Pocket PC: Browsing the Web on a mobile phone is traditionally such a painful process that many of us simply don’t bother. Thankfully things are beginning to change though, thanks to apps such as Firefox Mobile, or Fennec as it’s also known. The alpha version is now available to test drive, but you’ll need an HTC Touch Pro, because this is the only device that Fennec is currently compatible with.

Windows: Want to create a presentation with your photos but don’t even know where to start? Muvee Reveal is the app you need. This awesome editor lets you create attractive video presentations in a variety of formats, including your favorite images and short video clips. The program is dead easy to use and includes a bunch of themes and transition effects.

Mac: Ripping a DVD is the process of extracting all the video files from that disk so that you can make copies of it (for your own use of course). However, DVDs can contain hundreds of video, audio, subtitle and menu files that can also be highly encrypted making copying or ripping a real chore. RipIt has been made so that even a beginner to ripping will be able to make their own backups in just a few steps.

Windows: If you know how to use Photoshop you surely can follow this tutorial to create a tilt-shift effect. But if you don’t, there’s an easier option for you. It’s called TiltShift Generator and enables you apply an attractive tilt-shift effect to your images in a snap and obtain really eye-catching results. Why don’t you give it a go?

Pocket PC: If you’re the kind of person who prefers to play games alone then Astraware Solitaire 1.26 could be just the download for you. The suite contains 12 different single-player card games, including the likes of Klondike, Pyramid, Spider, Clock and Yukon. Each game has customizable gameplay options, allowing you to tailor the rules to how you like to play it.

Mac: If you’re a bit of a computer whiz, then you probably often get asked by friends and family to sort out their latest Mac or PC disasters. However, if you live far apart, have a busy lifestyle or can’t get to them easily, you might find CrossLoop a godsend. With a network of online Mac and PC experts ready to help connect to you and fix your machine, CrossLoop is an essential free remote admin tool.

Sometimes you don’t need a complicated effect to spice up your images in Photoshop. This suite is powerful enough to have special filters that do almost the whole work by themselves, turning a dull image into a cheerful, lively shot. This is the case of the Poster edges filter, which enables you to apply an original cartoonish effect to your photos. Follow these simple steps and see how easy it can be!

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This is not the first time we’ve covered with Photoshop actions on the blog. We’ve already showed you how to create them, and also how to install and use them. But with thousands of actions available on the web, how can you find the most suitable ones for your photo editing needs? Worry not: we’ve done the hard work for you. Here’s a list of useful Photoshop actions you can use for different purposes, from basic photo retouching to applying a striking effect in a couple of clicks. Enjoy!

Polaroid Generator - A pack of 9 actions that enable you to recreate fake Polaroid pictures.

Hand-Colored Vintage - Turn your photos into dusty old images, with scratches and all.

Pseudo HDR - Mimic a High Dynamic Range effect without having to take a dozen shots.

Soften skin - Clean the skin in your portraits while keeping original textures and a natural look.

Edge Effects - A pack of 8 actions that let you add different edge effects to your images.

Color Actions - Apply diverse color filters to spice up your photos.

Page Curl - Make one of the four corners of your image curl in one click.

Tack-it! - Pin your photo to a virtual bulletin board, with lots of customization options.

Comics - Make your images look like a comic strip.

The Big Picture - Turn your photos into a collage made up of 25 individual images.

Last year I wrote a Photoshop tutorial about how to get a virtual tattoo which seems to be quite successful amongst our readers. This is why I thought about the perfect complement: a tutorial on how to get a piercing done in Photoshop. In fact, this might come in handy if you’re considering the possibility of having a real piercing done - or just to make fun of a friend. Simply load up a picture in Photoshop and follow these steps:

1. Select the Marquee tool, change it to the elliptical shape and draw a circle where you want your piercing to be. Make sure you change style to “Fixed aspect ratio” and set width and height to 1.

2. Go to Select >Modify > Border and add a 3px wide border to your selection.

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Windows: Panoramic photos are easier to create than you think, especially if you use The Panorama Factory. With this tool creating panoramas is a piece of cake: select your source images, adjust a few settings, stitch them together and you’re done. The program can also generate the necessary HTML code in case you want to showcase your creations.

Symbian UIQ: We’ve had bird flu, mad cow disease and elephantitis, and now another seemingly cute creature is set to bring terror and panic to the planet - the Ameobax. This mutant germ has escaped from a scientific lab and is spreading its way across Earth in the form of a series of cuddly blobs with big eyes. Don’t worry it’s not real, apart from in this excellent mobile game.

Mac: Being able to see the person you are communicating with makes such a difference to the quality of your conversation and reduces the feeling of distance of those that are far apart. The problem is that most IM clients only allow one video at a time. ooVoo however allows you to see up to six friends, family or colleagues at the same time, in very high video quality and all for free.

Last week my aunt sent me some old photos of me as a kid. She had found them in an old box and kindly scanned them for me, though the truth is that they arrived to my email inbox in a pretty bad shape. I’m not sure if it was due to the conditions the original photos were in or my aunt’s poor skills at scanning, but I immediately felt the urge to launch Photoshop and give those images the color, light and sharpness they used to have 25 years ago. If, like me, you also have some old pictures you’d like to rescue from oblivion, here’s a basic Photoshop tutorial on how to restore old photos.

1. Open your old photo. This is me and my cousin just a few years ago. Before actually starting the job, duplicate the background layer to avoid permanent damage to the original image.

2. As we’re going to work with small details, I’d suggest you zoom in the image to a reasonable level so that you can work comfortably. Then select the Healing Brush tool (highlighted in the screenshot) and work following these steps: press Alt and click to select a proper color tone, release the Alt key and now click on the area you want to repair with the previous selected color. The Healing Brush tool works perfect for large areas that have a similar color: walls, doors, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

Tilt-shift is the name of a visual effect for both videos and photos that has recently become quite popular. The tilt-shift effect uses blurring and color saturation to make a real life scene look like a miniature model diorama. While creating tilt-shift videos like this one can take a while, applying this same effect to your pictures is much easier. Simply open up Photoshop and follow these simple steps:

1. Open the image you’re going to work with. Note that not all photos are suitable for the tilt-shift effect. You’ll obtain the best results with top perspective images: the street seen from a skyscraper, a landscape taken from an elevated viewpoint, etc. In my tutorial, I’ll use this shot from Stock.xchng. Read the rest of this entry »

Windows: If you’d like to play a joke on your friends with a fun photo collage, Photo-Bonny is the perfect tool. This app helps you create hilarious photo compositions with your own pictures and a varied collection of clipart graphics, frames and also a basic brush tool. Photo-Bonny is very easy to use and can save the results in several formats.

Symbian Series 60: Mobile phone users are - by definition - on the move and this explains the large number of applications geared towards helping travellers wherever they go. One of the most successful travel programs available for handheld computers is Metro, a free guide to the subway systems in over 300 cities worldwide.

Mac: Ever suspect your disk is being cluttered with big hidden files? Daisy Disk is a simple but elegant app to see what’s occupying your precious space. Daisy Disk scans a disk and displays its content as a sector diagram where the biggest files and folders are clear. If you want to inspect a folder more, you can just click on one of the segments to drill it down and see what’s occupying your space.

Last week I went on a short holiday trip to Rome. I enjoyed it a lot and I had the chance to see some of the most beautiful works of art in the world, such as the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s Pietà or the School of Athens by Rafael . I guess some of that art must have inspired me to try to create something different this week, and not just the standard photo effect Photoshop tutorial. Luckily I found this original Da Vinci drawing effect, with which you can also become a Renaissance artist - even if you don’t know a brush from a chisel.

1. First of all we must create the right background for our Da Vinci effect. I downloaded this aged paper from Stock.xchng and then worked on it in the following way: create a new layer on top of the background, apply a radial gradient effect with two sepia tones and change this layer’s blending mode to Multiply at 50%. Then copy the background image onto a new layer and apply a Hue/Saturation effect at -25%. Finally, erase the margins of this layer so that we create a lightning effect in the center.

2. Crop the subject of your drawing from its original photo and paste it on a new layer. Remove any background left from the original picture. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m particularly fond of image editors and I’ve tested many of them, including all those online editors that have become so trendy in the last few months. But I must admit I’ve never seen such an incredible online image editor as Sumo Paint.

This amazing tool opens up in your web browser and displays a complete Flash interface that will look amazingly similar to Photoshop. This reduces the learning curve to almost zero to all those who are already familiar with Photoshop, but if this is not your case, don’t worry: you’ll get the knack of it in almost no time.

Sumo Paint includes a full featured tool menu with pretty much anything you need to start painting from scratch. Brushes and pencils are designed to draw just like the actual tool, trying to be as realistic as possible. You can customize colors, fiddle with opacity and flow percentages and of course, work in different layers.

 When it’s time for photo editing, Sumo Paint doesn’t fall short of expectations either. The program lets you load images from your local drive, an Internet URL or your Sumo account and apply a dozen filters and effects or adjust color and brightness values to it in a couple of clicks. Should something go wrong, simply press Ctrl+Z and it’ll be undone – just like any desktop tool!

Regarding those Sumo accounts I just mentioned, don’t get me wrong here: you don’t need to register or sign up for anything to use Sumo Paint. It’s totally free. The Sumo account is only a way to enter the Sumo community, a group of Sumo Paint users that have gathered around this great online editor and share their photos and drawings online. Having a Sumo account therefore lets you upload your own creations to the Sumo site and also comment on what other people have uploaded.

I could only find one drawback to Sumo Paint: the program doesn’t include a proper Help section yet. Photoshop users don’t need it, but other people would find it quite handy. In all, Sumo Paint is an excellent online photo editor that’s really worth a try.

Checking out photos with a slide show is getting a bit dull now, so why not liven up your pictures by putting them in a 3D environment?

Sysygy Gallery Creator is a neat piece of freeware that lets you do just that. Download and unzip the “no setup” version of the program, then run GalleryCreator.exe. Unfortunately, the three galleries on offer have fixed numbers of picture places, and for a good effect you’ll want to fill them. The two smaller galleries fit 29 pictures, and the larger one 51 - so find that many pictures! In the gallery creator, just click the add photos and don’t change the importing options. You can import photos in groups, which is much quicker than one by one. Save the file in the Galleries folder in the Sysygy folder, and close the application. Read the rest of this entry »

Windows: Diagrams are the best way to organize ideas and manage big projects. With EDraw Mindmap you can easily create your own diagrams, mind maps and flowcharts, either from scratch or making use of the extensive collection of templates and graphics included in the program. Plus you can save your diagram in a variety of formats.

Pocket PC:  Despite all the latest computer gaming technology and newfangled consoles, it’s often the most basic games that stand the test of time - like Uno, for instance. Pocket Uno is a Windows Mobile version of the classic card game, whereby you need to be the first person to get rid of all your cards. It’s a faithful recreation of the original, with the same colors and designs on the cards and exactly the same rules.

Mac: If neither Picasa or iPhoto have grabbed you then maybe you should try organizing your photos by content. Shoebox is the solution for organizing all of your photos by content. You add photos to categories, which describe everything in your photographic world. Categorizing is as simple as a few key clicks, and then you can browse and search your photos by content.

Windows: One of the best free photo editors you can find today has just released a portable version that enables you to take it anywhere. Photoscape Portable includes all the excellent tools featured in its desktop version, only in a pocket-size standalone file that fits your USB stick and runs seamlessly without leaving a trace.

Pocket PC: We’ve all been in those awkward situations where we wished there was an excuse to leave a party, a meeting or a date. Fake Call offers you an escape route from these kind of scenarios by allowing you to simulate an incoming call. You simply need to program the time you want the bogus call to come in and wait to get let off the hook!

Mac: Want to share your music via your wireless card? Airfoil is one of those standout applications you come across every so often. Airfoil allows you to send any audio from your computer via wireless to any other computer (PC or Mac), Apple TV or Airport Express. It works with any application that plays music in your computer and is a breeze to use.

Digital photography is now a standard worldwide, which means that fewer and fewer people spend time creating those classic photo albums with paper photos, stickers, text scraps and other goodies. If you’re a fan of handicrafts and miss those nice hand-made albums, here’s your chance to go back to them, at least in a digital version. Follow the steps of this easy tutorial and you’ll learn how to create a vintage photo album in Photoshop.

1. First of all, we need the background for our album. After browsing the web for a while, I decided to use this old notebook I found on stock.xchng. You may want to use a different image though.

2. Open the photos you want to add to your album. Taking into account that we want to create a vintage photo album, we need to apply an old photo effect. In this case I’ll use the vintage photo effect created by Emanuele Feronato, but there are many other similar tutorials to create old photos on the Web. Also, make sure they’re photos that could be taken a few years ago – an iPhone for example won’t look that “vintage”. Read the rest of this entry »