General
How to optimize your Facebook photos
Everything you need to know about image sizes and how to make your photos look their best on Facebook.
General
General
General
iPhone photos appearing sideways when you display them on…
If you use your iPhone to take photos and import them onto your computer or send them via email, you may have come across an issue where the photos display sideways or upside down on the computer or the recipient’s email. It’s frustrating for most users because they’re not sure why it’s happening. The reality is that there’s nothing wrong with your phone.
If Steve Jobs were alive today, he would simply tell you that “you’re holding it wrong!”
The iPhone supports an Orientation Tag in the image EXIF data under iOS 4 and above. It stores the information that tells the display the device what direction the photo was taken and how to display it properly. The problem is that most software doesn’t implement the Orientation Tag.
Until all Windows and Mac developers update their software to read the Orientation Tag, the solution is to make sure that you hold your iPhone with the home button either at the bottom for portrait photos, or to the right for landscape shots.
Resources
Free font: Shattered 3D photo font
I’ve linked to a lot of free fonts in the past, but none have been so geeky-cool as this one. Shattered 3D is a photographic font, meaning each letter is actually a JPG file. You’ll have to arrange the individual letters in Photoshop, but the effect is stunning for the right design.
The free version includes only uppercase letters, but the pro version includes lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, backgrounds, and the must have particles for only $14.99.
Adobe Photoshop
Cinemagraph: making .gif popular again
There’s no Flash, no fancy JQuery, Javascript, or HTML5 going on behind the scenes with the image above. No, the image above is a plain old fashioned .gif file at its heart. Of course, there’s nothing plain about how this Cinemagraph was made.
Cinemagraph is finding its way onto a lot of websites because there’s no compatibility issues to deal with, and it has a fairly low technical barrier. Anyone with a copy of Adobe Photoshop and a video camera can produce a Cinemagraph image.
Check out these 28 sample Cinemagraph images, then when you’re ready to start making your own, visit Tested.com for a simple Cinemagraph tutorial.
Apple | Mac
How to upload a photo to your preferred Facebook…
If you use your iPhone to upload photos you take on the go to your Facebook account, you may be annoyed that Facebook automatically created an album called “Mobile Uploads” and places the photo there.
If you’re like me, you’d rather place them in your carefully crafted custom Albums, like “family” or “friends” – and there is a way to do it.
app isn't as easy as it should be - but there is a workaround
- First, on your iPhone Facebook app, click on the Photos icon and tap the Facebook Album you would like the photo to be uploaded into.
- Next, either choose a photo you’ve already taken from your photo Library, or hit the camera button in the upper right corner to take a photo.
- Finally, select your photo and give it a caption, then hit Upload.
Your photo will now appear in the Album you chose in the first step. I’m not sure why Facebook doesn’t make it easier to choose your preferred Album, but this workaround does the trick.
Apple | Mac
Lo-Fi for Mac brings retro camera effects to your…
iPhone users have plenty of apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic to apply effects to their images before sharing them. Those apps are all the rage right now, and for good reason. They give you the ability to turn a mediocre photo into a personal masterpiece. For the most part though, Mac users who prefer to shoot photos with dedicated digital cameras had been left out in the cold until Lo-Fi came along.Lo-Fi brings retro camera effects to your digital photos in a fun and user-friendly application that looks more like the back of a digital camera than it does a desktop application. Lo-Fi doesn’t really do anything that you couldn’t do with a copy of Photoshop and some spare time – except that it does them with the click of a button, at a fraction of the cost, and with fantastic results!
After launching Lo-Fi, you simply drag a photo into the large viewer window to get started. That’s when the fun starts. On the right side, you’ll find three rows of options to enhance your photos; Film, Mood, and Frame. Read more “Lo-Fi for Mac brings retro camera effects to your images”
Resources
Free stock photos: Ice Cream Sundae
If you have the need for them, you’re more than welcome to use these high-resolution photos of the most spectacular ice cream sundae I’ve ever had in my life in any way you see fit. If you use it on a website, I would love a credit link back to the Flickr page. I received several email requests for the image after it appeared in my design inspiration post last week.
The images are released under the Creative Commons Attribution license, and the original size download is approximately 3264 x 2448 pixels – plenty large enough for commercial printing.
Resources
BlackBerry layered Photoshop file
I recently had the need to use a nice clean image of a smartphone. I began searching through the numerous images found via Google and eventually came across this freely available layered Photoshop file of a BlackBerry – just what I was looking for from a user over at DeviantArt. 
The 6.2 MB download expands to a 15 MB PSD image containing, well, a ton of layers – allowing you to customize the heck out of it.
General
Monsterize yourself
There’s no valid reason to bother with this – heck, it’s not even Halloween yet. But I came across this site and it’s fun as heck to mess around with. Upload a photo of yourself and go to work turning yourself into Frankenstein, a vampire, and more. Just visit the Buffalo Wild Wings Night Hunger site to get started monsterizing yourself. A tightly cropped head shot with a simple background work best. This is the second time I’ve referred you to a Buffalo Wild Wings site because it was über-cool! The main Buffalo Wild Wings site I recently wrote about is awesome as well.
Apple | Mac
OSX Snow Leopard desktop pictures
UneasySilence reports to have all 35 of the OSX Snow Leopard desktop pictures in full 2560×1600 resolution available for download. Grab ’em while they’re hot!