TechKings4U

How to Activate Google Webmaster Tool in Wordpress Free Blog ?

2016-08-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

Hi,
I will explain you in a simple way, its very simple.

Login to your WordPress account with username and password.

Paste the HTML Tag from Google Webmaster Tools after add a property (Your website) - Alternate Method - HTML Tag

Select Tools from Dashboard.Then you can see the Google webmaster tools html code pasting area. Paste and Save

Then Verify in Google Webmaster Tool

Done Thats all.!
Enjoy

HOW TO ACTIVATE WINDOWS 7 WITH ACTIVATOR

2015-01-08T06:52:00.001-08:00

Follow the below link to activate windows for cracked versions

DOWNLOAD

How to Delete Email Specfic Contact in Gmail

2014-09-29T23:23:00.002-07:00

Some times on our busy duties, we might forget to send emails on the correct persons.

Sometimes we are sending to the old not working emails from the history.

For avoiding these problems, Gmail has the facility offered

Click Gmail ->Select Contact-> Tick the Contact Name -> More-> Delete contact

Thank You..!!

How to get back the Product Key if you lost for Windows OS and Applications?

2014-09-20T01:53:00.002-07:00

How to get back the Product Key if you lost for Windows OS and Applications?

Introducing Online Easy PDF Converter with Compressed file

2014-09-16T03:07:00.001-07:00

We are introducing an Easy way to convert all kinds of files to pdf.

By Sinu P Sabu

You can...

Compress PDF
Make JPEG To PDF
PDF To JPEG
Merge PDF
Split PDF
MS Word To PDF
Excel To PDF
PPT To PDF
UNLOCK PDF

Click Here to get Link

EM Client Review

2014-06-22T01:07:00.002-07:00

eM Client manages multiple e-mail accounts well, but its free version is limited by how many accounts it can support. It makes up for it with abundant style, a relatively easy setup, and great features, though.

This program behaves like a typical e-mail manager, akin to Outlook or Thunderbird. In addition to letting you manage multiple e-mail accounts, eM Client will organize your calendar, meetings, contacts, and more for you so you don't have to think about it. You can get right to work with this client by inserting your e-mail and letting it slowly populate all of the rest of the information it needs. It has a widget for most of the popular e-mail providers and even lets you import from other clients like Outlook. It usually works without a hitch, but it may give you some difficultly if you have two-step verification on the account you're trying to set up. The program only accepts two accounts if you use the free version, so you'll need to upgrade to Pro if you want unlimited accounts. Either way, the program sports a gorgeous layout that supports color-coding and multiple themes. There's even a built-in chat that supports ICQ, Jabber, Yahoo, and most of the other popular IM clients.eM Client is so loaded with features that it's easy to forget it only supports two accounts. While this could be a burden for some, others won't have a problem. If you're happy with that limitation, this program rewards you with a stylish layout and plenty of control over your accounts.

How to schedule emails for Gmail

2014-06-14T23:01:00.002-07:00

How to schedule emails for Gmail

Posted by Sinu P Sabu

Actually google mail not providing this facility.So that you have to corporate with other software.We suggest you to

Schedule emails with Boomerang

MailChimp; a better way to send such wonder full email;Try it..!

2014-06-04T22:17:00.003-07:00

MailChimp is unique in its ability to combine email marketing with humor. You'll find on almost every page a link to a funny YouTube video. You'll also find that MailChimp has all the features you'll need to create an effective email marketing campaign.

With MailChimp, your subscribers will be able to easily connect to social networking pages in order to share your email marketing campaigns. You'll also be able to use social networking in conjunction with your email marketing. In one click, you'll be able to send out an email campaign and update your social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Delicious, with your latest information. You can also see who has tweeted about or liked your business.

Your emails can look different depending on the email client your subscriber uses (Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Apple Mail and more). For this reason, MailChimp can determine the 10 most popular email clients that your subscribers use. MailChimp provides you a preview of how your email will appear in each of these formats so you can be sure you're sending out an email that will look great every time.

With MailChimp, you can add your own HTML email design or use one of the service's professionally designed templates. You have hundreds of professional, sleek and quirky designs to choose from. You can add images and customize the design to your satisfaction, as well. You can save the template for further use later. Before you send out your email marketing campaign, MailChimp sends your content to the Delivery Doctor. This MailChimp feature methodically tests and retests the campaign, making sure that nothing in the content draws a red flag that will inevitably send your email to your subscribers' spam folder. MailChimp will check your spam score and detect errors in your messages' HTML code.

MailChimp collects and analyzes your data and provides excellent visual representations of that data in several formats. Interactive graphs represent the customer interaction with the email campaigns you have sent out. You can view subscriber activity, social stats, click performance and advanced reports, or view an overview of all information. The Open and Click Tracking focuses on the HTML5 chart and enables you to see your subscriber growth. You can highlight specific periods, zoom in or redraw the chart to display different information. If you are pondering when to send MailChimp email campaigns to your customers, you may want to consult the Open and Click Over Time chart first, as it will show you the number of subscribers who read your emails and at what time they read them. Opens By Location shows where in the world your subscribers are.
The Subscriber Activity Reports chart may be the one you glance at the most, as you can dig deep into the collected data in real time. You can see who received the email, when they opened it, the exact links they clicked on, who bounced the email or who didn't open it. If your emails bounced, MailChimp automatically determines which subscribers to resend the email to and which subscribers should just be permanently deleted from your contact list. Click Maps is our favorite analytical graph that you can access from MailChimp. You are able to see the email or newsletter that you sent out to your subscribers in its entirety, but there is a clickmap overlay so that you can see which links your subscribers click the most.

The Campaign Reach chart from MailChimp is simple, but effective. You are able to see the total number of your email marketing campaigns that your customers have opened, your potential customer reach and the number of views your campaign link got on Twitter and Facebook. You will also see the number of retweets and likes the campaign received. If you run an eCommerce business, MailChimp's email marketing service can track your sales from the first URL click in your email campaign all the way to purchase. MailChimp has given you almost every type of graph, chart and table to help you develop more successful email marketing campaigns. MailChimp's Analytics360 module enables you to set goals and see your progression. This report also shows you the revenue your campaign has created and the return on investment.

Your MailChimp dashboard serves as the hub for all things email marketing. Here, you can see all of your past and current email marketing campaigns, which you can easily select for comparison. The MailChimp dashboard is streamlined and simple to use. Every feature is easily accessible. It’s easy to import or add contacts as well; simply upload them from a CSV file directly into MailChimp, or add them in manually. You can also segment your lists easily to send different messages to different categories of subscribers based on where they live, their interests and other distinguishing factors.

MailChimp's email marketing service has a very impressive range of support options, which are all conveniently located on their support page. Here, you have the option to type a keyword or phrase into the knowledge base search toolbar. We typed in "survey," for example, and 10 articles pertaining to this subject populated. From the MailChimp support homepage, you can select the Email Us tab, which takes you to a contact form. If you need answers to your questions quickly, you can choose to chat with a live representative.
This email marketing service also offers a customer forum. Here, you can present your ideas about features you would like MailChimp to offer, ask fellow MailChimp users questions or just engage in friendly banter. One of our favorite support options available is the online training. MailChimp's email marketing service publishes a 45-minute webinar every week and covers a wide range of topics. You can also register to watch a variety of live sessions

Tailor Windows to your workflow with these two helpful taskbar tweaks

2014-03-23T00:18:00.004-07:00

Tailor Windows to your workflow with these two helpful taskbar tweaks

Ian Paul

The Windows taskbar is perhaps one of the most overlooked desktop components that can be tweaked to improve your PC experience. Today, I'm going to show you two tricks you can do with the taskbar: One will give you a tad more screen space for your day-to-day work, and the second tip is a Windows XP throwback for anyone who yearns for the glory days of Windows.

Hiding for space

The taskbar is great for navigating between different open programs, checking the time, and getting system notifications. But let's be honest: A lot of the time it's just sitting down at the bottom of the screen taking up more space than it needs to.

Hiding the taskbar in Windows 7 and up takes just a few clicks.

Fortunately, the taskbar doesn't need to be there at all and can be dismissed and summoned at will. Here's how to do that in Windows 7 and 8.1.

Right-click on the taskbar and in the menu that appears, selectProperties. Under the Taskbar tab—which should be the first open tab you see—check the box next to Auto-hide the taskbar.

Then click Apply and OK. During this process, your taskbar may disappear and reappear a couple of times. Eventually, however, it should slink away into the bottom of your screen patiently waiting to be called upon.

To summon the taskbar, simply point your mouse to the bottom of the screen and it'll spring back to existence. In Windows 8.1, you'll notice the taskbar becomes a little more translucent when it's set to auto-hide.

If you ever want to return your taskbar to a permanent position, just follow the same instructions to uncheck the auto-hide box.

Bringing back Windows XP's taskbar

Select "Never Combine" to give your Windows 7 or 8 taskbar an XP flavor.

Since Windows 7, the taskbar condenses all the open windows for one program under a single icon called a taskbar button by default. If you have three Word documents open, you'll see just one Word button. Hover over that icon and you'll see three mini-previews for each open window.

Condensed buttons are handy if you like to keep your taskbar clean, but some people prefer the XP approach of seeing individual taskbar buttons for each open window.

There's an easy way to get that behavior back in newer versions of Windows. Again, right-click on the taskbar and select Properties.

Under the Taskbar tab look for the Taskbar buttons setting. Click the drop-down menu to the right of that setting and select Never combine, or Combine when taskbar is full for a more practical approach.

Then click Apply and OK as before and you're done.

An XP-style taskbar, with separate icons for each open window. (Click to enlarge.)

Each open window now has its own taskbar button just like the old days. All hail the customizable taskbar!

How to quickly convert old Google Drive Sheets to the new format for offline editing

2014-03-23T00:13:00.000-07:00

How to quickly convert old Google Drive Sheets to the new format for offline editing

Ian Paul

Mar 23, 2014 9:30 AM

Good news, productivity fans! The new version of Google Sheets, featuring full offline editing when you use the Google Chrome browser, is now rolling out to all users.

Bad news, productivity fans! The long-awaited offline editing will only work with spreadsheets created with the new version of Sheets. That means any older spreadsheets you have in Drive—which is probably most of them—won't work in offline mode. That's no good.

Google plans on automatically switching over all your files to the new Sheets format at some unspecified point in the future. But for now, Google suggests the easiest workaround is to copy-and-paste your old spreadsheet into a new file using the updated version of Sheets.

But that's clunky and inelegant. Fortunately, there's also a slightly simpler solution where you don't have to mess with copying and pasting at all.

The power of the desktop

To turn an old spreadsheet into a new spreadsheet, thus making it available for offline editing, we're simply going to download and then re-upload the file.

First, however, you have to make sure you're using the new version of Sheets by visitingg.co/newsheets. Second, you have to make sure your PC is ready for offline editing in Chrome by following the instructions on Google's Help pages.

Done? Good. Here we go.

Let's say we want to convert a file called "Test3."

First thing you need to do is download your Google spreadsheet as an Excel spreadsheet.

First hover over the Test3 spreadsheet in Google Drive and then right-click it. In the context menu that opens select "Download..."

A pop-up window will appear. Make sure "Microsoft Excel .xlsx" is selected in the drop-down menu so that an Excel file arrives on your desktop. Once you're ready, click the Download button.

The next part is very simple: Just grab the file that is now on your PC (probably at the download bar at the bottom of Chrome, or in the downloads folder) and drag-and-drop it over your Google Drive page in Chrome. Test3 will now be uploaded to Google Drive as an Excel spreadsheet.

Converting to the new Sheets format

Once you switch from Excel format to the new Sheets format, you're ready for offling editing.

Once it's done uploading, just right-click the new Test3 Excel file and select Open with... > Google Sheets. That will export the file to the new Google Sheets format—meaning you're good to go for offline editing.

Don't let the number of steps fool you: Once you've got the hang of it this process, it takes mere seconds over a broadband connection. More importantly, it means no fumbling with copying and pasting vast pools of data from one spreadsheet to another.

From pcworld.com

Top 10 Linux Distros For Hackers!

2014-01-28T20:23:00.001-08:00

Top 10 Linux Distros For Hackers!

1. BackTrack 5r3: This is one of the most loved and best known Linux-based hacking distributions. Based on Canonical’s Ubuntu operating system, Backtrack’s logo says, “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” With version 5, the GNOME desktop environment was added along with the usual KDE desktop environment.

2. Nodezero: This is another Ubuntu-based hacking, which is used for penetration testing. Every time you get a patch for bugs in the Ubuntu OS, Nodezero also gets updated.

3. BackBox Linux: This is yet another Ubuntu-based distro being used for hacking. According to the developers, the OS has been designed to create a penetration testing distro that is fast and easy to use. It also gets update with new ethical hacking tools regularly using repositories.

4. Blackbuntu: Ubuntu itself may not be a hacking distro, but there are plenty that are based on it. This distribution comes with categories such as Network Mapping, Information Gathering, Penetration, Vulnerability Identification, Privilege Escalation, Radio Network Analysis, VoIP analysis and more.

5. Samurai Web Testing Framework: This distro lays focus on attacking websites using the best free and open source tools for hacking and attacking. The developers have incorporated four steps into the distribution, including, reconnaissance, mapping, discovery and exploitation.

6. Knoppix STD: From Ubuntu to Debian, Knoppix STD is a Debian based hacking distribution that runs the GNOME, KDE, LXDE and Openbox desktop environments. It has been around for quite a long time now and was amongst the first live distros.

7. Pentoo: This is a live CD that is meant for security testing and is based on Gentoo. It comes with a number of customised tools and kernel from the company. These include a Backported WiFi stack, XFCE4 etc.

8. Weakerthan: This distribution uses the Flufbox desktop environment and is best suited for WiFi hacking because of its many Wireless tools. It is a Debian Squeeze-based distribution that comes with tools for WiFi attacks, Cisco exploitation, SQL Hacking, Web Hacking, Bluetooth and others.

9. Matriux Krypton: After Weakerth4n, this is perhaps the first distribution that is directly based on the Debian OS. It contains an arsenal of 300 security tools and makes for a good choice for ethical hacking, penetration testing, security testing, system and network administration, cyber forensics investigations etc.

10. DEFT: This OS is based on the Linux Kernel 3 along with the Digital Advanced Response Toolkit. It uses WINE in order to run Windows tools Linux and predominantly run with the LXDE desktop environment.

Via www.concise-courses.com

Satisfies your Official and Personal requirement - Drop Box

2014-01-05T22:59:00.002-08:00

Dropbox is probably the most famous cloud storage service and some new features make it even more attractive

Dropbox has always been a popular service with and small businesses, not least because it offers a fully-featured 2GB service free.

That’s not much space by today’s standards, but there are easy ways to boost it, with Dropbox giving away additional storage when you use specific features. Meanwhile, its Dropbox for Business product means it can scale up to suit larger companies too. Plans start at $795 per year for five users with a pooled 1TB of space, and scale up at $125 per additional user. Usage can be monitored and managed from a central console.

Simplicity has always been Dropbox’s biggest strength. An easy-to-setup client is installed on every PC, Mac or Linux desktop being used by one of your end users – the licence is per-user, not per system – and a special ‘dropbox’ folder is placed on each hard drive.

Files saved or dropped in the dropbox are automatically synchronised across all systems connected to the same account, not to mention a folder, accessible through a web browser, stored on Dropbox’s own servers. It’s now also possible to set individual dropbox clients to sync selectively, so that you don’t automatically copy every addition to a growing library of media onto the capacity-constrained Ultrabook you use on the move.

Files saved or dropped in the dropbox are automatically synchronised across all systems connected to the same account

A recent update has seen Dropbox’s system tray applet transformed, so that it now provides an at-a-glance view of files which have recently been added or changed, plus instant access to your files in the local Dropbox folder or on the Dropbox website.

However, most things you need to do with Dropbox can be done just by right-clicking on files and sub-folders within the Dropbox folder. Right-click on a file, for instance, and select Dropbox > View Previous Versions, and you can easily restore older versions of a file with a click. It’s possible to delete files from your dropbox by dragging them to the recycle bin, but if you do so by mistake it’s not an issue. The browser-based interface allows for rapid restorations.

Dropbox’s other key advantage is the ease and efficiency of sharing. Files and folders can be shared with other Dropbox users through email invitations, and once shared the files will synchronise automatically, with notifications when another user adds or changes the file. You can share files on the website or by right-clicking on the file in the Dropbox folder, and you can now share recently added files very quickly using the system tray applet, which also allows you to accept or reject an invitation to join a folder at a click. Files will synchronise across a LAN as well as the Internet, helping to keep business bandwidth costs low. Non-Dropbox users can also be given access to files through a web link.

All these features make Dropbox incredibly useful, and for many smaller businesses the free 2GB option could be enough. You can access files from tablets and phones using iOS, Android, Blackberry and Kindle Fire apps, and even upload photos and videos direct. Currently, Dropbox’s biggest limitation is the lack of any built-in apps to preview or edit Office documents, though preview facilities will arrive with a forthcoming update, currently being trialled. In the meantime, many mobile apps, including QuickOffice and Documents 2 Go, will open and save documents directly to and from a Dropbox account. More effective tools to organise and share photos through albums are also on their way.

One big concern may be security. Files are stored using 256-bit AES encryption and the service uses SSL for data transfer, while the actual data is held on Amazon’s S3 servers, with high security and multiple levels of redundancy. However, after embarrassing security lapses in 2011 and the theft of customer email addresses in 2012, confidence in Dropbox has been shaken. To fix this, Dropbox has improved its internal monitoring and now offers optional two-factor authentication, using a code delivered via SMS to authorise new connections. If you’re storing business-critical information, two-factor authentication is a must.

Dropbox won’t leave you hanging around. Our test files took only 27 minutes to upload and 17 minutes to download, while edited files had changes copies across in under 90 seconds. Dropbox might not have the features of Box.net or the clever integration of SkyDrive and Google Drive, but it’s simple and extremely effective, particularly when it comes to collaboration with other Dropbox users. Dropbox still does what it does extremely well, and it’s unmatched for simple, hassle-free file-synchronisation and sharing across multiple systems and multiple users. However, the capacity of the free service now seems meagre in comparison to the Microsoft and Google competition, and it struggles to match their paid services for features or value for money. It’s still the most streamlined service, but no longer necessarily the best.

Click Here to register

Easy way to make Flow chart

2014-01-05T22:47:00.002-08:00

Just give any email ID and draw your flowchart

Click Here to Start

Offline Software

1. Click Chart

Click Here to Download

2.Mocrosoft Office

Buy the Product

New Google Sheets for Easy

2013-12-17T21:40:00.001-08:00

New Google Sheets: faster, more powerful, and works offline

Posted: Wednesday, December 11, 2013

CLICK HERE TO GET ONLINE SHEET(LOGIN WITH GOOGLE ACCOUNT)
CLICK HERE TO GET CHOME EXTENSION
Whether you’re crunching big data or tracking your family budget, you don’t want to waste time waiting for files to load or re-doing edits that were lost because your Internet connection dropped. You can now get more done by switching tothe new version of Google Sheets. It’s faster, supports larger spreadsheets, has a number of new features, and works offline.

Bigger, faster spreadsheets
The new Sheets supports millions of cells and kicks many of the old size and complexity limits to the curb. Scrolling, loading and calculation are all snappier, even in more complex spreadsheets.

New features based on your feedback and requests
Filter views is a new feature unique to Google Sheets that lets you quickly name, save and share different views of your data. This comes in handy when you’re collaborating so you can sort a spreadsheet without affecting how others see it.

Whether you’re new to formulas or a whiz at running complex functions, it’s now easier to set up and perform calculations. New function help and examples guide you as you type, and error highlighting and coloring make it easy to spot and fix mistakes.

As another time-saving improvement, text now automatically flows into empty adjacent cells—no manual merge needed.

With the improved conditional formatting, you can add rules to change the colors and styles of cells in your spreadsheet based on custom formulas.

No Internet connection? Work offline with Chrome
You shouldn’t have to think about whether you have a WiFi connection when you want to work. So just like Google Docs and Slides, you can now make edits to Sheets offline. When you reconnect to the Internet, your edits will automatically sync. If you've edited Docs or Slides offline in the past, then you’re already set up to edit Sheets offline. If not, follow these one-time instructions for setting up offline in Chrome.

Ready to try it out?
Turn on the new Sheets by checking the “Try the new Google Sheets” box in Google Drive settings. From then on, all new spreadsheets you create will work offline and include these new features. We’ll be adding a small list of missing features in the coming months, so if you rely on any of them, you may want to wait a little longer before opting in.

We hope you enjoy these and the many other updates that come along with the new Google Sheets, including colored sheet tabs, custom number formatting, paste transpose and more. Let us know what you think on our Google+ page!

Posted by Zach Lloyd, Software Engineer

Team Viewer Review

2013-12-09T22:43:00.001-08:00

Control another PC from your own computer...Its Free
By Admin 07
Download

Team Viewer is a free tool that makes it incredibly easy to set and use a VPN connection; a Virtual Private Network that lets you take complete control of another PC from your own computer, whether they're separated by a soda can or a continent (and as long as both machines are running TeamViewer). It enables two-way connections in which users can flip control back and forth. TeamViewer also lets you hold virtual meetings with multiple participants (again, they all must have TeamViewer installed). With a name like TeamViewer, you'd expect it to be an enterprise-ready tool, and you'd be right: TeamViewer's robust simplicity is what happens when multiple users of vastly different skills need to use software. After a while, the bugs get squashed pretty firmly. But TeamViewer is free to non-commercial users. That means you can use it to access your work and home PCs remotely, of course. But you can also install it on your mom's PC (for example) and provide tech support from home.

We installed and opened TeamViewer on two Windows 7 PCs; one a 64-bit desktop, the other a 32-bit netbook. TeamViewer provides a user name and password for each machine. You simply need to enter each machine's numbers in the other to create a connection. The host PC's screen displays the remote PC's desktop in a window, and the host machine's mouse and keyboard control the remote PC's counterparts. We could open folders, files, and programs; run processes; and change settings: anything we could do with the remote machine's own controls, we could do from our main PC's controls, too, with TeamViewer. We tried the Meeting tool, too, but since we had TeamViewer installed on just two PCs, our pool of invitees was a bit small. TeamViewer offers some useful options; for instance, you can limit it to file transfers if you don't need total control.
Latest arrival : Microsoft Office package 2013 giving Teamviewer Proffessional Version With more facilities..!!

TeamViewer is simply the easiest tool of its type we've used, and a far cry from the VPN apps of not so long ago. And it can cut down on the phone tag when friends and family need tech support!

NB:We are available 24hrs for your Tech Support..!

Thanks

PDF24 Creator - Software Review

2013-12-08T20:51:00.000-08:00

PDF24 Creator -Software Review

Posted By Sinu P Sabu

Download By Clicking Here

The PDF24 Creator can edit PDF files.
Download PDF24 PDF Creator from this page and execute the setup to install the application.
After installation succeeds, a desktop icon for the PDF editor will have been created.
Double-click this icon to start the editor and to start editing PDF files.
The editor contains drag and drop option tin the editing area.
You can also drag and drop documents from PC.
If you drag documents other than PDF files, like .JPEG,PNG,PS, PCL, BMP, PCX, TIFF..etc.
These documents will be converted to PDF and vise versa.
you can delete and rearrange pages, move pages from one document to another, merge documents, change properties like author and title, secure a PDF with a password, sign a PDF document and much more.

Advantages of PDF Creator at a glance.

Upgrades are free and inclusive

PDFs can be created from any application

Freeware (free)

Easy usage

Merge multiple PDF to one

Extract pages from a PDF

Integrated viewer and preview of pages

Encrypt, secure a PDF

Convert documents like Word files

Install once - use indefinitely

Photoshop Tricks 120

2013-12-03T20:48:00.000-08:00

Back To Page

71. Transform a selection

72. Pen tool rubber band

73. Non-destructive crops

Photoshop tips: Non-destructive crops

Pen Tool Tips

74. Tweak anchor points

75. Add a point

76. Remove handles

77. From selection to path

78. Add handles

79. Path options

80. Magnetic Pen

81. Step-by-step: Select sky with Channels

A: Copy Blue Channel

Photoshop tips: Copy Blue channel

B: Load a selection

Photoshop tips: Load a selection

Brush and painting Photoshop tips

82. Try Adobe Eazel

83. Change the brush angle

84. Rotate the clone source

85. Real paint ridges

86. Interactive brush settings

87. Tilt Canvas

Photoshop tips: Tilt Canvas

88. Smudge painting

Smudge tool, fill a layer with an off-white tone, duplicate the Background Layer and set it at the top of the stack, with Opacity at about 13%, then highlight the Smudge tool, check Sample All Layers, and start painting. It’s that simple.

89. Add texture to paintings

Photoshop tips: Add texture to paintings

Precise colour and lines

90. Draw straight lines

91. Sample a colour

colour and then set it as your Foreground colour.

92. Precise painting

93. Cycle through the brushes

94. Dodge or Burn

instantly to the Dodge tool.

95. Get a pen and tablet

96. Change hardness

97. Quick Opacity change

Adobe Camera Raw tricks

98. Use Select All

Photoshop tips: Use select all

99. Open Smart Objects

100. Mask Sharpening

Photoshop tips: Mask sharpening

101. Reset the sliders quickly

Photoshop tips: Reset the sliders quickly

102. Crop ratios

Photoshop tips: Crop ratios

103. Exposure before colour

104. Adjustment Brush controls

Photoshop tips: Adjustment Brush controls

105. Erase masks

106. Clip the blacks

107. Straighten horizons

108. Clipping views

109. Screen real estate

ACR and Bridge

110. 3D carousel view

Photoshop tips: 3D carousel view

111. Paste ACR settings

Photoshop tips: Paste ACR settings

112. Stack similar images

Photoshop tips: Stack similar images

113. Open in ACR

Photoshop tips: Open in ACR

114. Open as layers

Photoshop tips: Open as layers

115. Step-by-step Solarisation in ACR

A: Make a cone-shaped curve

Photoshop tips: Make a cone-shaped curve

B: Convert to mono

Photoshop tips: Convert to mono

Brush up your skills

116. Create a brush

117. Make sketch lines

Photoshop tips: Make sketch lines

118. Experiment

Photoshop tips: Experiment!

different brush effects and settings. The best way to find out how it works is to grab the Brush tool, choose a colour, open a new document and start painting.

119. Go further

120. Step by step: Quick brush effects

A: Set up the Brush

Photoshop tips: Set up the brush

B: Paint mask and colours

Photoshop tips: Paint mask and colours

There’s a really easy way to overlay an image on top of text. Drop an image layer over a type layer then hold down Alt and click the line between the two layers in the Layers Panel to clip the image to the text.

03. Bird’s Eye View

Want to change the default grey background to something more funky? Shift–click over the background area with the Paint Bucket tool to fill it with your foreground colour. Right-click it to go back to grey.

Go to Edit>Preferences>Performance to change the number of History states up to a maximum of 1000. Beware though of the effect that this has on performance.

Use colour coding to organise your Layers Panel. Right-clickover a layer’s eye icon to quickly access 8 colour code choices.

To close all of your documents at the same time, Shift-clickany image window’s close icon.

While using any tool, hold Cmd/Ctrl to temporarily switch to the Move tool. Release to go back to your original tool. Note that spring-loaded keyboard shortcuts work for other tool shortcuts, too.

For interactive zooming, hold Cmd/Ctrl+Space then drag right to zoom in, or left to zoom out. The zoom targets where your mouse icon is, so it’s one of the quickest ways to navigate around an image.

Hold down Cmd+Alt and drag any layer to instantly make a copy.

The Diffuse Glow filter can give highlights a soft ethereal feel, especially when you combine the effect with desaturation. Hit Dto reset colours then go to Filter>Distort> Diffuse Glow. Keep the effect fairly subtle, then go toImage>Adjustments>Hue/ Saturation and drop the saturation down to complete the dreamlike effect.

You probably know that Cmd/Ctrl+Z is Undo, but you may not know Cmd/Ctrl+Alt+Z lets you undo more than one history state.

Shift + or – will cycle through different layer Blend Modes, so long as you don’t have a tool that uses Blend Mode options settings.

Converting a Layer Style to a normal pixel-based layer gives you greater control to edit the contents. To do so, add a style then right-click Effects and choose Create Layer.

If you’re working with multiple layers and you want to view one layer on its own, there’s no need to hide all the others manually, simply hold down Alt and click the Eye icon of a layer to make every other layer invisible. Hold down Alt and click again to reveal them.

After adding any Adjustment Layer, hit Cmd/Ctrl+I to invert the Layer Mask and quickly hide the effect, then paint back over the image with white to selectively reveal the adjustment.

You can move either a mask or an image independently of one another by clicking the link between the two thumbnails in the Layers Panel. Highlight the thumbnail you want to reposition, then grab the Move tool.

Hold down Alt and drag a mask, style or layer to

Double-click the Background Layer and hit OK to convert it to an editable layer

Always use Adjustment Layers rather than directly editing a layer. This gives you three advantages: you can edit it at any time, control the strength with Opacity, and use a mask to make it work selectively.

When using the Move tool, right-click over a point in the image for a list of all the layers you’re hovering over.

The Layers Panel is the most important box in Photoshop, so you’ll want to make sure it’s set up properly for your needs. Choose Panel Options from the Fly-out menu to select different thumbnail sizes and content.

You can move layers up or down the stack in the Layers Panel while watching the image change. Hold down Cmd/Ctrl and press ] or [. Add in Shift to move a layer right to the top or bottom.

You can press Alt+Backspace to fill a layer or

A new layer filled with 50% grey is useful in lots of situations. For example, you can dodge and burn with it, add texture, or manipulate a Lens Flare effect, all in a completely non-destructive way. To create a 50% grey layer, make a new layer then go to Edit>Fill, then set the Blend Mode to Overlay.

Layer Groups are incredibly useful, but don’t bother clicking on the Layer Group icon, as you’ll have to add layers to the new group manually. Instead, you should highlight several layers and either drag them to this icon or alternatively hit Cmd/Ctrl+G.

To apply a change of font or size to multiple type layers at once, hold down Cmd/ Ctrl and click the layers in the Layers Panel to highlight them, then simply select the Type tool and change the settings in the Options Bar.

Hold down Alt and click a Layer Mask thumbnail to toggle between a view of the mask and the image. Hold down Shift and click to turn the mask on or off.

To quickly select all layers of a similar kind, such as shape or type

When not using a painting tool, you can change layer Opacity

You may be familiar with Color Range in the Select drop-down menu. But did you know that you can access a similar command through the Color Range button in the Masks Panel? (Window>Masks). This allows you to quickly make a mask by sampling colours, which can be used for making a quick spot colour effect.

Open a portrait image and a generic fire image, then grab theMove tool and check Auto-Select Layer and Show Transform Controls. Drag the fire image into the girl image to copy it in, then change the Blend Mode of the layer toScreen.

Click the bounding box to transform the fire layer, then resize, rotate and position the layer. Right-click while in Transform mode and choose Warp to wrap the fire around the body. HitCmd/Ctrl+J to copy the fire layer and transform again to build up the effect.

Almost all tools have a contextual menu that’s accessed with a simple right-click. This usually gives you the tool’s major controls and a few handy shortcuts. As well as the tool you have active, where you right-click affects the menu, too. For example, a right-click over a layer thumbnail or mask thumbnail gives different options.

Being able to quickly and easily move around your image and

With any selection tool, hold Shift to add to an existing selection and Alt to subtract from it. Shift+Alt together allows you to intersect selections.

Cut and paste a selection to a new layer and Photoshop will place it in the middle of the screen. If you want to paste it to a new layer, but keep the position the same, use Cmd/Ctrl+X to cut and Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+V to paste in place. Similarly, you should hold down Shift while dragging layers between documents with the Move tool to keep the same position.

Press Cmd/Ctrl+H to hide or reveal a selection’s ‘marching ants’ line. Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+H does the same for a Path line.

Use the Cmd/Ctrl+click shortcut on any layer thumbnail, mask thumbnail, Channel or Path to load its shape or contents as a selection.

When using the Lasso tool, hold Alt then release the mouse

The Rectangular Marquee tool has a useful ‘Style’ setting in the Options Bar that lets you make a selection at a fixed ratio or size. This is helpful if you want to select a specific area to use as a wallpaper or for web pages.

You can transform a selection in just the same way as a layer. Just go to Select>Transform Selection. Right-click to choose from familiar transform modes like Skew and Warp.

If you're new to the Pen Tool, this is one of the best Photoshop tips out there! As a new user it can be frustrating when plotting anchor points, as often you’re not entirely sure how your next curve will behave. There’s a useful feature hidden in the Options Bar that can be a godsend for beginners. Click the ‘Geometry options’ drop-down (next to Auto Add/Delete) and checkRubber Band. Now, as you use the Pen tool you’ll see an interactive preview of your next curve before you add it.

A little-known feature of the Crop tool allows you to hide, rather than delete cropped areas. To do this, you’ll need to make the Background Layer editable first, so double-click it then hit OK. Next, grab the Crop tool and drag a crop window, then instead of applying the crop, check Hide in the Options. Now you can re-crop at any time by dragging outside the window to reveal the previously cropped areas.

When using the Pen tool, hold down Cmd/Ctrl to temporarily switch to the Direct Selection tool. This lets you move anchor points and control handles.

To add a point, hover over the existing path line and the Pen tool will automatically change to the Add Anchor Point tool.

Remove handles from a point and make it into a sharp angle byAlt-clicking over it.

Turn any active selection into a path by clicking the ‘Make Workpath from Selection’ icon at the bottom of the Paths Panel.

Add handles to a point by holding Alt then dragging outwards from the point.

Once you’ve made a path with the Pen tool, right-click for lots of options, including Make Selection, Fill Path and Stroke Path.

For a magnetic Pen tool that behaves just like the Magnetic Lasso tool, choose the Freeform Pen tool from the Tools Panel then check ‘Magnetic’ in the Options Bar.

Go to Window Channel then drag the Blue Channel to the New Channel icon to duplicate it. Hit Cmd/Ctrl+L to access Levels, then drag the white and black point sliders in dramatically to make the sky totally white and the land black. Now use the Brush tool and paint with black to tidy any bits in the land.

Hold Cmd/Ctrl and click the Blue Copy Channel to load a selection of the white areas. Click back on the RGB Channel then go to the Layers Panel and add a Curves Adjustment Layer. The selection is automatically turned into a mask. Drag down on the curve to darken the sky.

For tablet owners, Adobe Eazel is both fun and a serious painting tool. Finger-painted brush strokes have a fluidity that’s difficult to create on a computer. Wireless transmission between tablet and Photoshop streamlines the painting process.

When using a non-circular brush, you may find the need to change the angle of the brush tip. To do this, click the Brush Panel in the Options Bar then highlight Brush Tip shape and drag the circle to change the angle of the brush. You can also flip it horizontally or vertically with the check boxes.

Clone around corners by rotating a clone source. To do so, useShift+Alt+ < or >. It helps if you have Show Overlay checked in the Clone Source Panel, so that you can see the rotation.

The Bevel and Emboss filter is often used by digital painters to make brush strokes look like ridged layers of paint. Merge a copy of all the layers, then set the Blend Mode to Overlay and apply the Bevel and Emboss filter.

When using the Brush tool, hold down Alt and the right mouse button for a preview of the Brush tip’s size and hardness. Drag down and up to increase or decrease hardness, and drag right or left to change the size.

Photoshop tips don't just come in the form of shortcuts. When painting, it’s often easier to rotate the canvas rather than try to bend your wrist into an uncomfortable position. Just as a sketcher would angle a piece of paper, you can angle your canvas by holding down R then dragging it around. Release Rand you’ll flip back to your original tool. To revert back to normal, hold down R and click Reset View in the options.

Smudge painting is quick and immensely satisfying. To paint with the

As a finishing touch, you can make your paintings look much more authentic by adding a paper texture. Copy a texture on top of your image, then experiment with Blend Modes and Opacity until you get the right effect. The Darken or Multiply modes will usually provide you with good results.

To draw a straight line with the Brush tool, hold down Shift and then click two points.

With the Brush tool selected, hold down Alt and click to sample a

Press Caps Lock to switch your cursor to a crosshair.

Use , and . to cycle left or right through the brushes in the Brush Preset Picker.

When painting with the Burn tool, you can hold down Alt to switch

If you’re into digital painting, but don’t own a graphics tablet, you’re missing out on a whole new world of creativity. There are plenty of good, entry-level tablets available, but if you want mid-range features that include multi-touch input, treat yourself to a Wacom Intuos 5.

As you probably know, the ] and [ bracket keys change your brush size, but you can also use Shift+ ] or [ to change the brush hardness.

When using the Brush tool, press any number between 0 and 9 and the Brush Opacity will set to it. 1 for 10%, 9 for 90%, 0 for 100%. Press Shift and a number to adjust Flow.

The following Photoshops tips focus on Camera Raw. To quickly batch process a group of images, open them all in ACR (the easiest way to do this is through Adobe Bridge) and then clickSelect All. Now, any changes you make to one image will be applied to all the open files.

Hold down Shift in ACR and the Open Image button switches to Open Object. Now the file opens as a Smart Object, which means you can double-click the layer thumbnail in Photoshop to go back and edit the layer in ACR.

The Masking slider in the Detail Panel lets you control which areas of an image are sharpened, but it’s impossible to judge unless you hold down Alt as you drag. This displays a greyscale view, in which black areas are protected from sharpening, enabling you to isolate the sharpening to edge areas.

Double-click any slider to reset it to 0. If you click once, then the slider jumps to the point you’re over. So if you keep the mouse still, you can single-click, then double-click over a point for a quick ‘before and after’ view of any adjustment you’ve made.

Square crops can help to make your images stand out from the crowd. For a list of different crop ratios, hold down the mouse button over the Crop tool. Remember, like everything else in ACR, cropping is non- destructive, so you can try out different ratios and adjust the crop at any time.

It’s always best to adjust exposure before you move on to colour correction.

The Adjustment Brush is perfect for selective toning in ACR. The brush works by setting pins, each linked to a painted mask that specifies the area you want to tweak. You’ll need to view the mask when painting, and hide it when using the sliders to adjust the area. Hit Y to switch the view of the mask on or off.

When painting with the Adjustment Brush, hold down Alt to erase parts of the mask.

Deep blacks give an image extra punch, so it’s okay to clip the blacks a little. For deep blacks, drag the Black point slider inwards while holding down Alt until a few dark spots appear.

Hold down A and drag a line to straighten your images.

Hold down Alt while dragging the Exposure, Blacks or Recovery slider to see any clipped pixels, or click the icons at the top right and left of the histogram to see them all the time.

Make the most of your screen size by hitting F to switch the ACR display to Full Screen Mode.

Looking for Photoshop tips to view images in interesting ways? Look no further. All you need to do is hit Cmd/Ctrl+B to see your images in a snazzy 3D carousel. Scroll through the images with the left and right arrow keys and hit down to remove an image from the view.

You can copy ACR treatments from one file to another in Bridge. Right-click any file with the circular ACR icon, then go to Develop Settings>Copy Settings. Right-click another file (or hold down Cmd/Ctrl and click to select more than one) then choose Paste settings.

Stacks can help you keep your workspace tidy and easier to navigate by grouping similar images together. Select a group of files (hold down Shift and click the first and last) then go toStacks>Group as Stack.

Raw files open automatically into ACR, but you can open JPEGs and TIFFs, too, by right-clicking them and choosing ‘Open in Camera Raw’, or simply hit Cmd/Ctrl+R.

You can load a group of images into layers of a single document by going to Tools> Photoshop>Load Files into Photoshop Layers.

Open an image in ACR, then click the Tone Curve Panel. Drag all the points off the curve to delete them, then make one single point in the middle. Drag this down, then drag the bottom left of the curve to line up to the top, making an inverted cone shape.

Click the HSL/Greyscale Panel and check ‘Convert to Black and White’. Use the sliders to tweak the black and white conversion. If you want to add some colour, go to Split Toning and adjust the sliders to add colour to the shadows and highlights. One of the top mono Photoshop tips!

You can create a brush tip from any image you like. Simply convert to monochrome, then make a selection and go toEdit>Define Brush Preset. Only dark parts are recorded; any parts that are pure white aren’t included in the brush tip. So if you want the shape of the brush to be clear, you need to isolate the object or shape against a white background.

If you want to turn a photo into a painting, adding sketch lines can make the effect look more realistic. To do so, duplicate your layer then go to Filter>Stylise> Glowing Edges, then invert the colours, desaturate and use the Darken or Multiply Blend Mode.

The Brush Panel is the control centre for hundreds, if not thousands, of

To take the above tip further, try painting on different layers and use different Blend Modes, or add Layer Style effects to your painted layer.

Load up a generic portrait image and then load the Square Brushes from the Brush Picker drop-down menu.

Select a square brush, then open the Brush Panel and use these settings: Brush tip shape: Spacing 631%. Shape Dynamics: Size, Angle, Roundness Jitter – all 100%. Scattering: Scatter 638%, Count Jitter 50%. Colour Dynamics: Foreground/ Background Jitter 20%, Saturation Jitter 20%. Brightness 30%.

Use the Lasso tool to select the girl then hit Shift+Backspaceand choose Fill: Content-Aware. Hold down Alt and click the Add Layer Mask icon then set Foreground colour to white and paint on the mask over the girl to hide parts of the body. Next, add a new empty layer and hold down Alt to sample colours from the girl, then paint to add coloured fragments. Add a second new layer, paint larger strokes, then blur slightly withFilter> Gaussian Blur.

120 Photoshop tips

2013-11-20T23:12:00.003-08:00

120 Photoshop tips, tricks

and fixes to try today

From creativebloq.com

Improve your skills and speed up your workflow with these 120 expert Photoshop tips, tricks and fixes covering brush tools, layers, shortcuts and more.

Whether you're looking for tips on using layers, advice on mastering the pen tool, a guide to using RAW, or ways to improve your brush work, it's all here! And if you've just got hold of Photoshop CS6, then you'll have plenty to get your creative gnashers stuck in to!

Most of these tips were originally published in our sister title,Practical Photoshop magazine - the best resource for all your Photoshop insights, inspiration, and tips. If you want to get more in-depth tutorials and all the very latest helpful info, then we suggest you get hold of the mag!

Quick Photoshop tips

01. Rotating patterns

Photoshop tips: Rotating Patterns

You can make amazing kaleidoscopic patterns with the help of a keyboard shortcut. Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T lets you duplicate a layer and repeat a transformation in one go. To demonstrate, we’ve made a narrow glowing shape by squeezing a lens flare effect, but you can use any shape, image or effect you like. First, make an initial rotation by pressing Cmd/Ctrl+T and turning slightly, then hit Enter to apply. Next, press Cmd /Ctrl+Shift+Alt+T repeatedly to create a pattern.

02. Combine images with text

Photoshop tips: Combining images with text

When zoomed in close, hold down H and drag in the image to instantly dart out to full screen then jump back to another area. One of the best Photoshop tips for viewing work!

04. Quick full Layer Masks

You can Alt-click on the Layer Mask icon to add a full mask that hides everything on the layer.

05. Easier marquee selections

Hold down Alt to start a selection at the centre point with any Marquee tool, and then hold Space to temporarily move the selection around.

06. Funky backgrounds

Photoshop tips: Funky backgrounds

07. 1000 History states

08. Colour Code Layers

09. Close all images

10. Spring-loaded Move

11. Interactive Zoom

12. Lightning fast layer copies

13. Diffuse effects

Photoshop tips: Diffuse effects

14. Undo, Undo, Undo

15. Cycle Blend Modes

Shortcuts (16 - 43)

Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E will merge a copy of all Layers

F Cycle through workspace backgrounds

X Change your foreground and background colours

D Reset foreground and background colours to black and white

] and [ Change your brush tip size

Cmd/Ctrl+J Duplicate a layer or selection

Space Bar Hold Space and drag to navigate around the image

TAB Hides or shows all panels and tools

Cmd/Ctrl+T Transform a layer

Cmd/Ctrl+E Merge selected layer down, or merges several highlighted layers

Cmd/Ctrl/Ctrl+Shift+Opt+S Save for web & devices

Cmd/Ctrl+L Bring up levels box

Cmd/Ctrl+T Open Free Transform tool

Cmd/Ctrl+M Open Curves

Cmd/Ctrl+B Edit Colour Balance

Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Opt+C Scale your image to your preferred state

Cmd/Ctrl+Opt+G Create clipping mask

Cmd/Ctrl+0 Fit on screen

Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+>/< Increase/decrease size of selected text by 2pts

Cmd/Ctrl+Option+Shift->/< Increase/decrease size of selected text by 10pts

]/[ Increase/decrease brush size

Shift+F5 Fill the selection

}/{ Increase/decrease brush hardness

,/. previous/next brush

</> First/last brush

Cmd/Ctrl+] Bring layers forward

Cmd/Ctrl+[ Send layer back

Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+[ Send layer to bottom of stack

Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+] Bring layer to bottom of stack

Layers

Photoshop tips: Layer tricks

44. Converting Layer Styles

45. View one layer

46. Invert a Layer Mask

47. Unlink layers and masks

48. Quick copy

quickly duplicate it.

49. Convert the Background

50. Adjustments

51. Move query

52. Panel Options

53. Move layers up or down

54. Fill shortcuts

selection with the Foreground colour, Cmd/Ctrl+Backspace to fill a layer or selection with the Background colour, or Shift+Backspace to quickly access the Fill Options.

55. The 50% grey layer

56. Layer Group shortcut

57. Edit multiple type layers

Photoshop tips: Edit multiple type layers

58. Layer Mask views

Photoshop tips: Layer mask views

59. Select similar layers

layers, highlight one of them and then go to Select>Similar Layers.

60. Change Opacity

simply by pressing a number key. Hit 1 for 10%, 5 for 50%, and 0 for 100%.

61. Quick masking

62. Step-by-step Blend fire effects

A: Copy in the fire

Photoshop tips: Copy in the fire

B: Position and warp

Photoshop tips: Position and warp

Top Tool Photoshop Tips

63. Right-click for contextual menus

64. Speedy navigation

zoom in or out will speed up your workflow more than anything else. Use Cmd/Ctrl and + to zoom in, Cmd/Ctrl and – to zoom out. Hold the space bar to temporarily access the Hand tool and drag around the image.

65. Crucial selection shortcuts

66. Paste in place

67. Hide the Marching Ants

68. The amazing Cmd/Ctrl+click

69. Switch lasso

button to temporarily switch to the Polygonal Lasso tool.

70. Fixed Ratio selections

10 Photoshop Tips and Tricks

2013-11-20T23:02:00.001-08:00

10 Photoshop Tips and Tricks for Beginners

Web Design | June 21st 2013

3
inShare

Photoshop is a heck of an amazing software that can really help your creativity express itself through a variety of useful tools. It’s also excellent if all you want to do is retouch a photo a bit before you post it on your site or anywhere else. If you are a Photoshop beginner, only recently exposed to the wonders of this advanced design machine, read on. We have gathered a few tips and tricks that could really make a difference as you move forward with your next few images.

Note: The shortcuts are phrased for PC users. Mac people – you know what to do with them.

Transform

When you want to change the size of an image, rotate, flip or distort it, you can always do so by clickingEdit, then click Transform and select the action you desire. To make life easier, there’s a shortcut you can use. Simply press Ctrl + T on your keyboard and a bounding box will then appear around the image, indicating transformation. This means you can now resize your image. The best way to do so is by placing the cursor on one of the rectangle corners and then dragging the corner while holding theShift key. When you’re finished just press Enter and you’re done.

To flip your image vertically or horizontally press Ctrl + T and then right click your mouses. A popup window will appear with a few options for rotating and flipping the image. Select the action you want and when you are done press Enter.

Similarly, to distort or skew the image press Ctrl + T and then place the cursor on one of the corners you want to distort. Press Ctrl while holding your mouse down on the corner and dragging it down to wherever you want, then press Enter to activate.

Change the Unit of Measurement

A short and quick way to switch between units of measurements is to place the cursor on one of the rulers (press Ctrl + R to show or hide the rulers), and right click, then choose a new unit from the context menu. You have a wide variety of units there, from centimeters to pixels, millimeters, points and even percents.

Magnetic Lasso Tool

This is an easy selection tool that helps you trace and outline a part of an image, and to separate it from the rest of the image in order to perform certain actions. For example, you can select and separate a product from its background.

The magnetic lasso tool detects the edges of an object, so it works best when you have a bold contrast between an object and its background with well defined edges. You can find this tool in the tools panel.

To access the Magnetic Lasso, click and hold your mouse button down on the Lasso Tool until a fly-out menu appears . The magnetic lasso is the last one with a small magnet on it’s icon. Select it and then go to your image and place your mouse on the edge of the part you want to select. Click your mouse once, release and just go over the edges of the object you want to select (just like you do with scissors when you cut something out).

Magic Wand Tool

The Magic Wand is another selection tool, ideal for when you are working with a background that is very monotone and consistent. If you have a clearly defined color that you want to choose in an image, this is the tool for you. For example, the Magic Wand is great when you want to select a white background or a clear blue sky.

Choose the magic wand tool from the tools panel and click on the part of the image you want to select. Make sure that you toggled the “add to selection” option on the top bar (icon of two squares) so you can keep on adding colors and tones to your selection.

Using the Magic Wand tool we selected and deleted Manhattans blue skyline

Custom Shape Tool

The Tool Panel offers all the basic shapes you need like square, line, circle, ellipse etc. However, if you’d like to have extended options check out the custom shape tool. Represented by icon that kind of resembles a roadkill (but it’s far from it!) the custom shape tool is easy to find on the Options Bar. After you select it, a world of shape options will reveal itself to you.

A shape preview thumbnail will appear to the right of the Custom Shape Tool icon. The selection is great and you can access even more shapes by clicking again on the small arrow on the right side of the panel. If you are looking for banners, speech bubbles or arrows of all kinds, this is just the tool for you.

Adjustment Layers

As you use Photoshop for whatever purpose, like change colors of an image, make it sharper or improve the contrast, remember to always use the adjustment layers. The big advantage of the adjustment layer is that you don’t make the changes on the image itself but on a separate layer, so you can always change the settings to see which adjustment works best for you. You will find adjustment layers in the bottom of the the Layers Panel (a black and white circle icon).

Sharpen and improve your photo using Adjustment Layers

Layer Styles

This is a simple & easy way to add some pizazz to your image. Layer styles are special effects that can be quickly applied to individual layers. All you have to do is double click on a layer and then choose the effect you like.

You can select from a whole variety of features, add a stroke or a glow, drop a shadow, and much more with just a click of the mouse. Be careful you don’t overdo it. These effects have a tendency to look cheap and sleazy when there’s too much of them.

Easily add a stroke or drop a shadow on any object or text.

Spot Healing Brush

Yes – it’s exactly like it sounds, this tool will make everything look prettier! If you have a spot, blemish, or a mole this tool will remove it instantly. It can also be used as a pimple remover. Just place the brush over the area you want to “fix”, make sure the brush is a bit bigger than the blemish and click. Photoshop automatically samples from around the retouched area so you really don’t need to do anything else.

One simple click and the spot is gone

Dodge Tool

The Dodge Tool lightens pixels where you use it. This is a great solution for red “tired eyes”. Set the Dodge Tool to a soft brush, go to Range setting in the menu-bar’s pull-down and choose highlights, set Exposure on around 20%. Then carefully brush over the eye area. Remember not to overdo it, or your model will start to look like an alien. A few simple strokes should do the job.

Blur Tool

A simple and delicate way to remove small wrinkles is to blur them a bit. Use the Blur tool to smooth-out small imperfections like the wrinkles around the eye or mouth area and simply blur them into the background. Again, be gentle and remember not to overdo it or instead of improving your image you’ll end up spoiling it. The Blur tool can be used for repair as well as more artistic purposes so it’s important to become friendly with it.

What a difference the Dodge and Blur tools can make! With a little help of Adjustment layers

Tagged with: Web Design How To

Samsung Galaxy S4

2013-11-15T22:40:00.001-08:00

Samsung Galaxy S4 review

The Galaxy SIV is here - but does it pack enough of a punch?

By Gareth Beavis

The Samsung Galaxy S4 is the most hotly anticipated smartphone ever from the Korean brand, and with a glut of top end features, it's the most powerful and desirable device Samsung has created yet.
One of the most impressive things about the phone is the fact the size hasn't changed from its predecessor - the Galaxy S4 comes in at 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9mm (5.38 x 2.75 x 0.31 inches), meaning there's no extra heft to try to work with in your palm.
However, despite this fact, the screen on the S4 has been increased once more, to a whopping 5-inch display with Full HD resolution. This means the same amount of pixels you'd have seen on a TV that cost well over £1,000 four years ago is now riding around in your pocket.

Let's not pretend that Samsung is a pioneer in this area though: like a great many features of the Galaxy S4, the phone borrows a lot from the other top smartphones of the moment. Both the Sony Xperia Z and the HTC Onehave screens that rock the same resolution, but neither of them have the jaw-dropping clout of the Super AMOLED HD screen on offer here.
On top of that, there's a much faster processor packed under the hood, ample storage space for media thanks to an expandable memory card slot, and the likes of 4G, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC and pretty much any other connection you care to mention on board.

Samsung has tried to supplement this with a tranche of software upgrades too, meaning a more powerful camera, a better way to communicate with your friends and consume media, and interestingly a big push into health through dedicated apps too.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 costs the same as the HTC One, give or take a pound or two, on contract. This will still put it around £35 per month, which isn't too bad for such a high design.

But before we dissect all the possibilities the phone has to offer, let's look at the design. As we mentioned, it's impressive in its form factor, thanks to the sub-8mm thickness, and at 130g it manages to still be light without shaving off so much heft that you feel like you've got a flimsy piece of plastic.

That's probably the biggest compliment we can pay the Samsung Galaxy S4 - where its predecessor felt a little bit cheap in the hand, the S4 manages to bring a much more solid build and better construction to boot.
So while the "faux metal" band makes a comeback on this model, it looks a lot more premium. And there's very little flex in the chassis when you hold it tightly, which was another problem with the Galaxy S3 at times.

That doesn't mean that the phone is completely remodelled from the S3 - it's very similar in appearance, so much so that a number of people asking to see it during our review thought we were palming them off with our old S3. The polycarbonate chassis remains, but that brings with it the faithful battery cover, which conceals a removable battery and microSD slot.

We're not so fussed about the battery being able to drop out of the phone - so few people carry around a spare battery, and nowadays portable charging blocks are becoming so cheap and light that they make much more sense too.
We'd almost prefer something like the Sony Xperia Z, which has a refined and packaged chassis but doesn't need a removable battery: it makes use of a slot instead for the memory card. This integrated nature would make for a slightly more premium feel to the phone.

However, it's a small gripe with the S4, as while the cover feels flimsy, it's better than it was on the S2 and the S3, and they both sold like hot cakes.
In the hand, the Samsung Galaxy S4 feels much better than any other Samsung phone we've held (apart from the gargantuan smartphones the brand used to make - the i8910 Omnia HD might have been built like a brick, but it felt wonderful to hold). The screen's spread towards the sides of the phone means a much narrower bezel, and the effect is certainly impressive.

It might look very similar to the S3, but when you take the Samsung Galaxy S4 up close, you really start to appreciate the nuances.
We'd say it feels a lot more like the LG Optimus G range now - when we first picked it up, we were struck with how similar it felt in terms of sturdiness and the polycarbonate construction to the LG Optimus G Pro.
That's no criticism, as the device was well built too, but it has a similar rounded feel. This is intriguing given the history of the two companies, and shows more of a leaning towards the plastic shell from the Asian brands in general.

Buttonry has barely changed from before - the power button has been shifted slightly on the right-hand side, and is now much easier to hit. Samsung has clearly taken some lessons from the Galaxy Note 2, which has a really well positioned power/lock button.
The volume key is less easy to hit, and could be lower down in our eyes, but the travel on both of these buttons is satisfying, and you'll always know when you've hit them.
The plastic used on the home key has been upgraded too, with a more solid feel under the thumb when you press down to get back to the main home screen. The two buttons flanking it give you access to menus or take you back from whence you came, and while both are easily hidden, they light up nicely with an even glow when called into action.
There are loads of sensors on the front of the phone above the screen, including cameras to track your eyes, a 2MP camera for HD video calling and a proximity sensor for knowing where the phone is in relation to your ear. On the white review unit we had, their presence looks rather ugly either side of the generous earpiece, but on the darker models this is less of an issue.

The other notable addition to the design of the Galaxy S4 is the infra red blaster on the top of the phone. This enables you to control your TV, satellite box, DVD player, amp and even air conditioner. Again, this isn't a new feature, but it works well in practice, and despite being small is powerful enough indeed.
Other than that, there's not a lot more to say about the design of the phone, as it's just a little underwhelming. We know it's unfair to lambast a brand for not overhauling the design every year, but in the One X and the One, HTC has proven that it is possible to offer up a new design each time around and still keep things attractive.
Looking so similar to the Galaxy S3, you can't help but feel Samsung has gone a little too Apple and created something more in keeping with the Samsung Galaxy S3S - a minor update to a great phone to keep those coming out of contract happy that they have a premium phone to upgrade to.
We do implore you to get the phone in your hand before making a judgement though - while it's not got the best design on the market when it comes to materials, it's a big step forward compared to the Galaxy S3 and allows for a grippy and easy-to-hold phone, with a whopping screen inside.
To just dismiss it for being plastic would be doing the S4 a disservice as it has so much more going for it than that, but it's worth remembering that to a lot of people, the way a phone looks is as important as how much RAM it's got on board and how fast the CPU is - if not more so.
The Samsung Galaxy S4 has an all-new screen, and we'll state it now: the Samsung Galaxy S4 has the best display you can find on a smartphone.
It's the same Super AMOLED technology used in other Galaxy smartphones, but this time it's been cranked up to Full HD resolution, which is 1920 x 1080 pixels, if you're asking.
This uses the same PenTile matrix that's drawn so much criticism for Samsung over the years, as some state that Samsung is using too many of one colour of pixel, or sub-pixel (the colours within each pixel) is too basic – all of this has meant that older Galaxy smartphones have had something of a blue or green tint, or been a little low-resolution when viewed (admittedly really) close up.
The Samsung Galaxy S
Well, and you'll forgive us for saying the same thing that we did last year with the Galaxy S3, close up now there's no way you can see any jagged edges or elements within the icons. It's simply superb, and makes everything from web pages to video look brilliant.
The Samsung Galaxy S2
And there's no worry about the tints of old, nor the criticisms levied at Samsung for making over-saturated screens, as often people have claimed that the colours look too strong on these devices thanks to the OLED technology used.
It is a feature of the technology, and not just because of the high contrast ratios on offer, but with the Galaxy S4 Samsung has added in a mode to make the colours look more natural, should the user so with to have it that way.
The Samsung Galaxy S3
This method does drop the brightness somewhat, and that's already lower than you might find on the HTC One but that extra brightness isn't needed thanks to the contrast ratio we mentioned earlier. One of the strengths of OLED technology is that when a pixel is displaying a black image, it's completely off, and therefore draws less power and looks darker. Compared to LCD screens, which have a backlight to light the colours in front, this means that the blacks will never be as black as found on an OLED.
So, as we said, there's nothing to want for with the Super AMOLED Full HD screen found on the Samsung Galaxy S4. It might not be as high resolution as the HTC One, simply because it's larger with the same amount of pixels, but viewed up close you'll struggle to find a flaw with it.
The Samsung Galaxy S4
You can change the brightness from the notification bar by sliding your finger up and down the screen - but if you want to make things easier you can just tag the Auto button and have the Galaxy S4 working away at deciding the optimum brightness for you.
What's new here is the ability to customise the auto level - so if you like things a little lighter or darker, then you can choose such a thing. It's a good way to manage your battery even easier.
Another feature, which is both good and bad, is the improved capacitive technology used in the screen. This is designed to ape a feature brought by Nokia on the Lumia 920, which enables you to wear gloves and still use the phone - which will be a key feature to those in colder climes, or like to wear gloves for sport or similar.
However, while this works well for gloves, it does over-power the screen somewhat, in that when you're holding your finger over the screen looking to scroll up and down when you're read a certain paragraph, it will sometimesregister a press when you've no intention of doing so. It's irritating to say the least, and something that we hope Samsung irons out with future software updates.
Aside from that, there's not a thing that we can criticise the Samsung Galaxy S4 screen for in any way, as it's as close to perfect as you can get on a smartphone - making it a great device for so many more functions as a result.
Via Tech Radar.com

GIMP review

2013-11-11T03:41:00.002-08:00

GIMP review: This free image editor is no longer a crippled alternative to Photoshop

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Whether you are actively considering a move away from Photoshop, or simply hoping there is a non-proprietary tool for reading your Photoshop images if you ever decide to stop subscribing to Adobe’s cloud, you’ve probably wondered about GIMP. A free, open-source, image editor, the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) has been a go-to tool for Linux users for years, but has a reputation for being hard to use and lacking many of Photoshop’s features. The reality has changed dramatically over the last couple years. GIMP now has a very competent user interface, as well as an extensive and powerful set of features. Its openly extensible nature means that in some areas, like running well-known image processing algorithms on your photos, it actually outshines Adobe Photoshop.

We took a deep dive into the current version, GIMP 2.8, to help you figure out whether GIMP might be the right photo editor for you.

First impressions fromt Photoshop veteran

When you first load GIMP 2.8, you might be forgiven for thinking that you’d fired up an alternate UI for Photoshop. Familiar panels for Layers, Brushes, Tools, Paths, and plenty of others are available. Individual tabs can be torn off (although it requires using a command on the palette menu instead of Adobe’s more intuitive action), so you can tweak GIMP UI just about as much as you can Photoshop’s.

Menus also closely parallel Photoshop’s, with File, Edit, Select, View, Image, Filters, and Help serving the same functions — although in a slightly different order. The Colors and Tools menus are unique to GIMP, with Colors pulling together operations that affect image content, that are usually found under the Image > Adjustments menu in Photoshop. The Tools menu pulls together a mixed bag of the same tools that are found in the Toolbox, plus some tools Adobe puts in the Image menu, like Crop. It also provides a window into some of the very powerful and extensible scripted image transforms that GIMP allows. Unfortunately, some of the icons, like the one for the crop tool shown, are different from the ones used by Photoshop, so finding your favorite may take some hunting.

Crop tool

GIMP’s missing Text menu is a hint that its Text capability, while very competent, is not as feature-rich as Photoshop’s. Missing are some of the fancy layout options, as well as all the built-in effects and warps from Photoshop. The good news is that there are GIMP plug-ins that will restore many of the missing features.

The menu of 3D commands found in Photoshop’s Extended and Creative Cloud editions is also not part of Gimp. Some of the available GEGL (Generic Graphics Library) scripts are helpful in performing similar operations in Gimp, though. Those scripts are one of the coolest features of GIMP, making it an open platform for image processing developers. While Photoshop can be scripted, most image transforms are either “black box” plug-ins or actual built-in commands.

GIMP also lacks Photoshop’s powerful Adjustment Layers. You can make a new layer, apply a Filter, and then tweak the opacity or blend mode, but it is a full image layer — like it or not. There are some plans to try to offer equivalent functionality to Adjustment Layers through GIMP, but there doesn’t seem to be an ideal workaround for the issue yet. GIMP History feature is also much less powerful than Photoshop’s. You can go back through your History as you might in most software — essentially a graphical list of possible Undos — but you can’t play around with your History or use a History brush like you can in Photoshop.

Raw shooters need to think twice

GIMP also does not include built-in Raw processing. Photographers will need to download a separate converter, with UFRaw being the most popular. At one point UFRaw was implemented as a plug-in, but the current version is a standalone application that can launch GIMP with the processed image. Fortunately, UFRaw is a very competent Raw converter, with flexible options for setting White Balance and various demosaicing algorithms. It is also frequently updated to support new camera models as they hit the market. It even has the advanced capabilities of Adobe Camera Raw for creating camera-model and lens-specific profiles, and for doing mild pre-processing on the Raw file, but it requires some patience to figure out how to use those more advanced capabilities.

GIMP is not Photoshop

Just to set expectations, while GIMP has many of the features of Photoshop, and in many ways a similar UI, you’ll be disappointed if you think you can simply fire it up and act like you’re running Photoshop. You’ll need to meet it half way. One example of this is shortcut keys. For whatever reason, Gimp’s hotkeys are often different from Photoshop. Fortunately there are scripts that will help you quickly remap them to be more similar.

Likewise, GIMP will not run your Photoshop plug-ins, and probably never will. It does, however, have its own library of plug-ins. To make life easier for Windows users of GIMP, there is even a tool that provides a graphical UI forchoosing and downloading plug-ins. Available plug-ins include many of the functions you might otherwise be missing from Photoshop — like fancy layer effects for your type, and built-in HDR processing, for example.

For those who want a platform to experiment with image processing, GIMP is pretty amazing. Scripts can be written in Scheme — like the Script-fu collection pictured at right — or Perl, Python or TCL. The result is a huge collection of open-sourced extensions you can either run as-is or modify to meet your own image processing requirements.

Giving GIMP a try

As you might expect for open-source software, GIMP’s documentation and help system are not as well developed as those for Photoshop. Fortunately, there is finally a really good book that will get you started: GIMP for Photographers by Klaus Goelker. I have some quibbles with some of the finer points he makes about image editing workflow but it is a thorough — nearly 400 page — overview of both GIMP and related Raw processing options.

Fortunately, it is easy enough to try GIMP and decide if you like it. Simply download it and get started. If you’re willing to put up with a bit of a learning curve — and figuring out the GIMP way to accomplish the tasks you do from memory in Photoshop — I suspect you’ll find that GIMP has become a worthy alternative to Photoshop for anyone on a budget who doesn’t need all of Photoshop’s vast feature set.

By David Cardin

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 review

2013-11-10T21:18:00.004-08:00

Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Anupam Saxena,NDTV October 23, 2013

Samsung created a new category when it launched the Galaxy Note. While naysayers were initially critical of its ungainly size, it did manage to attract a large number of consumers who were looking for a device that integrated the big screen of a tablet with the portability and convenience of a smartphone. It even inspired other device makers to launch similar devices, though it's been hard for them to offer a differentiating feature.

The Galaxy Note's strength is the S Pen, the intelligent stylus that accompanies the device and allows users to do more than just navigate the user interface and scribble notes. With the Note 3, Samsung claims to take the experience at the next level. We try to find out if its still the best phablet in the market, in our review.

Build/ Design
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 retains the same design that gave the Note series of smartphones their own identity. When we first lay our hands on the phone, it reminded us of the original Note. The Note 3 looks much more similar to the first-generation Note than the Note II, which was more curved.

The Note 3 is essentially made of plastic but Samsung has cleverly disguised the finish of certain elements to give the smartphone a premium fit and finish. Despite its huge size, the phone doesn't feel heavy and fits in the pocket in a better manner, if you compare it with the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. Having said that, it's still ungainly when it comes to singe-handed operation, though Samsung has tried to find a solution for it.

The Note 3 is available in three colours - Jet Black, Classic White, and Blush Pink, and we got a Jet Black phone as our review unit.

The front of the phone is dominated by its 5.7-inch Full-HD Super AMOLED display. The bezel is narrow on the left and right sides and unlike the Galaxy Note II, the Galaxy Note 3 is not beveled above and below the screen and is flatter, sporting a textured dark grey finish.

The front of the phone still features a physical Home button and two capacitive touch buttons for Menu and Back controls. The different sensors, front camera, notification light and earpiece grill sit above the Note 3's screen.

The phone's front panel is surrounded by a chrome frame, which gives a premium feel to the Galaxy Note 3, but the edges sport a faux-metal finish with a ribbed pattern.

The power button is on the right edge of the Note 3, volume rocker on the left, a 3.5mm headset jack and Infrared receiver on the top and a new USB 3.0 port sits at the bottom aloneg with a small speaker grill and the slot for the S-Pen stylus. It's good that Samsung has placed the power button on the side and not on the top, in line with other large screen phones, but if you have small hands you'll still find the location a little cumbersome.

The back of the Galaxy Note 3 is another place where Samsung has made some major changes to give the phone a refined look. It sports a leather finish, complete with the stitching, and we'll have to say that it looks really close to the real thing and Samsung deserves some credit.

The back also features the 13-megapixel-camera lens, with the LED flash right below it. The Indian version of the Note 3 just features the Samsung branding at the back. There's a small speaker outlet towards the bottom.

The back is removable and hides the micro-SIM card and microSD card slots that are stacked on top of each other, and the battery. Samsung has been able to please people who advocate the use of a removable battery and memory card slot, once again.

Overall, the Note 3 looks much more refined than the Note II with its leather finish back and good weight to dimensions ratio, though it still sports the same design.

Display
As we mentioned, the Galaxy Note 3 is in a way Samsung's other flagship device, other than the Galaxy S4. All flagship devices now tick the full-HD display checkmark, and keeping with the trend, Samsung has also upgraded the screen to full-HD. The screen's also bigger by 0.2-inches at 5.7-inches.

The Galaxy Note 3 comes with a full-HD Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080x1920 pixels packing 386 pixels per inch.

The Galaxy Note 3's display, is among the best displays we've seen so far. In our use, we found that text, images and videos appear extremely sharp, with vibrant colours. Reading text and browsing the web was also a pleasant experience.

The only downside to the display is that colour reproduction is not very accurate, and as with other AMOLED displays, they appear a bit oversaturated.

Just like the Galaxy S4, Samsung offers what it calls Adapt Display, to optimise colours according to ambient light conditions. You can choose between four manual modes (Dynamic, Standard, Professional Photo and Movie) and automatic modes if you select the Adapt Display option. The phone also offers the option to adjust the screen tone automatically to conserve battery power.

The display was not very reflective and sunlight legibility was great. The viewing angles on the phone are excellent.

The Note 3's big full-HD display enhances the user experience by leaps and bounds.

Software / User Interface
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 runs Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, the latest iteration of the OS (at the time of writing this review) and TouchWiz Nature UX, Samsung's own UI that includes custom apps in addition to a skinned interface.

While some people prefer stock Android to any kind of skinning, Samsung's TouchWiz UI has been panned for employing big, glossy and cartoon-like icons and menus. The intent might be to make the UI user-friendly, but it ends up looking anything but pleasant. The Galaxy Note 3's UI has been optimised for the S Pen, a stylus that offers enhanced functionality with the device's built-in digitiser.

The Touchwiz UI add-ons on the Note 3 are similar to that of the Samsung Galaxy S4 and you can read more about them in our Galaxy S4 review.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 offers a more enhanced version of Multi-window that comes with support for launching two instances of the same app. It's also been made more flexible as you can place the Multi-window bar on either side of the screen.

It also offers a new Magazine screen which can be launched by simply flipping the Home screen towards the top. The Note 3 takes a cue from HTC's BlinkFeed notifications screen and allows users to read News across categories, personal content and social network feeds on the Home screen in a magazine like format. It's an alternate home screen as it offers shortcuts for launching apps like the Phone dialler, SMS and Camera, among others.

Just like the previous versions of the Galaxy Note, the Note 3 also features 'one-handed operation' settings allowing users to position not just the keypad and in-call buttons, calculator and screen unlock pattern on the left or right side, as per their convenience, but also shrink the entire interface to one's liking by an awkward left and right swipe gesture. One can resize the interface window to one's liking and Samsung even offers virtual on-screen Menu, Home, Back and Volume control keys. This is a great feature for people who find the screen too big for daily use.

Just like the Galaxy S4, the Note 3 features motion and gesture-driven controls. The gestures include Quick Glance that lets you glance at information like missed calls, time and unread message count when you move your hand over the phone; Air Jump that lets you move up and down web pages and emails when you move your hands, and Air Browse to essentially browse the Gallery, web pages, music tracks and memo notes, and even accept calls with the wave of your hand.

Another similar feature is Air View that lets you preview text inside emails and SMS or images inside a folder when you hover your finger or the S Pen over the screen. This even works for speed-dial contacts, to view Icon labels, scrolling lists and for tracking progress bars while watching videos. You can choose to either use your finger or the -Pen or automatically switch to whichever one it detects.

The major feature of the Note 3 that integrates the S Pen is Air Command. The -Pen that comes with the Note 3 features a button that can be pressed to invoke an Air Command menu on the screen when you hover it over the screen. The Air Command menu brings Action Memo, Scrapbooker, Screen Write, S Finder and Pen Window options. One can also insert content, and contacts and view additional options while hovering the S Pen around the display and pressing the button on the S Pen. It does make things a bit complicated but if you're someone who loves to create content and share it in a jiffy, you might like this feature. We found the additional S Pen button shortcut features a bit overwhelming though.

Elaborating on the Air Commands on the Note 3, the Action Memo lets you jot down things and turn them into actionable items. For instance, you can jot down a number and save it or call it through the Memo.

The 'Scrapbooker' Air Command feature lets you add content from the screen including pictures and YouTube videos and put additional notes. The Screen Write function lets you write free hand on the screen, while the S Finder lets you browse content created with the S Pen and comes with predefined filters. In our use on the Note 3 it was able to search notes for words and symbols.

The 'Pen Window' Air Command on the Note 3 allows you to draw a box and invoke an app allowing you to multitask. You can even watch two YouTube videos through this feature.

Samsung offers S Pen apps like the S Note (for jotting notes), SketchBook (an optional download that offers tools for drawing) and Scrapbook to compile content in a scrapbook format on the Note 3

The Note 3 also has 'Smart Screen' features including Smart Stay, which keeps the screen on as long as you're looking at it; Smart Pause that pauses a running video when you look away, and Smart Scroll that scrolls webpages or emails according to the angle at which you tilt your head or the phone.

Motion commands included on the Note 3 allow you to tilt your phone to zoom in while looking at an image. or turn over the phone to mute while receiving a call.

The Galaxy Note 3 also offers voice commands for accepting and rejecting calls, taking pictures and controlling music. In our use we observed that it worked intermittently.

Samsung also offers some of its pre-loaded apps including S Planner, Voice Recorder, ChatOn messaging app, Samsung Apps app store, Samsung Hub content store, Samsung Link for transferring and syncing content to other devices via cloud services like Dropbox, WatchON - a universal remote control software that also offers program guide functionality, S Translator, Optical Reader, S Memo, S Health, Story Album and Group Play. You can read more about these apps in our Galaxy S4 review.

Camera
The Galaxy Note 3 features a 13-megapixel rear camera that takes excellent shots in daylight and good artificial light. We found that pictures clicked with the phone had good amount of detail and looked very close to life with accurate colour reproduction. We found pictures shot with the Note 3's camera to be a little better than the ones shot with the Galaxy S4.

Low-light shots are an area of weakness. Pictures come out distorted and noisy if it's too dark. Strangely, Samsung has not included a Night Mode setting in the phone's camera app. The phone can't match the low-light performance of the HTC One and the iPhone 5.

The Galaxy Note 3's 2-megapixel front camera does a decent job when it comes to video chats but pictures taken indoors were grainy at times.

The Note 3's rear camera is capable of recording 1080p video and performs well. It can also capture Slow motion, Fast motion and Smooth motion videos. It also offers video stabilisation to let you take steady shots. The phone's rear camera performs well in the video capture department. It's worth pointing out that unlike the Snapdragon 800 variant of the Note 3, the Exynos 5 Octa-version sold in India does not offer support for 4K video recording.

The Galaxy Note 3 also adds the Galaxy S4's new camera tricks including Cinemagram like Animated photo mode; an Eraser mode to delete moving objects from 5 consecutive photos; Drama shot, which takes multiple photos of a moving object and merges them all to denote action; and Best face, which allows selecting the best face shot in group photos, in addition to the usual Burst mode that takes 20 continuous shots, and HDR mode and Panorama mode. It also allows you to shoot through both the front and rear lenses simultaneously and put a stamp-sized photo of yours in a photo that you're clicking with the rear camera.

You're not likely to find all of these tricks useful in the long run, though.

Performance/ Battery Life
The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 is powered by Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa 5420 processor which is essentially a set of two quad-core processors- a 1.9GHz Cortex A15 quad-core processor and a 1.3GHz Cortex A7 quad-core processor that work together to optimise processing. It has 3GB RAM onboard, and a Mali T628 MP6 chip for processing graphics. Our review unit had 32GB of expandable built-in storage, out of which 24GB was available for our use.

With Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, the overall experience of navigation through the interface was extremely impressive, thanks to all the power under the hood. We did not experience any lag at all on the Note 3. We had no issue while launching apps, playing games, scrolling web pages or switching between apps. Performance wise the Galaxy Note 3 is a power horse, compared to the other Android flagships in the market at this point in time.

The Galaxy Note 3 offers Chrome in addition to the default browser. The default browser does not offer Adobe flash. It also offers a reader mode for reading text heavy web pages.

We were able to play full-HD clips on the Note 3, though some formats including .mov, were not supported natively (this was easily fixed by the use of third party apps). The speaker outlet on the phone delivers good quality sound at average volume levels.

Call quality on the Note 3 was great, and the phone is able to latch on to cellular networks even in weak signal areas.

Notably, the Galaxy Note 3 lacks FM radio functionality, which will surely disappoint many, especially in our Indian audience.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 comes with a 3200mAh battery, and in our usage, it lasted us a full workday. We charged the phone in the morning (at around 9AM), and with medium to heavy usage, including 1-1.5 hours of phone calls, two email accounts with push notifications, playing some music, taking some photographs, Twitter notifications and WhatsApp chats, the phone lasted a good 9-10 hours. It's worth pointing out that we had turned off Wi-Fi and auto-brightness, and the phone was hooked to a 3G network with the screen brightness at the highest level. Altering these settings might help in running the phone for a longer duration, depending on your usage pattern.

Verdict
The Galaxy Note 3 is indeed the best big screen phone or phablet available in the market, at this point in time. It packs in the latest hardware, a brilliant full-HD screen, better build quality and a smart stylus that makes multi-tasking a breeze. At a price of Rs. 49,900, the Galaxy Note 3 offers almost every imaginable feature that a modern smartphone could offer. But is it really for you?

If you're looking for a big screen high-end smartphone and only want to settle with nothing but the latest hardware, the Note 3 is a great device. It makes even more sense if you like scribbling notes, collecting and organising content that you come across, or doodling, in other words, going beyond just pure content consumption. The S Pen's Air Commands also take interaction with the features and UI of the phone, to the next level.

We're a bit disappointed that Samsung chose to offer the Exynos version of the Note 3 instead of the Snapdragon 800 one, as it misses out on 4K video recording which would have made the phone future proof for at least some time.

If you're fine with last year's hardware and don't want to shell out a lot of money, the Note II is still available, and with the software updates, offers a good phablet experience. Other devices you can look at include the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, though it doesn't offer a good camera (lacks LED flash as well) experience and feels a little awkward to carry due to its dimensions to weight ratio.

REVIEW: BBM for Android, BlackBerry's last gasp at relevance

2013-10-23T22:41:00.004-07:00

by Melissa J. Perenson

Credit: screenshot

Show Caption

There's something almost unholy about saying that, about mixing BlackBerry's flagship messaging app experience with the Appleverse and Googleverse. And yet, today the twain become intertwined. BlackBerry's cross-platform BBM -- available today on Android and iOS for phones only -- is the company's long-awaited Hail Mary, a last chance for showing BlackBerry can indeed be relevant in the modern smartphone world.

In my usage so far, BlackBerry has indeed delivered an Android experience that's consistent with BBM on BlackBerry Z10 phone. And iOS looks the same, too. So is there an advantage to BBM's approach to messaging? I'd say yes -- and not necessarily for the reasons you expect.

Four key enterprise features in iOS7 that aren't quite ready out of the box

To say that BBM will be able to save BlackBerry puts a lot of weight on the shoulders of a single software experience, which has plenty of competition already on the floor. But BBM stands out because of the very same design elegance and fluidity that made us reviewers and early users sit up and take notice of the BlackBerry Hub on the BlackBerry 10 OS and BlackBerry Z10 phone. (There, BBM was one component of the BlackBerry Hub, which pulls BBMs, text messages, calls, e-mails, and notifications under a single roof.) While the Hub and the smooth design of apps like BBM alone were not compelling enough to sway the masses over to the Z10, it's great to see BBM freed from being tethered solely to BlackBerry's hardware.

It's a gutsy move on BlackBerry's part to make BBM an open platform. However, this move was shrewd and necessary for the company's survival. Gutsy because BBM has long been an only-on-BlackBerry experience, and an incentive for staying with BlackBerry. Necessary because BlackBerry was so late to the modern smartphone party that many BBM fans had long since defected, and clearly the Z10 hardware wasn't getting the company the attention or market share it needed to reclaim its crown. Rebooting BBM -- which BlackBerry says still has 60 million active monthly users -- is the company's last salvo at remaining relevant and showing its mettle in an already crowded and commoditized market.

Hands-on with BBM

Today's BBM launch is BlackBerry's second attempt to get BBM for everyone off-the-ground. After the first attempt, the app was pulled from the store because of demand was high, and a glitch needed to be fixed. In the interim, BBM amassed some 6 million sign-ups pre-registered at BBM.com.

To download the app, I went to BBM.com, and entered the e-mail address I'd pre-registered with. And from there, I signed up for a BlackBerry ID, received an eight digit PIN, and I was off and running. (Pre-registered addresses and existing BlackBerry IDs get to move to the head of the line for the new apps.)

What works about BBM is that it returns to the basics of what a messaging app should do, and it does so with an unpretentious clarity that understands the kinds of actions you'd expect around a group messaging chat. It's not about liking posts (see: the Facebook effect), or sending links, or emailing a chat message (though you can copy a single chat message or the entire chat -- very handy for reference purposes). It's all about messaging, and doing so in a way that's integrated with your existing environment. Schedule an event tied to a Group chat? That event is automatically added to your phone's calendar.

I used BBM on a Galaxy S4 Android phone and on a BlackBerry Z10 for the native experience. Each phone was I was admittedly talking with myself here in these early hours -- no one I knew I had a BBM account. And even once I got started chatting with a colleague, it was still very much tumbleweeds blowing through my contacts account.

That's because you have to manually invite contacts to join you on BBM. There's no auto-population or auto-discovery based on the 10 trillion names in your address book. BBM touts its security by assigning you a PIN number when you first register for a BlackBerry ID, and that PIN is one of several ways you can invite someone to chat. You can invite a new person to BBM chat via PIN, email message, or SMS message -- or, if you're standing next to one-another, via barcode scan or NFC. Those last two will come in handy at the next conference or networking cocktail hour.

During chats, you can clearly see when someone is typing a message, and you can clearly see who's chatting at a given time. But the messages don't take up too much room on screen, which means you can typically view more than one volley of messages at any given time. Among the options available to you: You can attach a photo (new from the camera or from the Gallery) or a voice note (a la WhatsApp) to a message. And you can add someone to an existing chat, or start a multiperson chart or send a broadcast message.

Credit: Screenshot

BBM's group chat feature goes well beyond what most standalone group chat apps offer.

The other way to do multiperson chats is to establish a Group, with up to 30 BBM contacts. The group chat feature is the most powerful, and most relevant for business (though I can see it coming in handy as way to coordinate with friends where you'll meet up after the first game of the World Series).

Once you create a group, you get a clean quadrant of options -- one of which is the actual chat itself. Add images from your image gallery or directly from the camera; schedule a meeting, or create a Task List with custom name, items, categories for those items, assign to someone in the chat, give a due date, and provide a priority. This goes above and beyond what many of the other group messaging apps I've seen do. And more importantly, perhaps, is that BlackBerry does so with a stylish, attractive interface that's intuitive, finger friendly, and uses its available screen real estate wisely.

BBM's biggest weakness is that there's currently no desktop client. For workplace scenarios, a Web-based desktop varietal is crucial to success in the office. The company has this will happen by the end of this year. Also missing: Video chat, though that's something BlackBerry promises just with no timeline attached.

Can BBM alone save BlackBerry? Probably not, especially considering the app is free to all users. However, BBM is a critical component to BlackBerry future. The app clearly shows that BlackBerry still knows how to execute on a plan, and it knows how to deliver something that fills a void. If people start turning to BlackBerry again, the struggling company can only benefit from the accompanying halo effect.

Google ‘Web Designer’ Launches

2013-10-02T00:22:00.002-07:00

Google launches beta of ‘Web Designer’ HTML5 design tool

Google announced that it is launching a public beta for its new Web Designer tool that allows users to build interactive ads and other HTML5 content. Google says that with HTML5 ad spend expected to overtake Flash spend within the next two years, it’s aiming to provide easy-to-use tools that will allow publishers to quickly and easily create and publish HTML5 ads:

We’re working hard to solve this development challenge by offering agencies powerful yet easy-to-use tools for HTML5 production. In this vein, we announced DoubleClick Studio Layouts for HTML5 back in August, which lets you create HTML5 ads in minutes, and last week we announced Ready Creatives in AdWords, which creates HTML5 ads for you in seconds. Today, we’re excited to announce the public beta of Google Web Designer, a new professional-quality design tool that makes HTML5 creative accessible to everyone from the designer to the dabbler.

Google walked through a few of the features of Web Designer in its blog post:

Create animated HTML5 creative, with a robust, yet intuitive set of design tools.
View and edit the code behind your designs and see your edits reflected back on the stage automatically.
Build ad creatives seamlessly for DoubleClick and AdMob, or publish them to any generic environment you choose.
Receive updates to the product automatically, without having to re-download the application.

It also noted that access to Web Designer will be free for all, at least for the time being.
The Web Designer beta is available to download on Google’s website. Google has a getting started guide here, and high-speed demo of an ad being created in the Web Designer beta is below:

Software Review-AVG AntiVirus FREE 2014

2013-09-26T04:18:00.001-07:00

AVG AntiVirus FREE 2014

By Sameera T4U from pcmag.com

If you don't have antivirus protection installed on all your PCs, shame on you! Given the quality of free antivirus products currently available, there's just no excuse for going without protection. AVG AntiVirus FREE 2014 is a good choice. I had a little trouble getting it installed on malware-infested test systems, but once installed it did a good cleanup job, and it turned in a great score in my malware-blocking test.

The product itself is free, but AVG really, really wants you to launch a 30-day trial of their full security suite. You get that option during installation, and a banner across the bottom of the main window repeats the offer each time you launch the antivirus. As I stepped through the product's features, I found quite a few marked "Upgrade to activate." I'll look at those features when I review the full suite.

One row of big buttons on AVG's main window let you access components like computer protection and Web browsing protection. Another row links to an array of other solutions from AVG. You can launch a one-time performance-fixing scan, and optionally install AVG's tune-up solution. There are links to the company's mobile apps, and to a partner-licenses app for ensuring you have the latest drivers. And a whole separate "More from AVG" page displays the company's entire line of products, most of which require separate purchase.

But don't worry. You really can have free antivirus protection. You just need to resist the temptation to purchase the various optional add-ons.

Rough Time at InstallationOn exactly two of my twelve malware-infested test systems AVG installed and scanned without any problems. The installer crashed on another two, but worked OK when I retried the installation. In several cases the full scan halted with an "unspecified error"; trying the scan one or two more times fixed most of these.

Like most security companies, AVG offers a Rescue CD for situations where the antivirus can't install. The Rescue CD is a blast from the past, with a totally text-driven interface, but it offers a full collection of tools, not just an antivirus scan. It wiped out ransomware on one test system and cleared up a malware infestation that actively blocked the installer on another.

I went back and forth with tech support, supplying diagnostic logs and running the tools they supplied. The toughest problem was a system that lost all connectivity after AVG's scan; they eventually tracked that one down. Ten of twelve test systems encountered some sort of problem and a few needed days of back-and-forth with tech support. They all got sorted in the end, but I'm giving AVG two stars for installation experience.

Effective Malware RemovalOnce I got past the installation difficulties, I found that AVG did a good job cleaning up my messy, malware-infested test systems. It detected 78 percent of the samples and scored 6.4 points, narrowly beating Norton AntiVirus (2014)$49.99 at Norton's 6.3 points. Of products tested using my current malware collection, only Bitdefender Antivirus Plus (2014)$39.95 at BitDefender and the cleanup-only Jumpshot tool did better, with 6.6 and 6.5 points respectively.

Looking at antivirus products tested using my previous malware collection, the free, cleanup-only Malwarebytes Anti-Malware 1.70 beat all the competition, earning 7.1 points, and it did so without a hint of difficulty installing or scanning for malware. $19.99 at Webroot also did well, with 6.6 points. For an explanation of how I gather malware samples and perform this test, please see How We Test Malware Removal.

Free Download