Using Odosketch cant be easier. Just select the crayon type and color you want and start sketching. Once done, it can be saved and shared with other odosketch artists. The saved sketch can be retrieved from our profile later on for further enhancement.

Embedding

The sketch cannot be exported as an image, but if you want to show off your work in your website, odosketch gives you the embed code.

Video

Check this video for sketches created using odosketch

What are you waiting for… Unleash your creativity… Start sketching now…

Seam carving is an image resizing algorithm developed by Shai Avidan and Ariel Shamir. This algorithm alters the dimensions of an image not by scaling or cropping, but rather by intelligently removing pixels from (or adding pixels to) the image that carry little importance.

The importance of a pixel is generally measured by its contrast when compared with its neighbor pixels, but other measures may be used. Additionally, it’s possible to define (or autodetect) areas of high importance (faces, buildings, etc.) in which pixels may not be deleted, and conversely, areas of zero importance which should be removed first. From this information, the algorithm detects seams (continuous lines of pixels joining opposite edges of the image) which have the lowest importance, and deletes those. This shrinks the image by one horizontal or vertical line, depending on which direction the seam ran.

Seam carving can also be run in reverse by adding interpolated pixels along the lowest energy seam.

With this technique, it’s now possible to reduce or enlarge pictures by a wide range, while still retaining details. In normal image scaling, it’s often not possible to scale about factor greater than 2 or less than 0.5, without losing much of the images quality.

More Info : SeamCarving

Check out SeamCarving plugin for GIMP (Examples here)

Xtranormal is an online application which turns your imagination to life. Creating animations with Xtranormal is very easy and can be accompolished in four simple steps.

1. Pick your scene (Backgrounds, Music, Actor Skin etc)
2. Type the script (Not the ‘scripts’ in programming terms, here we mean dialogues)
3. Add actions and sounds (Just drag-n-drop)
4. Publish & Share ( In video sharing sites like YouTube or in Xtranormal catalog)

Xtranormal Editor

Sample Video

[Alternate Link : High Quality Version]

Check out more videos at Xtranormal YouTube Channel & Video Catlog

Publishing Video to Youtube

Once you create your animations, it can be easily published in YouTube easily.

Check these videos to understand more…

Xtranormal Version

Video Version

Go to:

Optimization with RIOT is very simple. Drag-n-drop the image to be processed onto RIOT and it does everything for you. If you are not satisfied with the default settings, tweak the options available to fine tune further. Use the Resize/Resample option to change the image dimensions and quality.

RIOT Resample

Making RIOT Portable:

Use the method mentioned in this post, to make this application portable so that you can run it directly from your USB Thumb drive.

Features:

• Save and optimize JPEG, GIF and PNG with a simple, clean user interface
• Compress files to desired filesize
• Processing is super fast
• Option to remove metadata (Comments, IPTC, Adobe XMP, EXIF profiles, ICC profiles)
• Resize image by using well known resample filters (ex: Lanczos3, Catmull Rom, Bicubic, and others)
• Adaptive logarithmic tone mapping algorithm (Drago) used for HDR images
• Free and Portable!!!

Download RIOT :

More details at RIOT Homepage

Before and after retouching….

Note: This post is moved from my site previous site http://31nst31n-in-me.com (decommissioned now) hence the screenshots are also taken from that site.

From this…

To this…

Step 1 – PrintScreen

Capture the required screen. We will be cropping this image at the later steps, so make sure that the region captured is more than what is required.

1. Screen Capture

Step 2 – Arrange the layers

Open this image in Gimp and duplicate the background layer clicking the ‘Duplicate Layer’ at the bottom of the Layers window. Also create a ‘New Layer’ and select ‘White’ in the ‘Layer Fill Type’ options. Order and rearrange the layers as shown below.

2. Arrange Layers

Step 3 – Apply Video Filter

Select the top layer and apply the ‘Video’ effect from [Filters - Distorts - Video]. Select ‘Striped’ in the Video pattern.

3. Apply Video Filter

Step 4 – Change the Perspective

The actual story begins here… Use the ‘Perspective Tool’ (Shift+P) change top layer to a 3D like image. Click the transform button once you are satisfied with the perspective.

4. Change Perspective

Step 5 – Crop the Image

We can notice the background white layer visible beneath the top layer. No crop the image so that most of the white layer portion is removed.

5. Crop Image

Step 6 – Duplicate Layer

We wont be concerned about the top layer in the subsequent steps. Duplicate the top layer and lets us apply some effects on the new top layer.

6. Duplicate Layer

Step 7 – Blur Layer

Apply ‘Gaussian Blur’ from [Filters - Blur- Gaussian] menu and set the blur radius as shown below.

7. Blur Layer

Step 8 – Layer Mask

Add a Layer Mask on the top layer and select ‘White (full opacity’ option as shown below.

8. Add Layer Mask

Step 9 – Gradient Opacity

Select the White Layer Mask found next to the top layer in the Layers window and click the ‘Blend Tool’.  Select gradient FG to BG and make sure you have selected the foreground and background colors as white and black. Click and drag your mouse from the bottom left corner to the center of the image as shown.

9. Gradient Blend

Step 10 – Blend Overlay

We are almost done. To make the image look more realistic we have to apply gradient again but on a new layer. Change the opacity of the top layer to about 20%. This will create an ‘shade’ found while clicking pic of the LCD display.

10. Gradient Overlay

Practice with different variations and try adding detail to make more realistic.

And here is the final image…

The Final Screen Capture

Download Gimp :

IconLook

This site seems to the best icon finder.
Various features available are tagcloud search, browse popular icons, random icons and filter with size.
The icon database is huge compared to others.

IconFinder

Here you have options to search with the help of Tagcloud, you can even choose the sizes of the icons.

IconsSearch

Size filtering option is present but the search results interface does seem attractive.

IconDB

This is an Ajax based search site. Search Interface looks awesome but no size filtering available.

You know better sites? Mention those in your comments…

This is a online color picker which allows you to select a base color and displays its variant shades in 4 x 4 grid. There is no sliders available to fine tune the selection.

Color Schemer Online

A very basic color picker which has single rainbow colorselection option and textbox which gives the corresponding HEX codes

Color Picker

This is an amazing online color picker which has many features and nice interface.

Features

• To sort picked colors, click color chart column header or footer. It is possible to sort colors by their Number, Lightness, Name, HEX value, Smart value, Web safe value or Description.
• Note that Smart and Web Safe color values are less precise since they are only approximations.
• Point a cursor over the color wheel or palette to pick a color or select an appropriate color range.
• Favorite colors toolbar fixes the color values of 20 most recently picked colors. Also, allows to choose from predefined basic colors (Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow).
• In color picker gradient mode it is possible to choose gradient steps – 8, 16 or 24.
• Click C (copy) in Edit column of color list to copy color HEX code to clipboard.
• Click R (remove) to remove picked color from color table.
• Click D (description) to edit color description.

There are four additional color tables – 16 color chart, X11 color chart, Netscape color chart and Safe color chart.

Online Color Chart

This site provides ‘Testing Site’ side by side which gives live preview after selecting the colors. Color selection is grid based (13×18) so no fine tuning option available.

ColorPicker 3.1

This site is meant mainly for the photoshop/illustrator artists who are very much comfortable with the color blending tools. The blend colors can be saved and downloaded in Photoshop color table format or illustrator format.

Color Blender

Update: The ColorBlender site seems to be down when I checked at 2009-09-13

Have I missed any of your favorite color pickers? Mention in the comments