.8BF file from your CS3 installation’s Plug-ins/Filters/ folder to the corresponding folder in CS4 install directory. Oh, you can also download it from Adobe’s site if you don’t have a CS3 installation handy. My Bad!
When you fire up Photoshop the next time, you will see the extract command under the Filter menu. You can now use it as detailed above. Alternatives to Extract FilterThere are always more than one way to achieve similar results in Photoshop. So if you would like to ditch the extract filter altogether you can use the improved quick selection tool. It does a pretty good job of detecting edges. In case it goes wrong, you can always add to (Shift) and subtract from (Alt) the selection. As an added advantage, it gives you a selection you can easily refine, so you wouldn’t have to work extra to get the selection as we did in the expert tip above.
You can also use the freeware InstantMask to mask out a person or object from any photo. It uses a slightly different approach that reminds one of the commercial plug-in Mask Pro from OnOne software but the results vary hugely.
Here is the finished result using the extract tool. Just added a background and some text! Keep in mind that there is an algorithm doing the processing behind what seems like magic. The application has no idea who or what the object is in the photograph. You get best results when there is good contrast between the object and the background. That is one of the reason people shoot against a green or blue screen because then you can get excellent contrast in the green/blue channel and creating a mask to extract an object is super easy. Have you attempted the task of changing the background of a photo before? How did you do it? Related posts
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| Find Great Local Restaurants To Dine With Urbanspoon For iPhone Posted: 21 Dec 2009 07:30 AM PST
Urbanspoon lets you browse local restaurants, review them, and you can even let the restaurant iPhone app pick a place for you to visit through the amusing random restaurant “slot machine” function. Urbanspoon first lets you pick a city (it supports most major cities in the US) and then allows you to select a neighborhood or suburb to search in detail. From there, you can shake the phone and, after playing a fun slot machine noise, it’ll pick a random type of restaurant and cost for you along with a restaurant that meets that criteria. You can lock each category column as you please, which can help if you’re only looking for a really cheap restaurant, for example. The search tool that Urbanspoon uses also lets you filter out restaurants by things like hours open, chain availability, distance from your current location and popularity among other users.
Urbanspoon also allows you to rate and review the restaurants you visit so that other iPhone/iPod Touch users can see what you think. You can write a short review or just select weather you like or don’t like the location. In addition to reviews, you can call and map the restaurants you find as well as add photos of them, see reviews from “critics” online, set them as a favorite for later review and even look at blog posts about the restaurant on the internet.
Urbanspoon also has a browse tool which lets you simply browse for restaurants by food type, features the restaurant has or popularity of the restaurants in your area. Food types that you can browse for include everything from bagels to smoothies and barbecue to buffet and the features that you can browse through include things like weather a restaurant has free wifi, live music, happy hour or delivery. Another handy part of the browsing feature in Urbanspoon is the ability to see what restaurants in your area local blogs and newspapers are talking about most. The app also has a “scope” tab where you can look at a map of nearby restaurants.
Urbanspoon requires that you create an account to review restaurants, add information to existing ones, save your favorite restaurants or other common tasks. Creating an account is free though, and you’re able to connect to Facebook to register. Also, because the application is free, small ads are placed on some of the pages to cover the costs but they aren’t very obtrusive or annoying while browsing. Finally, Urbanspoon isn’t limited to just restaurants- it also features cafés, bars and more and ties into the Urbanspoon website at urbanspoon.com. Do you use the Urbanspoon restaurant iPhone app or a similar application when looking for a restaurant on-the-go? What other favorite iPhone or iPod Touch apps do you use? Share your thoughts in the comments below! Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!
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It's easy enough to snap photos using your iPhone camera and in turn use the Photo Library application to view them. But how do you add images to your iPhone that were not taken with the built-in camera? Well there are a few free ways to do so.
Ah! comics…conjure up memories of stolen moments of pure pleasure. Comics have been and hopefully will continue to be staple diet for adolescent years and beyond. But our childhood superheroes are changing, some with age and some with dwindling sales. Archie gets married and Superman dies. Playstations are the new, more interactive entertainment consoles. Where are the comics heading to? To the web, of course.
By merging our off and online shopping lives, potential skyrockets. Potential for great products, incredible prices and shopping safety. And yes, we do love shopping.
As I mentioned in 
The notion that we should get 6-8 hours of sleep to have our 
Personally, I got interested in Photoshop when I realized that it could pluck a person out of a photo and then paste him/her onto a totally new background. To this day there are many requests from friends and family who want to do something similar with their photos. So I will be showing you a few techniques to get it done using Photoshop.
Some people always like to go to the same restaurant to eat while others like to switch it up and try something new every time. Others might like Chinese food and some might like American, or some might like to eat somewhere with free wifi. But, whatever your restaurant preferences are, the free 
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