some of the action from the day before >play 2007!

I discovered an extremely sophisticated yet simple image editing tool called “PixelMator” for Mac. Compared to PhotoShop and other expensive tools, PixelMator provides great performance and usability or $59.99. Image editing and layering is simple drag and drop from your iPhoto and image libraries. You get incredible control in adjusting colors, hues and positioning. While I was using PixelMator my CPU load and memory usage was hardly above those of normal word processing. In fact running Parallels makes my MacBookPro run hotter than when it runs PixelMator.

The user interface is Mac like with great attention to detail. The image effects are quality are stunning. This may not be tool for the professionals who want to manage every pixel, but this is an excellent companion for your iPhoto and the image editing the mid 80% wants to do.

One downside is of course the branding. The name PixelMator seems to have been coned from Pixel (obvious) and Mac’s Automator. PixelMator allows most common tasks to be automated through Automator integration. Clever coinage but I would re-brand it.

Technorati Tags: imaging tools, digital image, pixelmator

Powered by ScribeFire.

So, I came across this article tonight (while researching Red Hat of all things) about the troubles a Canadian phone carrier had after making pornography available to its subscribers. It reminded me of the important role pornography has had in technological innovation in the past.
Adult entertainment companies will find a way to sell to the mobile user, with or without cooperation from the carriers (Jenna is already selling ‘moan’ tones). Perhaps that trend will provide the necessary stimulus to raise our mobile bandwidth to levels found elsewhere in the world?

As described in another article, Blu-ray is looking like the next Betamax. Will Sony recognize a similar junction and adopt a different response this time? If not, I can see HD-DVD winning the format war with ease. Or, maybe getting porn in high def is not important to consumers and internet distribution (to their cell phone) is enough?

Which brings a bigger question…VHS and DVD came about prior to the broadband penetration we see today – will HD-DVD players be the new LaserDisc players with most consumers opting to get their movies into their living room through TiVos, SlingBoxes, iTVs, and Xboxes?  Will the demand for pornography again play a role in charting technology, affecting adoption of devices bringing internet distribution to the television screen?

One of the quintessential desktop applications is set to enter the web services space. Adobe has announced that they will offer an online version of its standards-setting image editing software Photoshop, possibly within the next six months. The initial online edition will be a pared-down version of its mature offline sibling, but more robust than other free offerings currently available.

It will be interesting to see how Adobe integrates this into its partnership with powerhouse photo sharing site Photobucket. I would think that is where most of the interest in the new online product will come from, rather than the traditional artistic elite.