cropping
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Twitter has stopped cropping image previews on the web, too
After doing so on mobile, Twitter has stopped automatically cropping images on the web.
'Seinfeld' hits Netflix, but some jokes have been cropped out of view
Seinfeld just arrived on Netflix, and fans are noticing that the way the show is cropped for HDTV means some visual gags have been erased.
iOS 5 features: Changes to Camera and Photos
With the release of iOS 5, iPhone and iPad photographers now have a few new settings and features. The Camera and Photos apps have both been updated in iOS 5, but how those updates appear depends on the device you're using. On the HDR-equipped iPhone 4 (and likely on the 4S as well), the Camera app now displays an Options button at the top of the screen between the flash and camera selection buttons. A tap on the button displays two switches -- Grid and HDR -- that are used to turn on or off a rule of thirds grid and the High Dynamic Range Imaging (HDR) capabilities of the camera. On the iPad 2 and iPhone 3GS, neither of which have HDR capabilities, the grid switch is still available to assist in taking more aesthetically pleasing photos. %Gallery-136297% When you switch between the Camera and Photos apps, the Photos app now displays a bright blue camera icon so you can immediately jump back to the Camera to take another photo. The Photos sharing button now adds "Tweet" as a function in addition to emailing and messaging photos, assigning a photo to a contact card, using a photo as wallpaper, and printing. Probably the biggest addition to Photos in iOS 5 is the ability to edit photos within the app. When viewing an image in the photo library, tapping the new Edit button brings up an edit screen with four buttons: rotate, enhance, red-eye correction, and crop. Rotate spins the image 90 degrees counterclockwise with each tap, while Enhance works just like the same button in iPhoto. If you've taken a flash photo and are faced with a picture of a person who looks demonic, the red-eye tool works to "get the red out." Cropping is now possible, both free-form and constrained to different aspect ratios. Of course, there's also the ability to use Photo Stream to upload your new photos to iCloud and sync them to all of your other devices. That feature is so seamless that it really doesn't feel like a feature -- it just happens. I do find Photo Stream to be a great way of getting my photos back to the Mac. I take a photo when I'm out and about, and know that it's going to appear on the Mac by the time I return home. Photos works hand-in-hand with iPhoto, so any groupings by Faces or Places appear on your iOS device. That's fun, since you can quickly pull up all of the photos of a particular friend or family member, or view the pictures taken at a particular place. The changes to Photos make it a rough iOS version of iPhoto, making me wonder if the next version will gain even more features and be renamed to iPhoto. While the updates to Photos and Camera aren't earth-shattering, they definitely add functionality to these built-in apps that will be useful to those who don't want to buy third-party photography apps.
KDDI develops a zoom-enhance system for HD movie streaming on smartphones (video)
Because not every smartphone has a full 1080p resolution (yet), KDDI's R&D Labs have come up with a new method for massaging the most out of HD movie streams while on the move. You'll still be able to pummel your poor mobile device and connection with the full-res stream, should you wish it, but KDDI's innovation is in developing a system whereby you can zoom in on particular parts of the feed, have the stream cropped to your requirements on far-off servers somewhere, and then receive only the stuff you want to see onto your device. And because of your phone's aforementioned pixel deficiency, the employment of this technique will most often result in negligible picture fidelity loss, if any. The biggest benefit, however, might be to carriers like KDDI who end up having to carry less data back and forth, even if it does come at a slight server-side cost. Video after the break.
CameraBag makes the trek over to the iPad
CameraBag (U.S. $2.99) is a popular little utility that has had life on both the Mac and PC platforms, as well as the iPhone. Now it's made it onto the iPad, where it will be welcomed by photographers. CameraBag is a photographic cropping, framing, and filter tool. The app comes with some preset filters like "Helga," which gives you a square format image with washed out highlights and some vignetting. "1962" provides dynamic black and white images, and "Magazine" delivers saturated tones to your photos. There are other presets as well, plus a button that generates a random variation of an existing preset. If you don't like what you see, you just keep hitting the button until you get something you like. What are the downsides of CameraBag? Well, there's no control of the cropping, so you can't move the object in the frame. The frames are pretty basic, and there's no choice for the color of the frames. Basically, you get white, except for the cinema frame that consists of black bars. CameraBag preserves the resolution of your originals, and it's possible to scale them down if you'd rather have a smaller size for posting or sending photos via mail. Finished images are saved back to the iPad library or can be emailed. Some people will say that without a built-in iPad camera, there's no reason to even bother with photo apps on the platform. That viewpoint is short-sighted. Through a USB connection, you can import photos from iPhoto. With the pending iPad camera kit, you'll be able to pull in photo files (even RAW format) from your digital camera, and then modify the images at your pleasure. This app and Photogene, which I reviewed a few days ago, aren't really Photoshop on the iPad, but they do go a long way toward providing a way to edit your photos for either improvement or fun. Be sure to visit the CameraBag website for more examples of what the app can do. Here are a few of my own samples: %Gallery-90421%
Poll: What's the worst mistake HD channels make?
We've discussed it again and again, the ills done by so-called HD channels against perfectly good content, whether it's passing off SD as high definition with Fox Widescreen, vomit-inducing stretching on TNT & TBS or the inexcusable cropping, zooming and pan & scanning of movies broadcast on AMC and HBO. But which one is the worst? Let your voice be heard, and if we forgot anything drop us a line in the comments.%Poll-33001%
