effects

Camera+ helps you take better images with tons of features and a unique tool layout that helps you get the look you want quickly. The app offers several options for making unique-looking images out of photos on your camera roll, or you can snap pictures from within the program using Camera+'s extra tools. When taking a picture, you can use a 5x zoom slider for close-up shots, a stabilizer that automatically takes the shot when your hand is most stable, and a grid overlay so you can line up your shots as straight as possible.

Once you've got … Read more

Let it be known that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wanted a book to be written about the company he founded. At the top of the acknowledgments for journalist David Kirkpatrick's new book about Facebook, "The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That Is Connecting the World," Kirkpatrick makes it clear. "Had (Zuckerberg) not encouraged me to write this book and cooperated as I did so, it would likely not have happened."

"The Facebook Effect," which will be available for purchase Tuesday, is the most extensive work written about the ubiquitous social-networking … Read more

The fight to get a piece of Facebook early on was a brutally intense scramble among many well-moneyed venture capitalists and media executives, according to recently published excerpts from "The Facebook Effect," an upcoming book about the rise of the massive social network by Fortune magazine contributor David Kirkpatrick.

So intense, in fact, that a dilemma over which route to take reportedly left Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg crying on the floor of a Palo Alto restaurant's bathroom one evening in the spring of 2005.

"He was just crying his eyes out, bawling," Kirkpatrick … Read more

Every now and then it's nice to enhance digital images with frames and other effects. Easy Photo Frame is a basic program that lets users apply frames and stamps to their digital images. Although the program works, we can't say we were particularly impressed by its layout or contents.

Easy Photo Frame's interface is plain and fairly easy to figure out, but it could be better organized. A large preview pane displays the image the user is working with and the effects that have been applied, while a smaller pane below displays available frames and stamps. There … Read more

Sometimes you just want a simple photo editor that doesn't require a degree in graphic design to operate. Altarsoft Photo Editor is just such a program. Its commands are a bit spotty and the Help file is lacking, but it proved to be a capable photo-editing program for the novice user.

The program's user interface looks like a stripped-down version of big graphics software like Adobe's Photoshop, with menu options and shortcuts along the top of the window and tool commands running down the left side. Floating palettes for previewing changes, adjusting colors, and managing layers can … Read more

Panasoft's Image Generator is a graphics application that's simple enough for beginners to handle while still offering enough extras, such as 3D capabilities, custom templates, selectable transparency, and Web site editing, to please experienced users. Its unique raster image transformation technology makes it easy not only to create high-resolution images but also generate cartoons, shapes, and other effects. While it's pared down compared with some other graphics apps, it packs the usual photo correction capabilities, drawing tools, and other features common to the type.

The program's interface resembles similar applications, favoring Microsoft Paint more than Adobe'… Read more

BraveTech's PhotoBuilder Platinum v7.4 is a fairly basic image-editing application that's a bit awkward compared to the many other graphics packages out there. Its colorful but primitive interface is definitely a step back in design, compared to the latest tools. It offers the usual image editing functions, tools, filters, and effects like the ability to smoothly merge images together, but not much more.

The program opens with a nag screen that tracks the trial period. Like most of PhotoBuilder's documentation, it's written in awkward English that suggests a translation. The interface itself is colorful but … Read more

It seems like creative shooting modes are popular on this year's compact cameras. For example, though Canon has long given its cameras controls for playing with colors, this year it's just gone and added a handful of simple point-and-shoot options for getting more unusual results. One of them, Miniature Effect, applies a selective focus to scenes making full-size, real-life subjects look like miniature models.

The effect is similar to tilt-shift photography. (Here are some great examples.) Canon doesn't call it that, though, probably because those words don't mean much to most snapshot photographers and because it'… Read more

This show is about one of the categories for the Academy Awards: visual effects. This year, there are three films up for awards in the visual effects category: Avatar, Star Trek, and District 9. We're going to be talking with Russell Earl of Industrial Light & Magic. Russell was co-visual effects supervisor for one of those films, Star Trek, and also worked on Transformers, Pearl Harbor, Pirates of the Caribbean, and two of the Star Wars movies.

Also joining us is CNET writer Daniel Terdiman, who covers digital media, culture, and gaming for the Geek Gestalt blog on CNET.

Show notes and talking points… Read more