Image Effects, Filters, Masks and Other Image Processing Methods

Like several of the Lytro camera's other features, all it requires is a little extra image processing to turn your living pictures into anaglyphs or stereo images.

Around this time in 2012, Lytro, creator of the world's first consumer light field camera, updated the desktop software that's necessary for processing the camera's living pictures. That update included Perspective Shift, enabling Lytro users to slightly change the point of view of a living picture by clicking and dragging it in any direction.

Lytro Desktop 3.1 for Mac and Windows and Lytro Mobile 1.2 for iOS, take that a step further. With a little extra processing, any living pictures that have been processed for Perspective Shift can now be viewed in 3D.

By using a new Presentation Mode you can connect your computer or iOS device to a 3D-capable TV over HDMI or Apple AirPlay. Using the software, your pictures can easily be converted and viewed in 3D.

While there are plenty of single-lens point-and-shoot cameras available that can create 3D images for viewing on 3D-capable TVs, they require multiple shots. Lytro claims this is the first camera that allows you to shoot a 3D image with a single exposure with one press of the shutter release.

The download is available at Lytro.com, and remember, it only works with images created with a Lytro camera.

PicLabs is a free Windows 8 Image Editor. Use it to add effects to your Images and Pictures. Save and share your work. Check it here!

Friends, it’s time we get some Photoshop brushes. Here’s a set of 10 high quality grunge texture brushes. Apply this kick-ass brushes to create wonderful vintage or distressed look for text effects, graphics, patterns, websites, backgrounds, etc.

In this volume, you will get all the 10 hi-res brushes in 3468 x 2736 pixels in .abr format. You can also use them for print on t-shirts, etc. Go ahead and play around with your creativity in using the brushes and let me know if you have any questions.

SnapFX is finally here for Windows Phone 8. SnapFX allows you to apply the image effects such as Lomo, Negative, Vortex and magic Pen to live feeds directly from your camera as well as to your existing photos. this mega update provides everything you've been asking for Features in SnapFX v2.0 include:

Apply effects to live feeds from the back or front camera.

17 Buttery smooth image effects (with more on the way).

Apply effects to photos from your phone.

Change the effect on photos you've taken with a live effect.

Clean, simple interface.

Tap the screen or use the camera button to take photos.

Lens integration for easy launching.

"The Internet is riddled with watchful eyes," begins the description on the homepage of Cryptstagram, and the creators of the site intend to do something about it. Put together by folks at The Barbarian Group, Cryptstagram is an online tool that lets you use uploaded images to send secret, encrypted messages.

The idea behind Cryptstagram came up after the NSA surveillance news broke. Technology director at The Barbarian Group, Aimee Kvasir, and her team wanted to find a creative way to protect people’s privacy, without trying to get any sort of ‘lesson’ across.

“We were more interested in combining the themes of glitch art, government surveillance, and personal cryptography than we were with dictating a message or lesson,” Ben Turner, a developer on the project, tells Wired. “The best we felt we could do was provide a tool for people to play with those themes all in one place, to contribute their own opinions and feelings into a common product: a glitched-out image with hidden messages within.”

What came out the other end is a website that works much like Instagram does. You still have to upload a photo and choose a filter. Where it differs is on the types of filters — Cryptstagram lets you choose from several glitch art options including “NSA,” “White Sound,” “Shifty” or custom filters you can make yourself — and the final step. That step is adding a secret message.

You don’t have to embed a message, but if you do, it too will be secured with a password so that only the recipient will be able to open the file. The final image/message combo can only be decrypted and made normal again by decrypting it on the Cryptstagram website using the password.

Swedish-led Q Lifestyle has released a colorful 5 megapixel, 3G-packing pocket camera called theQ that's both easy on the budget and simple to use. The Q point-and-shoot is described by its developers as a modern vintage camera. The outer housing benefits from a rubberized coating and a slight thumb-friendly cutout, and there's a simple through-body viewfinder/window to frame up shots (and double as a home for a belt clip or carabiner).  The housing is also sealed against dust and water ingress, so users can take theQ along for a quick dip in the pool (up to a depth of 3.3 ft/1 m for 30 minutes).

Designed for mobile connectivity, users will need to throw in a 3G-capable SIM card, like the ones used for mobile phones. It doesn't come supplied with one, however, leaving users free to choose their own carriers, but this will obviously add to the initial outlay for the camera.

Rather than having a top-mounted pop up flash, theQ has a built-in eight segment LED flash ring that sits back behind, and surrounds, the camera's 24 mm f2.4 wide-angle lens. This light ring also serves as a battery level indicator and timer countdown indicator for selfies. The manual focus lens offers three capture presets, including macro, and users can choose from outdoor, indoor and night exposure modes using the selector on the top of the camera.

Pixelmator, a popular photo editor on the Mac, was updated today to version 2.2.1. Don't let the number fool you; the new version packs some big improvements. Most notably, the app's overall speed has been increased twofold and edits are now automatically saved in the background.

"We've done some radical improvements behind the scenes," said the app's developers. "One of them is a new Pixelmator file format. It's still the same file format you are used to, yet it now has a completely new architecture that takes advantage of the modern OS X technologies making your image editing even faster and more enjoyable." Reengineering the file format has brought better intergration with OS X's Quick Look.

The speed increase means it's faster to open and save files, and savin to iCloud takes less time because the app only syncs image edits as they are made, not full copies of the image each time.

Processing the images from the camera to fine tune the brightness, contrast and color balance, but I fancied playing around to inject a little hyperreality with some moody color casts and epic lens flares to subtly enhance the photo.

Often when post-processing a photograph the aim is to carefully fine tune the levels and colour balance to capture the real life scene, but sometimes it's worth taking the edits a little further to enhance an image with hyper realistic effects. Applying colour casts, increasing the contrast and adding lighting effects can give an image an intense mood just like we see in magazines or on billboards.

Changing the blending mode of the Gradient Map to Overlay to allow the new colours to interact and alter the tones of the original image, generating a subtle colour cast. And droppin the opacity to lower the contrast to add the full impact of the effect.

Set of 5 Photoshop actions lets you make awesome vintage 3D text with a single click. If you want a way to make something that looks good fast, check out the RetroLift 2D PSD Actions by Retro Supply Co. For $12 you can get a set of 5 actions that work with Photoshop CS4 and above to create supre 3D text effects with any font.

The actions also come with a bonus video tutorial showing how to create a vintage film title effects, including the 3D lettering.

Texturize It is a freeware that helps to add texture effect to 2D and 3D images. There are total more than 90 effects available with this software. Thus, with a few mouse clicks, a presentable 2D or 3D image will be available in front of you. What's even good about this software is that users can add their own texture files to change texture (appearance and surface characteristics of an object or image) for input image. Therefore, texturize it is a wuseful and good to use a textured effect software for 2D/3D artists.