How to Capture / Extract Human Faces From A Single Photo

This tutorial works best with portrait photos with all the human faces are facing towards you (frontal-taken photoss). If you don’t have photos to work on with this tutorial, use the ones that I’ve used here by downloading them from here.

1- Download and install STOIK Imagic 4 Free Browser for free. [ Review ]

2- Run Stoik Imagic 4 Free Browser and using the Browse Panel, browse for the folder that contains the photo. The photo will be displayed on the right pane of the program.

3- Select the photo to highlight it.

4- From the menu bar, choose Tools and then, Extract Faces.

5- Human faces will be auto-extracted and stored in a “Faces” subfolder beneath the original photo folder. If there are more than one human face in a photo, it will be captured too!

How to Capture / Extract Human Faces From Multiple Photos

Follow exactly the same steps above except for step 3. Instead of selecting a photo, select multiple photos by pressing CTRL and click on each of them.

Now compare the time you need to capture / extract human faces from photos with the normal crop and resize method. This method is definitely much faster right?

Tags: crop, capture, extract face, extract faces, crop faces, extract photos, photography, portrait

FileHamster defines itself as a “realtime version tracking application for content creators”. You can actually use it for almost any application and that includes Adobe Photoshop. A better way to explain what it does is to show a tutorial on how FileHamster works. In this example, I am going to enable version control for one of my Adobe Photoshop files, named sunset.psd.

Add FileHamster Library

1- Download FileHamster, install and launch it as any regular Windows application.

2- Press Next to create a new library using the Library Creation wizard.

3- Add the location where you want FileHamster to save the entire version backup – for example, D:\Backup-FH

4- Give a name to your library – for example, Photoshop Files. Click Next to move to the next screen and Next again to open FileHamster’s interface.

Enable Version Control for a PSD File

5- You can see your library is created under the Watch Tree pane. Right click on your library and select Add File watch to instruct FileHamster to monitor changes and enable version control to your sunset.psd file.

6- Browse for the sunset.psd file and press OK.

7- The file will be added successfully to FileHamster’s library tree.

Test Version Control

8- Open sunset.psd in Adobe Photoshop. Make some changes to the file – change filter effects, add texts etc. Don’t forget to save the file – FileHamster will only create a new version once you save a particular document.

9- Open FileHamster and you cans see that a new version of sunset.psd is created. You can add additional comments to each file version to make it easier for you to track file / editing changes.

Restore File to Original Version

10- Right click on the original version of sunset.psd and select Restore.

11- The original version is now restored and you can see the status of the current version from FileHamster’s interface. If you open sunset.psd in Adobe Photoshop once again, you can see that the file returns to its original state.

I tried to make the tutorial above example easy to understand for readers of all levels. If you are feeling more adventurous, you can actually create more libraries to track changes of different type of files/folders. Try FileHamster today!

Tags: filehamster, adobe photoshop, photoshop, version control, version tracking, autosave, photo editing

Photo Viewing Add-ons

PicLens – Transforms photos / pictures in your browser into a full-screen 3D experience. You can also use the built in search function to search and view photos from sites like Flickr, Picasa, Friendster, Google Images and more. For the ultimate viewing experience, try the “3D Wall“. A must have.

Cooliris Previews – Browse and share photos faster with this plugin. Mouse over on a link to open a preview of an image. I suggest that you try the “Stack ” feature to save pictures temporarily so you can view it altogether later. Combine this with PicLens and enjoy the cool slideshow mode.

Image Zoom – Zoom in and out of any photos from the same page . Just right click on a pic and scroll your mouse button up and down. Useful to view finer details of a small photo.

FoxSaver – View your photos as a screen saver inside Mozilla Firefox when your computer is idle. Works with a dual monitor configuration too.

Flickr Sidebar – View, explore and search Flickr photos conveniently from your Firefox sidebar . You can use this tool for your own or other people’s photos. Makes browsing photos in Flickr much easier.

ZoomFox – Another good photo zooming tool . The difference is that images will be displayed in a new tab with a thumbnail view of the original image. Various advanced controls are available – zoom levels, easy scrolling with click and drag and more. Ideal for zooming in and out large images.

AutoSlideshow – With just one click, you can create a slideshow from all images available on the same page . Support famous photo sites such as Flickr, Photo.net, Google Image Search and more.

List All Images – A useful add-on for creating a quick list of all the images inside a web page. The list includes the image itself, URL, size and dimension properties for all images.

Photo Management Add-ons

Clipmarks – Clip anything from a website, including photos with easy to use plugin. You can then view, share, print, email, and post the photos to your blog with the ClipCast widget.

Save Images – Save all images in a tab, in multiple tabs, from the cache and more. A definite time saver for downloading multiple images from a website at once.

Firefox Universal Uploader (FireUploader) – Allows you to upload and download photos from websites such as Flickr, Picasa, Webshots and more using a user friendly interface.

Fotofox – Select, tag, title and upload your pictures to an online photo service. Works with Flickr, Tabblo, 23hq, Smugmug, Marela, and Kodak EasyShare Gallery.

Photo Editing Add-ons

FireShot – Capture a screen shot of any pictures / web pages with this plugin. The built-in editor allows you to edit screen shots immediately inside Firefox, which is quite a time saver. Demo .

ResizR – easily resize your photos with this online service with a simple right click.

Picnik – Easily access Picnik online photo editor with a simple right click on any image.

Picture2Life – Use this plugin in you want to quickly edit your picture with the Picture2Life online picture editor. Right click on any image and select “Edit Picture” to start editing. Next, you can upload the newly edited pic to either Flickr or ImageShack.

Other Photo Related Add-ons

Access Flickr! – Bypasses the Flickr.com filter from countries such as Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia, China and others. An extension to promote freedom is worth a mention.

Exif Viewer – This Firefox photo add-on makes it easier for avid shutterbugs to view a photo’s EXIF data within Mozilla Firefox itself. Available for both local and web-based photos.

Tags: firefox, firefox add-ons, firefox plugins, firefox extensions, add-ons, extensions, photography, image editing

Steps to Batch Watermark Photos with FastStone

1- Launch FastStone Image Viewer. If you don’t have it installed, you can download it here.

2- On the menu bar, click “Tools -> Batch Convert/Rename“.

3- Select the “Batch Convert” tab. Next, browse for your photos and use the “Add” or “Add All” button to add your photos to be watermarked later.

4- Next, select the output folder where your watermarked photos will be saved to. Tick the “Use advanced options” checkbox and click on the “Advanced Options” button.

You can choose to watermark your photos with a text (choose step 5) or with an image (choose step 6)

5- Select the “Text” tab and tick the “Use Text” checkbox. Add your text and don’t forget to choose its position inside a photo and opacity level. You can also custom select your text’s font type, color and size. Click OK and proceed to step 7.

6- If you choose to have an image watermark, select the “Watermark” tab and tick the “Use Watermark” checkbox. Browse for any image that you wish to use as a watermark. Choose also the watermark image position inside the photos, its opacity level, and other optional settings if you feel necessary. Click OK and proceed to step 7.

7- Click on the “Start” button to start the batch watermarking process. Wait for the process to finish and click “Done“. Check out your newly watermarked photos inside the output folder that you’ve specified above.

Additionally, you can also add your image EXIF data as the text watermark for your photos. The way to do it is by selecting the appropriate attribute from the “Insert Variable” button at step 5. With FastStone Image Viewer, digital batch watermarking can be done easily in less than 10 minutes. Try it today!

Tags: watermark, faststone, image editing, watermark photos, batch watermark

To solve this problem, you can use jUploadr – a free, desktop-based batch uploading tool for Flickr that you can use to upload your photo masterpieces, even from behind a proxy server.

jUploadr Features

• Cross platform – because it is built in Java, you can use jUploadr in Windows, Mac OS, and Linux!
• Recommended by Flickr as an alternative to the default Uploadr.
• No installation needed – unzip and run!
• Simple, responsive and fast graphical user interface.
• Drag and drop photo upload operation.
• Proxy support – that’s what I am talking about!

• Individual or group photo editing support.

• Advanced Flickr photo metadata editing – you can edit tags, privacy of photos (private / public) and descriptions of course.
• Photosets support – upload photos to existing photosets or just create a new one to suite your needs.
• Multiple, selectable Flickr account support – for serious shutter bugs.
• Zooomr support – jUploadr even supports uploads to Zooomr, Flickr competitor wannabe.
• Language support – “capiche”? 7 languages to be exact.
• Photo rotator – correct a photo alignment before you upload it, one by one or in group.

You may think that the Flickr Uploadr looks way better, but this program will definitely win the hearts of Flickr hardcores who work behind a proxy server. If the developers of jUploadr strive to make the future version’s interface a little bit more user-friendly, this freeware will surely be a hit among Flickr users. Still, it is better to have an alternative like jUploadr, isn’t it?

Download jUploadr today!

Tags: flickr, upload flickr photos, flickr photos, photography, photo tips

One of my current photo editing favorite tools is FastStone Image Viewer. In this post, I will show you how to resize photos in batch, with a few simple steps.

Steps to Batch Resize Photos / Pictures

1- Launch FastStone Image Viewer. From the menu bar, click Tools -> Batch Convert / Rename.

2- From the “Batch Convert” tab, select the folder containing the soon to be resized photos on the right pane. Select the photos by clicking on “Add” OR drag & drop the photos to the left pane. Don’t forget to specify the folder that will used to store your photos later.

3- On bottom right of the interface, click “Advanced Options”. Tick the “Use Resize/Resample” checkbox on the “Resize” tab. In this example, I am going to batch resize my photos to 640 x 480 pixels. Don’t forget to select “Preserve Aspect Ratio“. Next, click the “OK” button to close Advanced Options.

4- To give the new photos a new name scheme, tick the “Rename” checkbox and give your photos a new common name (name header + numbering).

5- Click the “Start” button to start the batch resize process. Depending on the number of photos that you have selected above, this process can take a few minutes to finish.

6- Click “Done” once the process is completed. All the photos have been resized successfully! Check it out your favorite photo viewer.

By the way, you can use the same technique above to do more photo editing in batch – watermark, add text, crop and more. All these features are available from the same “Advanced Options” interface. Don’t forget to try that out too!

Tags: resize photos, photo editing, bulk edit, photo tips, photography

If you are currently using a Nikon digital SLR camera, then you are in luck. A freeware called Opanda IExif can tell you how many shots that you have taken with your camera based on the shutter count attribute recorded on a photo’s EXIF information.

Steps to Check a Nikon Digital SLR Camera Shutter Count

1- Using your Nikon camera, take a picture in JPEG format. RAW formatted images won’t work with Opanda IExif.

2- Transfer that picture from your camera to your personal computer.

3- Download Opanda IExif. Double click the setup file to install it and click the Panda icon on the desktop to run it.

4- Select the “Open” menu icon. Choose the photo that you have taken before. Your picture will be shown on top left of the interface.

5- Select the “Summary” tab.

6- Scroll down until you reach the “MakerNote (Nikon)” section. Scroll down a little bit more until you find the “Total Number of Shutter Releases for Camera” attribute. A number will be shown next to this attribute. That my friend, is your Nikon Digital SLR shutter count.

How many shots have you taken / your shutter count number? Currently mine is at 16397 which is probably OK because I bought a used one to start a new hobby. Don’t forget to check out the other EXIF information! Learning the EXIF data can make you a better photographer, as the experts said.

Tags: nikon, photography, digital slr, shutter count, exif, photography tips

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1- Open Photoscape and click the “Color Picker” option.

2- You can see the color picker tool on top left of the pop up box. Drag it to the item / images that you want to color pick. In this example, I tried to pick a color from a desktop icon. You can see that the icon will be zoomed inside the color picker tool to make it easier for you to choose the exact color that you wish for.

3- Let go of your finger from the mouse when you have successfully choose the color that you want. The color hex code will be displayed on the bottom left of the color picker interface.

You can copy the color code to the clipboard to use it. Additionally, Photoscape’s color picker tool also saves your color picking history automatically to the bottom right of the interface so that you can use it over and over again.

That is easy! Try it!

Tags: photoscape, color picker, photo editing, photo editor, photo editing tips

I’ve tested Picnik from my Flickr account and believe me, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to use it! Here are some cool “Picnik on Flickr” photo editing tips that I’ve gathered.

1- Go “Full screen” mode to view your photos better.

2- Straighten your crooked pictures. (Edit -> Rotate -> Straighten).

3- Create avatars e.g. Flickr, Blogger, MySpace etc. from your photos (Edit -> Crop -> Crop Combo Box).

4- Darken your photos for a cool effect with manual exposure control. (Edit -> Exposure -> move “Exposure” slider to the left).

5- Check and modify a photo’s histogram to determine the best exposure. (Edit -> Exposure-> Advanced)

6- Use “Neutral Picker” to precisely remove unwanted color casts. (Edit -> Colors -> Neutral Picker)

7- Transform colored photos to black and white. (Create -> Effects -> Basic -> Black and White)

8- Use cool, bombastic fonts to add text to your photos. (Create -> Text -> Basic Fonts)

9- Use faded shapes to watermark photos. (Create -> Shapes -> move “Fade” slider to the right)

10- Use faded texts to watermark photos. (Create -> Text -> move “Fade” slider to the right)

11- Editing mistakes? Take a photo to its original state with “Undo”. In Picnik, there is no limit to how many times you can undo.

12- Edit Flickr photos within the original Picnik.com website for more editing options. (Picnik -> Open in Picnik.com)

Any other tips that you know that I am not aware of? Why not share it here by leaving a comment or two?

Tags: flickr, picnik, photo editing, online photo editor, photo editing tips

To give you an idea, I will show you how to add backlight effects to your photos with my favorite, free dumb-proof photo editor – Photoscape.

Open any photos / images inside your PC with Photoscape. If you don’t have it installed, download Photoscape here.

The original image will then be opened in Photoscape Editor. Notice the “Backlight Effects” button on the down-right of the editor. Click the “Backlight” button a few times until you get the desired backlight effect for your photo.

Don’t worry if you make mistakes, the “Undo” button is there to help.

You can also click the arrow next to the button and select the Backlight percentage to apply the same effects above. Save your picture once you are finished.

Here is what my final image looks like after some simple backlight effect editing (in less than 1 minute!). Pretty amazing huh? Now go try it.

Tags: photoscape, image editing, photo editing, photography, backlight effects