landscape

Aug 30 2010

Mover Lite …transfer pics and contacts between iPhone, iPad and Mac

Mover Lite is the FREE version of Infinite Labs’ Mover+.1

The app runs on the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and allows you to transfer contacts and photos between your iDevices over wifi. With a 99¢ add-on to the Lite app, you can also transfer those files to your desktop Mac running Mover Connect.

If you want to be able to transfer files between your devices when they’re not connected to wifi, Mover+ allows for connectivity and transfer over Bluetooth for $1.99.

I’ve found that the app runs very well between two devices, but can get a bit confused when you have three devices, like a Mac, an iPad and an iPhone, all connected as I show in the video. It works, but confusion is a possibility.

Mover has come in handy for me many times when I just wanted to transfer a photo and I don’t want to have to go through the trouble of emailing it to myself or some other such procedure.

No Flash? No problem—click here!»

As mentioned in the video, the iPad stand I’m using is the BookArc for iPad from Twelve South. It’s a nice sturdy metal stand that securely holds the iPad in either landscape or portrait2 orientations. It sells for around $45.

Mover Lite …transfer pics and contacts between iPhone, iPad and Mac
  1. I’m actually using Mover+ in the video, but I’m pushing Mover Lite here since it’s the FREE introductory app [↩]
  2. or even diagonal, if that’s how you roll [↩]

By RickMacMerc • Featured, gadgets, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod, MacMerc.TV, Mini Video, productivity • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

Mutate your friends with Photoshop’s Auto-Blend Layers

(from Episode #130 of The Lab with Leo Laporte)

In Adobe Photoshop CS3, a new feature was added called Auto-Blend Layers. Its intent was to simplify the processes of stitching together overlapping layers… a photo of a sky to one of a landscape, parts of a panorama… those sorts of things.

Try this: start by positioning two of the layers and select both of them in the Layers palette (click the name of one in the Layers palette and hold down the Command key (Mac) or Ctrl key (PC) as you click the name of the second layer):

blendlayers1 20080420 142730 Mutate your friends with Photoshops Auto Blend Layers

Now go under the Edit menu and select Auto-Blend Layers. Photoshop will interpret the overlapping pixels of the two selected layers and will attempt to blend them appropriately. It will also create a Layer Mask as well as sort of average the brightess and hue of the layers in order to make them blend.

blendlayers2 20080420 143712 Mutate your friends with Photoshops Auto Blend Layers

It’s by no means perfect, but it’s pretty impressive for the lack of work you have to put into it.

If you’d like to blend another layer into a couple of layers you have already blended, its a good idea to merge the first two blended layers beforehand. If this is not done, the Layer Masks that Auto-Blend Layers creates can start to show edges. With the two blended layers selected in the Layers Palette, choose Merge Layers from the Layers palette’s flyout menu (Command-E on the Mac or Ctrl-E on the PC).

Then the procedure is exactly the same to blend addtional layers.

blendlayers3 20080420 144334 Mutate your friends with Photoshops Auto Blend Layers

Okay, that’s the mundane usage of Auto-Blend Layers, but the fun way to use it is to take pictures of your friends to create a single visage. Here’s a somehwat unflattering face I made from my friends from The Lab with Leo Laporte:

monkeyboy 1 20080420 140701 Mutate your friends with Photoshops Auto Blend Layers

The parts I used from the four pictures of the Lab cast goofing around were Kate Abraham’s forehead, Ryan Yewell’s nose and mouth, and Matt Harris’ eyes blended onto Sean Carruthers’ head.

Like I said, the way the function works is that it blends only the parts of the two images that overlap. You only want to have enough overlap area for the the images to blend nicely: too much and you may have more facial features being blended in or blended away than you intended, too little and the blend may be too abrupt.

To illustrate how to blend faces, I’ve taken a picture of Andy Walker and made a tight selection around his face and deleted it. Next I’ve grabbed a picture of Leo Laporte and loosely selected his face and pasted it over the hole I left in Andy. I’ve made sure as I position Leo’s face that the pixels overlap the image below at least a little. (The first image below shows the relationship of the two source image layers: one with a small section being deleted, the other with a small section remaining)

leoandy 20080420 145619 Mutate your friends with Photoshops Auto Blend Layers

andy1 20080420 145530 Mutate your friends with Photoshops Auto Blend Layers

Then it’s just a matter of going to the Edit menu and choosing Auto-Blend Layers. Boom! It’s done.

Have fun!!

By admin • Articles, The Lab with Leo Laporte Segments • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mar 18 2006

Use Photoshop’s Lens Blur to simulate miniature model photos

114268669 ab063660b0 m Use Photoshops Lens Blur to simulate miniature model photosI saw this tutorial a while back and just didn’t have a second to try it out before posting it here. Now that I have tested it out, I’d like to introduce you to this work by Christopher Phin where he will show you how to use Photoshop CS or better to transform a landscape photo into that which simulates a photo of a miniature of that same scene. It may not be the best way to preserve the photos of your vacation to Europe, but it’s a nice way to learn about Photoshop’s Lens Blur fliter.

Note:

By admin • Graphics News, News, tutorial • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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