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Posts Tagged ‘adding’

Great Android Apps for Adding Glitch Effects to Your Images

19 Aug

The post Great Android Apps for Adding Glitch Effects to Your Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.

In digital photography, glitches are usually avoided at all costs. However, there are some who welcome the whimsical aesthetic of glitch art. Here are four of the best Android apps that can be used to add artificial glitch effects to your images.

glitch effects

What is glitch art?

Generally, the word glitch refers to a visual or audio malfunction occurring in a media format.

Music, video games, and digital photography; all technology can succumb to glitches. While often viewed as an unwelcome occurrence, glitches have, over time, garnered a growing amount of creative interest. That’s where glitch art comes in.

Glitch effects example
Glitch art embraces the glitch as an artistic event spawned by the development of technology.

Glitch art is created by artists who embrace the nature of the glitch for its aesthetic and audible qualities. By either intentionally creating glitches or capturing them as they occur organically, artists elevate the status of the glitch from a technical irritation to an intriguing insight into the technology we surround ourselves with.

One of the earliest examples of glitch art was orchestrated by the art collective JODI. Founded by Joan Heemskert and Dirk Paesmans, JODI operated on experiments like deliberately causing errors on their website to evoke error messages. From there, artists have adopted the glitch aesthetic as a means of conveying ideas and exploring the technological landscape.

How is glitch art made?

Glitch art can be achieved in various ways.

For example, misalignment glitches are the result of a digital file being opened by a program that is ill-equipped to process that specific type of file.

Hardware failure glitches, on the other hand, are caused by tampering with the physical mechanisms of a machine itself.

Databending refers to the manipulation of file data with programs like hex editors.

glitch effects example
An example of glitch art made with a hex editor.

The appreciation for glitch art has spread across the globe, with many glitch artists sharing their broad range of technical approaches to the format online. And with the growing number of glitch art apps available at little or no cost to the user, glitch effects have been an increasingly popular presence in art and social media.

Now let’s take a look at the best Android apps for creating glitch effects:

Glitch Lab

glitch effects

Glitch Lab operates on the central theme of being “simple to use yet at the same time endlessly configurable.” With an impressive amount of free presents and adjustments available to induce glitched imagery, all alterations can be tweaked with an easy-to-use interface, creating rich layers of visual chaos.

In addition, Glitch Lab offers some basic photo adjustments as well as a Generate function, which allows a user to generate glitch art from scratch, without the use of a photo as a starting point.

Glitch!

glitch effects glitch! app

Simple to use and with a good amount of free features, Glitch! is one of the most popular glitch art apps available. With glitch effects like Scanner, Hacker, and Paintbrush, Glitch! realistically imitates manual glitching techniques. Premium functions include a Datamosh preset and video-based options.

Glitcho

glitch effects

The Glitcho app allows a user to glitch photos and videos in real-time, which can be handy for quick adjustments and previews. The app also offers a GIF-generating function, which animates some glitch effects applied to images.

Glitcho has a range of free glitch presets that can be applied to both photos and videos. The app also offers additional glitch effects that can be unlocked by watching ads or by upgrading to Glitcho Pro.

EZGlitch

glitch effects

Like Glitcho, EZGlitch provides glitch effects to create glitched photography and videography in real-time. The in-app purchases available in EZGlitch are balanced by the range of filters on offer at no charge to the user.

EZGlitch is also equipped with a simple-to-use Auto GIF function to generate animated glitchy GIF or MP4 files to save and share.

Conclusion

If you’ve recently looked for glitch-based editing apps on the Play Store, you’ll have seen a myriad of different options on offer.

While it may take some trial and error to find the glitch app that works best for you, these four apps are a great entry point, allowing for quick and easy glitch effects on your Android device.

The post Great Android Apps for Adding Glitch Effects to Your Images appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Megan Kennedy.


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Report: Google looking to stop smartphone manufacturers from adding built-in ‘beauty’ modes

21 Jul

According to a report from XDA Developers, Google might be making changes to its Camera API in Android 11 that will prevent them from using algorithms to smooth skin, change skin color or alter the facial geometry of subjects.

Sharp-eyed XDA Developers Editor-in-Chief, Mishaal Rahman, noticed in Google’s Android 11 Compatibility Definition Document that the company is banning equipment manufacturers from ‘implementing facial tweaking algorithms during image processing.’ Although the relevant section — [C-0–12] in particular — has been removed from the documentation, the below screenshot from Rahman shows it said the ‘facial appearance [can] NOT [be] altered including but not limited to altering facial geometry, facial skin tone or facial smoothing.’

This stipulation targets smartphone manufacturers who are suspected of adding these types of ‘beauty filters’ to the first-party camera app, even after turning off specific ‘Beauty’ modes, such as the one found on the Vivo X50 Pro.

Based on the wording of the documentation, it appears as though third-party apps that offer these kinds of ‘beauty’ features and filters won’t be affected — only the manufacturer’s first-party app. However, that hasn’t been confirmed at this point.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Let it roll: why camera makers are going to keep adding video

07 Jun
A lot of the pre-launch hype around Canon’s EOS R5 has focused on its video prowess, but why do features like 8K keep getting added to stills cameras?

Some of the most dramatic improvements in recent cameras have been in the realm of video, leaving many stills photographers unimpressed. But there are some good reasons why cameras keep getting better video, some equally good reasons we’re unlikely to see many ‘pure photography’ cameras in future, and even if we did, there’s very little reason to think such a camera would be any cheaper.

Why the focus on video?

One of the main reasons it seems all the camera makers are focused video is because it’s an area where there’s clear room for improvement. Image sensors are now very, very good: efficiency is very high and read noise is very low, meaning we’re unlikely to see the big steps forward in generational image quality that we saw in the earlier days of digital photography.

Instead, most of the progress being made is in terms of readout speed and processing power. We’re seeing these manifest as better autofocus performance, multi-shot camera modes and improved video. This is also why we spend more time discussing AF and video in our reviews: because they’re areas of significant progress and difference between models.

Understandably, we see a lot of stills photographers saying they don’t want to have to pay for features they don’t need. But it’s not that simple:

You’re already paying for the hardware

Pitched as ‘The Ultimate Photo Shooting Camera’ at launch, the Panasonic G9 gained a major mid-life video upgrade, to broaden its appeal.

The faster readout and processing that help provide higher-res and better bitrate video are the same technologies that underpin the faster, more subject-aware autofocus improvements we’ve seen in the past few years. The same is broadly true of the multi-shot high res, focus stacking and re-focus modes that have been added: so you won’t lower the hardware costs by leaving video out.

You may not be paying for the development

On top of this, the very reason manufacturers are committing development resources to video is because they hope it will broaden a product’s appeal beyond the (declining) market for traditional stills cameras. YouTube and social media have made video sharable, which makes video capability more desirable. If adding video features means more cameras get sold, then each buyer shoulders a little less of the development cost.

Also, some realms of professional photography now demand high-end video capabilities, so much of the development work is being conducted for that audience, and is then trickling down.

A separate, still-only variant would cost more, not less

Don’t fall into the trap of assuming you could make a cheaper model with these extra features missed off. Designing and developing two versions of a product would cost more, even if they only differed in terms of firmware, since you’d have to conduct the testing and quality assurance on two versions of the firmware, then continue to develop them in parallel in the event of updates.

A camera with fewer features wouldn’t be cheaper. Even post-purchase firmware would add to costs: would you be willing to pay to have video removed?

Each additional camera model then incurs marketing expenses, to tell the world that it exists and to communicate the differences. It then adds to production planning and supply chain complexity: you need to balance production capacity between the two models, then make sure that the right number of stills-only and hybrid models end up going to each region and each retailer.

We’ll still see stills-only models

Not every new camera will have video, but those that don’t will be in the minority: Leica has some high-end video capability in models where it makes sense.

Despite all these factors, we’ll still see some stills-only cameras. For instance, Leica is likely to continue to offer stills-only rangefinder cameras (even though some models have featured video), and adding high quality video isn’t likely to be a priority for Phase One’s medium format backs.

There’s a mixture of factors at play. Adding video might reduce, rather than broaden, appeal for a product where focus – whether it’s photographic tradition or ultimate stills quality – is a selling point. And this goes beyond the question of whether a video-enabled version would be a satisfying (or even satisfactory) video camera.

Let it roll

But outside these rarefied niches, video is here to stay. Hence Leica’s SL cameras tout pretty impressive video specs and Panasonic’s more stills-focused G9 received a major boost to its video spec, mid-life, to expand its appeal.

If well implemented, video features need not get in your way, allowing a more streamlined stills experience than in recent generations of camera.

At which point, rather than rail against the (almost) inevitable, you may find it more productive to argue for better video implementation, so that the video features don’t get in your way. Or perhaps, you could give video a try. Who knows? You might enjoy it.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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A DIY solution to adding a mechanical cable release to digital cameras with hotshoes

23 Nov

A recently featured Instructable guide from user ‘Steloherd’ details the creation of a mechanical release cable for his camera’s shutter. The project involves a spring plate and hot shoe mount, as well as basic tools that include a hacksaw, sandpaper, pliers, a thread cutter, drill, and drill bits. The release cable serves as an alternative to a wireless remote control or mobile app.

As explained by ‘Steloherd’ on his Instructable guide, the mechanical release cable system is lightweight and simplistic, involving a hot shoe mount, spring plate, aluminum arm, mechanical release pin, and a threaded release cable. The most complicated part of the project for most people would likely be the use of a thread cutter to convert the release cable to an M3 thread.

At the end of the guide, Steloher describes some alternative parts that can be used in the creation of this mechanical release. In order to reduce the project’s complexity, for example, DIYers can harvest a release button with threading from an old 35mm camera, then glue that button to the aluminum arm instead of drilling a hole and cutting an M3 thread.

The finished product is demonstrated with a Ricoh GR II digital camera but could be modified for use with other cameras that feature a hot shoe.

Photo credits: Images by Steloherd via Instructables, used under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Twitter now supports adding images and other media to retweets

08 May
Image by Twitter via The Verge

Twitter has announced support for adding images, as well as videos and GIFs, to retweets and quoted tweets. Users had requested this feature for years, but Twitter explained to The Verge that it was tricky enabling media comments on retweets and quotes while maintaining a logical design that viewers could readily parse.

The new support, which is currently rolling out Twitter’s mobile apps and mobile website, allows users to add an image, video, or GIF after tapping the ‘Retweet with comment’ option on an existing tweet.

The company has chosen a design that nestles the original tweet with a timestamp and thumbnail under the full-width media published by the user who responded to the original tweet. This design only appears on mobile at this time, however, and The Verge points out that GIF comments on retweets look clunky on desktop.

It’s unclear when the feature and mobile-like nesting design will arrive for desktop users. The new option is rolling out on Android and iOS now.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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So You Want to Build a Website? Part 4: Adding Website Content

21 Jan

The post So You Want to Build a Website? Part 4: Adding Website Content appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.

vintage typewriter

Patrick Fore

If you’ve been following along with this series (part one, part two, part three), you should now have a great portfolio to proudly display on your website. Next comes to what many think is the hardest part – writing about yourself and your photography. Whilst it may seem hard, there are some tips and tricks for adding website content.

Write for your audience

I cannot stress this enough. You need to know who you are talking to with your website. Are you talking to newly engaged couples looking for a wedding photographer? Are you talking to art directors who are looking for a photographer to shoot their next advertising campaign? Or, are you talking to family & friends, showing them your photography? You will speak to all of the people in these examples differently, therefore your website text must do the same. When you know who you are talking to, you know how to talk to them. Therefore, make sure you have an audience in mind before you start to write.

The fab five

The main pages on almost all websites are; the Home page, your Portfolio, an About page, a Contact page and a Blog. We’ve already covered the portfolio in a previous post, therefore if you’ve not read that, do it first. The Contact page is super easy, simply let people know how to get in touch with you, that’s all there is to it. However, the Home, About and Blog pages are a little more complicated. Let’s have a look at these in a little more detail.

The home page

DPS home page

A website you all know well. Straight away you see a relevant image and a call to action.

The home page is the introduction to you and your work and it is the first thing people see. For those of you who are art/commercial photographers, it is standard to lead with your portfolio. Therefore, if this is the field you are aiming for, it is best to stick with this format. Also, if your website is currently aimed at showcasing your work to family and friends, a portfolio is also a good option for your home page.

However, if you are setting up a website for selling photography services, things are slightly different. The main aim of your home page is to answer the three basic questions any potential customer will have within five seconds. Who are you? What do you do? Where are you based? If these questions can’t be answered in their first few seconds on a website, people will generally click back and look somewhere else. We live in a world where attention spans are shrinking all the time. You need to make sure that your website is geared toward this.

Your home page still needs to feature images to draw attention, therefore starting with a hero shot is the best idea. This is the main image for the page and can usually take up all/most of the screen when first viewed, therefore it is essential that this image should be your best work and relevant to your audience. This image will make the right people explore your site further and the wrong ones exit. Remember, you are not looking to please everyone. You need to attract your tribe. 

Adding a good headline can grab your readers attention and get them to further explore your site. Write it for your audience. Photography is a service industry. People come to you with a problem (they need photos) and you provide the service to help them fix their problem (you take their photos). Explain how can you help them. What can you do to make their life better? Make it short, snappy and always tell them the benefits of using you.

166 Photography Website Homepageomepage

This homepage passes the test. It shows the name, what they do & where they are based quickly. Also note the call to action.

The main text should be light in tone and friendly. It should tell the viewer about you, your site and services. Keep it focussed on your audience and include a Call to Action. A call to action tells visitors what you want them to do (for example, a click to contact button). You should try to have multiple calls to action on your page and preferably one that the user can do without scrolling down the page. Making it easy for the visitor to know what to do next is key. 

Lastly, add a couple of testimonials for happy past clients. Not only past clients but awards and competitions you have won. This shows viewers you are able to deliver great photos and can be trusted. Think about it, how many people check a hotel on Trip Advisor before booking? Social proof shows you mean business!

The About Page

This is where you get to show the real you. A list of facts will not interest anyone, neither will a simple list of how wonderful you are. This is the chance to showcase who you really are and what you believe in. This isn’t the place to brag about what cameras you own, this is the place to explain why you love photography. 

You can tell the story of your photography journey. How did you get into it? What do you love about your work? Again make it interesting and try to avoid listing facts. Show your passion. 

The about page is also a great place to add social proof. List any publications you have featured in, and showcase more reviews from happy customers. Remember, people want to know you can be trusted and social proof is the best way to show this on your site.

You should always write in the same way you speak on your about page. If your website speaks to people in a certain way, but when they meet you there is a disconnect it is never good. Don’t try to be something you’re not. Be you! Now, whether you write in first or third person is down to personal preference, but know your audience (and yourself) and write accordingly.

Lastly, you need a photo of you. A well-shot photo where people can see and connect with you is always worthwhile.

About page screenshot.

An example of an about page aimed at Art Directors. Short sweet and shows who I have worked with

The blog

I’ve saved the most important (and most daunting) until last. No matter what type of photography you do, your blog will be the reason people come back to your site. Think of your blog as a magazine for your audience. It shows your latest work (and progress) as well as letting you explain your thoughts behind your photography. 

I know some of you reading this now will be filled with dread. Not only do I have to write a load of stuff for my website, now you’re asking me to write all the time? However, like taking photos, writing becomes easier over time. 

Some examples of good blog posts include “Why I like this image”. Talk about a photo you love and then explain why you love it and possibly the technical stuff behind it. A blog about each photo shoot you do. Again, explain your thought process and how you approached the shoot. Another post idea could be showing your personality. Talk about films or records you love. The choice is endless, but the important thing is to write them. One other thing to remember is to aim for at least 350 words as this works great with SEO (search engine optimization). 

DPS posts

There are few better examples of a blog than Digital Photography School. Constant content that keeps us all coming back.

Get feedback

As with creating your portfolio, get others to give their opinion. When you have written your content, it is particularly important to check it thoroughly and get a couple of people to proofread your work before you go live. It is so simple to misread your work (trust me I do it often) and nothing gives off the impression of an amateur like spelling mistakes. 

For example, my wonderful wife proofs all my work. Just remember, if you do spot a spelling or grammar mistake in my articles, it is her not me! (dPS editor’s note: or me!)

On that point (and whilst my wife shouts at me for that last comment), it is time for you to take these tips and begin to craft your own website copy. In the final installment of this series, you’ll learn top tips to help your site rank well in Google. Until then, get writing your copy and let’s see the fruits of your labor in the comment section. 

The post So You Want to Build a Website? Part 4: Adding Website Content appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Carl Spring.


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NameThatLens is a cross-platform tool for adding EXIF info to vintage manual lenses

03 Jul
Erwan Hesry/Unsplash

Do you ever shoot with older lenses that aren’t capable of transmitting metadata to the camera when you shoot? If so, you might want to try out NameThatLens, a cross-platform program that simplifies the process of adding lens information to photo files.

NameThatLens was developed by Georg Fiedler, a photographer who often shoots with classic and vintage manual lenses. ‘Unlike with a modern auto-focus lens, a digital camera has no way of determining what lens was used to take a photo, or indeed what the aperture and focal length were set to,’ says Fiedler in the NameThatLens announcement post, adding ‘it is therefore not possible to record this metadata in the image RAW file or processed JPEG file.’

Fiedler says he came across the LensTagger plugin for Lightroom, but felt limited, because he often uses other post-processing programs such as Darktable. So, he set out to develop his own version—one that would work across Windows, MacOS and Linux computers. The result was NameThatLens.

In Fiedler’s own words, ‘NameThatLens, in its current form, is essentially a GUI for the wonderful ExifTool by Phil Harvey.’ But the goal is to turn it into a standalone program ‘in the near future.’

Currently, you can create author profiles, lens profiles and image parameters. The author profile tab of NameThatLens adds artist and copyright information to the images, the lens profile tab is a collection of the manual lenses you shoot with and the image parameter tab lets you set the aperture, focal length (if it’s a zoom lens) and other details.

As of writing this, the following formats are tested and proven to work with NameThatLens: JPG, ARW, ORF, and RAF, although Fiedler notes that most any image file you throw its way should ‘theoretically’ work.

Fiedler notes that the program is in Alpha phase, meaning there’s still work to be done and bugs to squash. However, if you’re fine with possibly running into a few snags, you’re free to download it and take it for a spin. Currently, the MacOS and Linux versions are available, with the Windows version set to be ‘released shortly.’

You can find out more information on NameThatLens, complete with installation instructions on Fiedler’s NameThatLens webpage.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Researchers use AI to brighten ultra-low light images without adding noise

15 May

Researchers with the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign and Intel have developed a deep neural network that brightens ultra-low light images without adding noise and other artifacts. The network was trained using 5,094 raw short-exposure low-light and long-exposure image pairs—the end result is a system that automatically brightens images at a much higher quality than traditional processing options.

The deep learning system was detailed in a newly published study that points out the limitations of alternative “denoising, deblurring, and enhancement techniques” on what the team calls “extreme conditions,” such as low-light images that are too dark to discern without processing.

Using traditional methods to process these images often results in high levels of noise that isn’t present when using the machine learning technique:

The team used images captured with a Fujifilm X-T2 and Sony a7S II, and also demonstrated the system on photos taken with an iPhone X and Google Pixel 2 smartphone. High-resolution comparison images are available here, and a PDF of the full study can be found here.

This is the latest example of machine learning ‘AI’ being used to automatically enhance images—ideally speeding up post-processing tasks while reducing the user’s workload. Last year, for example, a system called Deep Image Prior was demonstrated using an image’s existing elements to intelligently repair damage, and Adobe and NVIDIA are both working on AI-powered Content Aware Fill.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Panning and Tips for Adding Motion to Your Street Photography

20 Apr

One of the things I teach people on my photography workshops and tours is how to do panning. It’s a great technique to add to your skillset for shooting great street photography. Panning helps to isolate a moving subject and freeze it while at the same time blurring a potentially boring or ugly background.

panning street photography

I happened upon this bike race in Trinidad, Cuba. The street was full of people and the scene was very busy. So I chose to pan the riders as they went past to add a sense of motion and speed.

See the difference in this shot where I did not pan and everything is sharp. Notice how busy the scene is and the bikers are almost lost. Doesn’t it look like they are going a lot slower or frozen in place here as compared to the image above? 

Tips for doing panning

Here is a video from Gavin Hoey and Adorama TV where he demonstrates how to do panning. He also walks through the camera settings to use to get started and how to adjust them as needed. Have a watch.

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Street photography with slow shutter speeds

Here is a different approach to adding motion blur to your street photography, by photographer Doug McKinlay. In this video, he talks about the need for a neutral density filter if there is too much light, and using a tripod to blur moving subjects or part of your scene using long exposures.

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Panning demonstration

Finally, here’s one more video that has a really good demonstration of how to execute panning, and what not to do as well.

I hope that gives you some ideas and starting points for adding panning and motion to your street photography.

The post Panning and Tips for Adding Motion to Your Street Photography appeared first on Digital Photography School.


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Adding scientific notation ws pdf

24 Aug

adding scientific notation ws pdf punched card reader for program entry. Full Size” keyboard, powered Desktop Scientific Calculator. Late 1960’s Nixie, 10 extend coverage to the real number system. digit capacity with Nixie tube display. Fourteen digit four, digit constant set by rotary switches. More or less space — we can add or subtract their […]
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