Live Search Maps/Virtual Earth has grown with the integration of content from Photosynth. Essentially, Microsoft is now integrating synths into its mapping, location and search platform. This means that Virtual Earth users will no longer be able to explore only aerial, Bird’s Eye and satellite imagery, but also 3D environments put together with 2D pictures with various locations around the world, namely synths. Microsoft has blended together two of its services making available Photosynth content from Live Search Maps.
“In order to find Photosynths in Live Search Maps you’ll search for a location. In the welcome pane, you’ll see a link for ‘Explore Collections’ which you click and begin seeing all kinds of collections. Read the rest of this entry »
I get a lot of emails and letters asking why the colours in printed photos sometimes don’t match what’s on the screen? Sometimes it’s the printer, but more often than not it’s simply that the monitor hasn’t been properly set up. Monitor calibration is essential if you work with graphics or photo editing software but how many of us ever take the time to adjust our monitors, apart from twiddling the brightness and contrast controls? Not many, I bet, but there’s no excuse any more. A freeware program called Calibrize takes you gently by the hand, and in three simple steps helps you to adjust your display; from start to finish it only takes around 2 minutes and the new settings or colour ‘profile’ is then saved and applied every time you start Windows. It’s also handy for those who, like me, use two monitors, making it easy to accurately match the two displays.
Here’s a really neat little freeware program called Qlipboard, for producing quick and simple audiovisual presentations. It could be anything, a slideshow of your favourite photos, for example, with an audio commentary and on-screen annotation, highlighting the points of interest. You could use it for something more serious, like a sales pitch, or maybe put together a demonstration showing auntie Maud how to send emails. It’s really easy to use, just line up the images you want to use, click the record button and start talking (or singing maybe), brining up the images you want to use. When you’ve finished you can save it to disc, send it by email it or upload it to the web.