Computer Tips From A Computer Guy

Posted: 08 Feb 2011 03:58 AM PST

Novice and professional photographers alike struggle with lighting issues. The automatic settings on many digital cameras often result in photos that are too dark, rendering the photo useless unless you own and know how to use photo editing software.

FotoFuze is a service designed to fix too-dark photos. It works best on photos of objects with black or white backgrounds, as the service is designed for product photos, like those on Etsy or Ebay.

To start, register with the service by creating a username and password, then providing your email address. Click the green sign up button when finished. If you have an Etsy account, you can also use it to register.

Check your email and click the verification link from FotoFuze. You are then asked if you want to upload a 2D photo, or make a 3D photo. For now, click Upload a 2D Photo.

On the next screen, click Upload Photo and choose a photo to enhance. Photos with black or white backgrounds work best.

The service then asks you to highlight the object in the picture that is of interest. Using your mouse, hold down the left button and trace around the object in the photograph.

Once the object is highlighted, you may adjust the settings option on the right. You can give your picture a title, tags, a Web site link, set the resolution and adjust the contrast. One nice option on this menu is the auto-cropping.

When you are satisfied with your settings, click Finish.

After a minute or two, your newly-refreshed photo loads. Right-click it to save it to your computer.

Besides enhancing photos, FotoFuze can make 3D photos. To do this, though, you need a good digital camera, a turntable and a sheet—the process is a bit tricky. As you spin an object on the turntable, you take 20-30 photographs with your digital camera to capture the object from every angle. FotoFuze merges these individual photos into one fluid 360-degree display.

FotoFuze is a nice, quick way to fix too-dark photos, especially for novice photographers. The 3D photo-making capability is just an added bonus to an otherwise good service. For those who sell products, FotoFuze is a definite asset.

Copyright © 2007
Online Tech Tips.
Aseem Kishore (digitalfingerprint: a59a56dce36427d83e23b501579944fcakmk1980 (74.125.94.85) )

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Lighten and Enhance Photos the Easy Way

Location-Based Search with Poynt for Blackberry

Posted: 07 Feb 2011 04:59 AM PST

Even though your Blackberry makes finding things a lot easier when you're on the go, it still takes a bit of effort to find exactly what you want. You usually need to pull up the browser and search for the location you are looking for by zip code to get the right information.

No matter what device you have, pinpointing locations will be time consuming at the very least. A few companies have added location based searching to their applications, which allows your device to triangulate your location using local cell towers, or use your longitude and latitude from your GPS to find things in your area. Poynt is one of the most user-friendly location-based search tools available for free.

Once you download and install point, the first thing it does is try to find your location. By default it finds your local cell tower, but you can also configure it to use GPS. If you scroll up to the location bar at the top of the screen and click the Menu key, you will see your location options, which are My GPS Location and New Search Location.

If you are in a place where GPS can be used, choose My GPS Location, otherwise you can allow Poynt to default to the cell location finder, or you can specify a location manually.

Once you've chosen your location and return to the Poynt home screen, the weather conditions will automatically update. You will also see icons for the default Poynt search tools, People, Movies, Restaurants, Gas Prices, Map It, and Businesses.

The People and Businesses searches give you exactly what you expect. The Movies search is unique, because when you find movie times, you can actually add them directly to your Blackberry calendar, which is a nice touch.

The Map It search leverages map software you may already have on your device, namely Blackberry Maps and Google Maps. The Restaurants search allows you to find restaurants by location, name, and cuisine, and it returns results with ratings from Citysearch.

The Gas Prices search is perhaps the most useful tool. It not only allows you to find the best prices in your area, but you can choose the type of gas (Regular, Premium, Diesel, etc.) when you do your search.

Poynt is a free, easy-to-use search utility, that allows you to find what you want quickly when you're on the go. It is still in development, so expect to see more useful features added to it in the future. Also, it's available for the iPhone, Android and for Windows Phone 7.

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Location-Based Search with Poynt for Blackberry