The results of Plotagraph Pro, which enables warping still images to create animations, look pretty interesting (see below), though at a subscription rate of $300 (roughly 2.5x that of Photoshop & Lightroom combined), I think it’ll be a challenging sell. You can see the tool in action via a tutorial on the site.
[Via]
I’ve long loved the icons that Chop Shop Studio has made for everything from classic sci-fi robots to vehicles to horror films. Now they’re Kickstarting a project to create an online tool that’ll let you roll your own custom posters & prints. (“If I could make one, I’d do all vehicles!” chimes in 7-year-old Henry, peering over my shoulder right now.) Check it out & maybe back their play:
How did the main US political parties swap ends of the political spectrum—with Republicans going from antagonizing white Southerners to the point of secession, to becoming the dominant party in (and voice of) that region?
I found this explainer video from Vox lucid, efficient, and clear—not ax-grindy, as otherwise I wouldn’t share it here. You might enjoy watching it & may learn a few things along the way.
Update: If you watch this—as I think you’d find worthwhile—and find parts of it inaccurate or misleading, please speak up and shed some light instead of turning away or changing the subject. I’m genuinely interested in increasing understanding (my own & others’). TIA.
Make movies as easily as you shoot still photos—that’s part of the vision behind Google’s Motion Stills app. I’ve really been enjoying using it to make stuff like this simply by shooting pics, then swiping right on them in the app to compose little movies. You can see more examples via #MotionStills on Instagram.
Check this out:
A new personalized image search engine developed by a University of Washington computer vision researcher called Dreambit lets a person imagine how they would look a with different a hairstyle or color, or in a different time period, age, country or anything else that can be queried in an image search engine.
After uploading an input photo, you type in a search term — such as “curly hair,” “India” or “1930s.” The software’s algorithms mine Internet photo collections for similar images in that category and seamlessly map the person’s face onto the results.
Beyond obvious fun & beauty applications, tech like this could be amazing for the age-progression work of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
The popular $19 add-on from developer Anastasiy Safari has gained a range of new capabilities:
I added Vector Shape color control, new color spaces like HSL, YCbCr, YUV, XYZ display on the color wheel. And also MagicPicker now displays the name of color, which is a real help for web designers and color blind artists! Full Retina/4K/5K+ screens scaling. And Interactive Help now makes it easier to learn all MagicPicker’s functionality. Still supports all Photoshops from CS3 up to newest CC2015.5.
Just pull up the app, point your phone’s camera to a painting on display and find all the information you want to know about the artwork. We’re planning to roll this out to museums around the world—so stay tuned.
The app (for iOS and Android) also supports VR tours and more, and the Web version enables things like interactively exploring artists’ work (e.g. via this timeline of Van Gogh’s paintings).
“Snapchat = Photoshop x Tenacious D,” I like to say, democratizing expressive power by combining real technical chops with a goofy vibe that provides social permission to create. Now they’re showing the first fruits of their $150MM acquisition of Bitmoji, including the ability to have your personalized avatar interact with that of your friend. Check it out:
[YouTube]
Blurring the line between photo & video, Polaroid Swing lets you capture 1-second clips that play as users scroll, scrub, or tilt their phones.
I find myself kinda nonplussed. It’s beautifully executed, and I’ve long wondered why Instagram has so steadfastly failed to take advantage of device characteristics like gyroscopes. On the other hand, this feels more like a feature than a product (see also Fyuse), and it’s hard for me to imagine frequently nailing 1-second captures.
Thoughts?
[YouTube]
[