photos

Shoot to kill with the Canon Digital Rebel XT digital SLR, $382

Been waiting to pull the trigger on a digital-SLR camera? Wait no more: Dell has the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT--by all accounts a fantastic model--for $382. Considering that this baby sold for upwards of $900 when it debuted a couple years ago, it's pretty much a steal at that price.

Specs include an 8-megapixel sensor, 7-point auto-focus, and loads of fancy photographic features that, quite frankly, I don't pretend to understand. I can tell you that I bought an original Digital Rebel several years back, and I absolutely lurve it. (I won't, however, tell … Read more

Get a compact photo printer for $40

Stop schlepping to the drugstore every time you want to print your digital snapshots. (Half the time those kiosks are broken, anyway.) Instead, turn your home into a photo lab with a dedicated photo printer, the kind that churns out glossy prints straight from your camera (or its memory card). The HP Photosmart A616 sold for around $180 when it debuted last year; now you can snag one for a mere $40.

I've used a similar printer for years, and it's incredibly handy. In addition to everyday photos, we print party pix on the spot to send home … Read more

Toshiba joins photo frame parade (yawn)

With so many variations of digital photo frames on the U.S. market, it's small wonder that Toshiba is peddling its version in Europe. Even giant bi-pedal lizards are horning in on the act here.

Against all that competition, Toshiba's "Tekbright" doesn't seem terribly impressive on paper. It does have a tiny bit of built-in memory (64MB) and can play MP3s, but it's got only a 7-inch screen--which isn't saying much in this day of 15-inch high-resolution displays--and at 129 euros (about $189), it's hardly a bargain. But we do like … Read more

Photobucket, Picasa bring photo-sharing to TiVo

Apparently, fast-forwarding through commercials just isn't enough. TiVo announced on Monday that users of select photo-sharing services are now able to access their image collections through its set-top boxes.

The digital video recorder manufacturer has partnered with two photo-sharing services--the Google-owned Picasa Web Albums and Fox Interactive Media-owned Photobucket--in order to enable users to surf through their photo albums as well as their friends' and family members', provided that their TiVo boxes are broadband-connected.

A release from the company emphasized the fact that photos are viewable in the highest resolution possible, which on the TiVo Series 3 and … Read more

Flickr: 10 things we love and hate

Over Thanksgiving break I got to field a lot of strange tech questions from friends and family. One of the most frequent was what photo services were worth using and why. Nearly everyone has a digital camera now, and there's no limit to the number of places designed to share your shots online. It's no secret I'm an unabashed Flickr user, and despite writing a newbies' guide on the service, even I'm a little hesitant of using it for honest to goodness photo backup (more on that later). Like any critic, I'm peeved by some aspects of the service--especially some of the perks that even a pro membership can't offer. I've put together of five things I love about the service, and five I loathe.

Love

Clear Creative Commons licensing tools. Savvy uploaders can set Creative Commons licensing restrictions on any of their shots, both individually and in batches. By default, you can also choose what kind of licensing you want any of your shots to have, which makes it easy if you're a professional photographer to limit what people can do with them. In addition to giving you tools to tweak photo licensing, Flickr also provides fairly simple explanations of each license type, along with links to learn more. Also, photos that have been given more restrictive licensing can't be downloaded, making it easier to keep control of your intellectual property.

Easy uploading tools. Flickr's latest effort to make photos easier to upload to the Web is a big step up from their previous iteration. We took a look at the new version in August and came away impressed. Well, it's still worth using one of the software plug-ins to get right-click mousing access for contextual uploading on any photos from your desktop, the new Web uploader is really great for updating a ton of shots all at once while away from your home machine.

The API. Flickr's API has allowed for a ton of third party applications and services for both personal and communal use of photos. From business cards to coffee mugs, a hosted photo is more useful when you can do more with it than a quick glance.

… Read more

Photo slide shows on DVD

Along with "What's the best free video-editing software?" one of the most frequent questions I receive from CNET Download.com users is, "How can I put my photos on a DVD that anyone can watch?" For everyone whom I wasn't able to respond to personally, here's a quick overview.

First off, the most important issue is the DVD player for which you're creating the slide show. Many DVD players nowadays don't need a specially formatted disc to view digital pictures, and some have built-in slide-show features for viewing JPEG images. The … Read more

Gadgettes 68: The Good Idea Episode

… Read more

Sony: When timing is everything...

[UPDATE: See the wrapup to this discussion in this later post.]

Use a Nikon?

Or at least that appears to be the message.

I opened my copy of Outside Magazine's companion piece of fluff, Go, this morning and was greeted by an ad for Sony's A700 DSLR with the tagline "In Photography, Timing is Everything." The accompanying photograph was spectacular and showed a leopard about to dispatch a baboon. Dust is flying and, clearly, timing has a lot to do with the impact of this photo.

It was also very familiar.

In fact, it's a … Read more

Putting a label on the latest weird trend

If there's one thing that's never in short supply on Crave, it's odd trends. But here's one that we never saw coming: labels.

Not only can we make labels using only a mouse, as we learned a few days ago, but now we can include photos grabbed from Webcams as well. Seiko has released a software update for its "Smart Label Printer" that works with many Webcam models on the market today, according to Electronista.

One day soon we suspect we'll be printing labels without the label maker.