Archive for the 'Graphics' Category

Since Apple introduced the framework, Core Image powered editing applications have sprung up like Starbucks. From Pixelmator to Acorn, they’re everywhere to be found. Even so, there’s always room to innovate. Rhapsoft’s LiveQuartz, now at version 1.8, is a good example.

LiveQuartz has most of the standard image editing tools you might expect from a modern image editing application: layers, a rudimentary brush engine, selection lasso tools, a text engine, and filters. Like other editors powered by Core Image, LiveQuartz is fast and its filters operate in near realtime. Notable features which LiveQuartz lacks include layer styles and alpha masks.

Very recently on MacApper, I reviewed BannerZest Pro from Aquafadas. BannerZest Pro is an application that allows you to create professional-looking flash banners without having to know a thing about flash. Today, I am going to be looking at BannerZest Pro’s little brother BannerZest, and how their features compare.

The first thing that you will notice about BannerZest as compared to BannerZest Pro is the price. BannerZest costs $80 less than BannerZest Pro, sitting pretty at $49. The 80-dollar question is though, does BannerZest Pro have enough features over BannerZest to justify the cost?

If you have ever found yourself wanting to incorporate Flash into one of your websites, you know that the de facto Flash program is Adobe’s Flash CS3. Now if you are anything like me, the price tag that comes with Flash is just a tad bit steep. During the “Feed Good Food to your Mac” promotion, I found a very nice compromise to my Flash desires, called BannerZest Pro.

BannerZest Pro from Aquafadas, is a program that makes Flash picture banners as easy a drag and drop, at a fraction of the cost. The results are quite professional, and are very simple to customize.

Have you have ever wanted to share a group of your really good photos, but your pictures were too big to post to your favorite photo sharing site? When I shoot 150 - 200 photos on a trip with my DSLR, family and friends always want a copy of what I am shooting.  That started my search for a free and simple way to crunch my photos, fast! I stumbled upon KStudio’s Resize!, a batch image resize program that resizes your images to various parameters. Resize! does a great job of saving time when uploading or burning the photos that you want to share.  I could fire up my Photoshop Elements (or the Creative Suite version of Photoshop) and Aperture application to resize photos, but Resize! really makes that unnecessary. The program’s interface is simple while still providing robust options.

Back in January of 2004, Google introduced Google Earth for Mac. As I’m sure many of you have experienced first hand, Google Earth is a program that is basically a virtual globe that allows you to zoom in and out of places all over the world. Since that update though, the interface hasn’t really changed much. If you have ever wished that Google Earth’s interface could get a bit of a boost, now is your chance.

Two years ago, Adam Betts re-designed a few elements of Google Earth’s interface. I just recently came across his blog post, and I thought I would share it with all of you.

Last week, I reviewed Pomoto, which is a service for uploading and sharing your photos right from your Mac. Thanks to the awesome guys over at Pomoto for giving us 3 one-year subscriptions to give away.

Also, a big thanks to all who participated in the giveaway. The winners of the four licenses are: Jason, Rusty, and Gwen. Congratulations! You guys will be receiving an email with instructions shortly.

Be sure to download the trial version of Pomoto, and pay for it if you find it useful. Stay tuned to the MacApper RSS Feed for more giveaways, or subscribe to the MacApper Podcast to see more video reviews.

I’ve been a long time iPhoto user, but I’ve also been a long time amateur photographer. When Apple introduced Aperture, I was, of course, very interested.

I tried it out, was promptly confused by the interface, and turned off by the price tag. Now Apple has introduced Aperture 2, I thought I’d take another test drive. I’m a happy with iPhoto, so I went into the free trial with a few things in mind.

• What does Aperture have that iPhoto doesn’t?
• What does Aperture not have that iPhoto does?
• Would Aperture be worth the $199?

It’s not often that you find an app that totally changes the way you do a task. As a video blogger for MacApper, I use screen recording software all the time, and never has it been easy to create a beautiful and professional screencast.

Not until ScreenFlow. ScreenFlow from Vara Software takes screencasting software to the next level. With a beautiful and simple interface, ScreenFlow uses all of Leopard’s Core Animation features to the max, providing an environment for you to capture, edit, and output your screencasts with ease.

I’ve got five names here, five people who have won a license to HoudahGEO by just leaving a comment on my review of the product. It’s that easy to win apps that we have giveaways for here on MacApper.

HoudahGEO is a picture geo-coding app that lets you upload manually (and automatically) geo-coded pictures to either Googe Earth or Flickr for viewing on maps.

Here’s the list of people who won:

• molle
• maxim
• J Dott
• Jim
• Andy

If you are a graphic or icon designer, and are looking for an app that is easy to use, beautiful, and very powerful, Opacity is the perfect app for you. Having just come out on February 13th, this brand new application takes advantage of Leopard Core Animation to create a powerful and beautiful environment for making icons, buttons, and graphics.

It isn’t often that the world of software design generates newsworthy controversy with its products. After all, the whole point of creating new software is to help people by allowing them to be more productive, more organized, more speedy…right?

What it doesn’t generally do is force them to be more aware of their moral boundaries. One software developer, named Reza Hussain, decided to be a bit more ambitious in his design.

Much to the chagrin of numerous eager users, it was discovered that his seemingly-innocuous screen capture program called Display Eater had a much bigger appetite than they expected: if a pirated serial number was entered during registration, the software would delete the offending user’s home files; effectively killing their poor Mac.

iPhoto is a great way to organize, edit, and output your photos. However, when it comes to sharing your photos over the Internet, you need to have a .Mac account. Pomoto is a great replacement for .Mac Web Gallery, going by the slogan, “Your iPhotos Online”. Using a simple UI, Pomoto seamlessly integrates with your iPhoto Events, Albums, and Smart Albums, and has a beautiful interface that allows you to create simple, beautiful online web galleries in no time at all.

Recently Iconfactory, along with Artis software, updated their screen measuring tool xScope to version 2.0. xScope is a simple application that can measure anything on your screen and it includes 7 distinct tools. If you are someone who pushes pixels all day, I think xScope might just be something you cannot afford not to take a look at.

So let’s get started.

First is the Crosshair. The crosshair simply tells you what x and y coordinates your mouse pointer is currently at. This includes horizontal and vertical guides and a small bubble displaying the x and y coordinates.

I think we can all agree that when using our Macs, be it your aging G3 to an 8-core Mac Pro, every microsecond delay is irritating. For example, when a website decides to resize your web browser window, you then have to move your mouse for what seems an eternity to the resize tile or the title bar to get your workflow back the way you want it.

For the more techy of us, CodeRage has a useful utility which can save us those valuable fractions of a second with Zooom2, which brings with it Leopard compatibility.

Have you ever shown a picture to someone and them ask, “Where is this?” Ever wondered where all of your pictures are on a map or the globe? Wonder no more! Now you can point to where your pictures where taken and the next time you show them off to your friends have the pictures show up on a map exactly where they were taken. How can you do this? It’s all part of the magic of HoudahGEO and geocoding.

*Editor: At the end of this review is a chance to win 1 of 5 HoudahGEO licenses. Read on!