ImageConverter Plus

"Put a smile in your face. Make the world a better place"

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Portrait photography requires special skills. Although this type of photography is probably more difficult than others to master, photographers like to experiment and learn practicing as much as possible. Although taking bad quality photos is not desirable anyway, there is nothing worse than a bad portrait photo. Even if the image is not a portrait and is small enough where one can hardly find his or her face among others, the tendency is to be disappointed and to notice the slightest drawbacks in the appearance. So things get much worse when the face is a center of attention. When taking portrait photos everything is important – lighting, camera position, background, and even the mood of the person whose portrait is made and the mood of the person who takes a photo! A portrait photo is intended to capture emotions and character. Photographers – both amateurs and professionals may make mistakes though, and due to incorrect camera settings the portrait photo can be spoiled. What to do if the photo is not perfect? Although ImageConverter Plus is not similar to Photoshop, we offer several means of correcting a bad portrait photo. If the photo contains wrinkles, freckles or shine on the face, those are easy to correct via the blur effect. If the portrait photo looks too trivial, add sepia effect that will add some special charm making the photo (but not the subject of your portrait!) look older than in reality. Sometimes though these little drawbacks on your face are advantages that help you look unique and really special, so why worry about those?

One more way to convert PSP and other files on Linux

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0600

The variety of operating systems is not that large. When choosing one of them – Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. the user is guided by such factors as vulnerability to viruses, ease of use, software availability and many other factors depending on the intention of usage. Some people strongly prefer Linux because it seems pretty stable and lasts long without being rebooted. It provides persistent high performance on workstations and on networks. It can handle unusually large numbers of users simultaneously, and can make old computers sufficiently responsive to be useful again. It is fast and free. When any software is developed it is usually platform specific. Cross-platform software is something that one comes across infrequently, though ImageConverter Plus can easily work on Linux. Our graphics engine is suitable for both platforms, so regular conversion jobs one can perform on Windows can be easily transferred to Linux as well. We keep getting positive feedback from our customers appreciating the possibility to convert PSP and other files on Linux. Image conversion on Linux can be performed on individual files and image batches in the same way as for Windows. But image conversion is not the only option we offer our Linux users. Linux is often preferred for programming for its high level of security and backup. The graphics engine developed by fCoder Group, Inc. can be used for your own programming ideas on any platform you choose – Windows and Linux.

Guidelines for better photographic composition

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0600

The purposes of framing pictures may vary. Framed pictures normally stand out. A good picture frame enhances the image itself. If we take a painting, then without a frame the painting will look incomplete. Sometimes a frame can even be advantageous to the image contents when the artist did not do a really good job…But apart fr om esthetical use there are situations when a frame has a practical meaning. Digital images may have a problem like being all of different sizes. When you have hundreds of images wh ere some seem larger than others they look like a hassle. Possible solution is to add a pixel frame to each image making them look identical. Unnecessary details will thus be removed, or the frame will make the image border more vivid. Command-line of ImageConverter Plus lets you add a light gray 10 pixel border to images . By doing this you make the images proportionally stretched or shrunk to 300x300 pixels using bilinear method. The image files will not be lost – original image file names will be preserved.

Using Sony DSLR-A450 camera RAW

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Digital cameras typically produce one or two types of files – JPEG and RAW. Most amateurs work with JPEGs, while most professionals prefer to work with RAW files. When you are dealing with a RAW file, you are working with a much higher quality original than you would if it were JPEG. You also have a greater control, which means more creativity when you make your adjustments, corrections, and manipulations. Special software is required to process RAW files from different camera manufacturers. Among the list of cameras supported by ImageConverter Plus you can find Sony DSLR-A450.

Get multiple buyers interested in purchasing your car

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0600

No matter how much you like your car, the time will come when you need to change it for a newer one. There are several means to sell a car – sometimes you are lucky enough to find an interested friend or relative; sometimes trade-in system works better; but the most common way to sell a car is to try and find a potential buyer or several buyers on a specialized website. There are lots of websites and lots of cars for sale as well, so it won't happen immediately that yours will find a new owner. How to make your car look different from others? First of all, take several photos from different angles showing your car from the best part meanwhile hiding what needs to be hidden. Clean your car inside and out. Make sure your pictures are sharp and in focus. Take pictures when the car is well-lit and dry. Photograph important details and don't forget the interior. The photos you take are likely to be too large, and it will be problematic to upload them to the website. How come it takes a long time to open your photos, while it takes seconds for the one of your competitor's? It happens because your competitor was smart enough to resize the photos before uploading them. Resize is important because it makes the images less bulky thus letting the website visitor open several well-resized photos instead of wasting time opening a single huge one. ImageConverter Plus can help you optimize the photos of your car for any website. The pictures will get much smaller with a minimal quality loss, so not just one, but several potential buyers may be interested in making a purchase. And don't be surprised – a good presentation is one of the key factors of success in selling things.

Support of 12-bit JPEG

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0600

JPEG is the image format everyone is familiar with. It's a default format for the majority of cameras, so even those users who are not way too experienced in photography know what it is. JPEG has several compression modes, but it can vary in the amount of information stored as well. Baseline JPEG stores images with 8 bits per color sample, in other words 8 bits/pixel for grayscale, 32 bits/pixel for CMYK, etc. Standard JPEG is 8 bit, but there is the type of JPEG that is 12-bit, although this is not common. The higher the bit depth the more information is potentially contained. Many medical imaging and traffic systems create and process 12-bit JPEG images which are normally grayscale images. 12-bit JPEGs are used when there is a need of a higher accuracy. 12-bit JPEG is rare and some viewers cannot open this standard which causes inconveniences. Usually 12 bit grayscale JPEG is used to store medical images produced by X-ray or microscope devices. Sometimes it makes sense to convert 12-bit JPEG into TIFF or other formats for easier processing which can be done with ImageConverter Plus. ImageConverter Plus provides comprehensive support of 12-bit JPEG images.

Tips for improving your organizational skills

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Perfect organizational skills are something that everyone should try to develop. This helps things to be done faster and gives a sense of clarity. Instead of doing something boring and wasting your time you can have more free time and do things you really enjoy. Being disorganized means that you do many different things that randomly pop up instead of concentrating on something important. Not every person is well organized though, and you can't blame yourself for that – you need to work on yourself a lot to develop this skill. Organizational skills refer not only to personal traits, but to some technical aspects as well. We can take image conversion as an example. There is nothing worse than losing converted files simply forgetting their output location. The situation gets even more complicated if there are hundreds or thousands images processed. Frustration is the most appropriate term applied, because it looks like you have to start converting the files and sorting them somehow all over again, but wait. You can anticipate this outcome and take precautions in advance. ImageConverter Plus can sort your images files by different parameters . When setting conversion parameters the software will help you specify the order of conversion. You can sort the files by their name, file type, some properties and file size. Sorting the files can be done in the ascending or descending order. We truly believe that such measures will help you avoid confusion and will let you locate the necessary file in a blink.

Added support for RAW format of Canon PowerShot G12

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

If you just bought a new camera like Canon PowerShot G12 you won't be able to process your RAW files without proper software. Each camera manufacturer that uses the RAW format does it in a slightly different way, and this can change even with different models from the same manufacturer. If you use RAW-conversion software like ImageConverter Plus, make sure it will work with your particular camera model. ImageConverter Plus is able to batch process and automate conversion steps for RAW files from lots of cameras including Canon PowerShot G12. If you want to reproduce your images in quality publications or as quality color prints, then the RAW format is almost mandatory. This is the only way to go for a photographer concerned primarily with image quality.

What’s on the menu?

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Although ImageConverter Plus is more widely used for batch processing large number of images, sometimes there is a need to convert just a single image or process only one or two photos. Realizing that sometimes it’s much faster to process the photo "on the spot" we have updated the capabilities of the right-click menu. The right-click menu (or the context menu) has always been one of the strengths of ImageConverter Plus. Using the context menu can save you a lot of work. The commands you are most likely to need are on the menu that pops up right beside your pointer. There is no need to run the program each time you have to process a single image file. It is much faster to get what you need right-clicking the photo. The number of options offered by the Windows context menu in combination with ImageConverter Plus is being constantly expanded. While just recently the number of options was limited to a quick profile access, now you can change EXIF data, get direct access to FTP, Picasa and online albums. Meanwhile, the goal is the same – simple and effective access to the task you need to fulfill. No matter how complicated your conversion job is, create a profile, name it and choose it from the list of available ones when a single photo needs to be processed in accordance with its settings. Same refers to the email and FTP settings.

Prepare your images for printing on fabric

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

If you look around you will see that our life is full of different images. They are everywhere – paintings, drawings, logos, maps, wallpaper, etc. Even clothes contain images. Have you ever thought about the way images appear on fabric? We will tell you today about some specifics of this process. Printing pictures on fabric reflect your creativity. Pillows, bags, table cloths, t-shirts with portraits of your family members or scenic views – is there anything more creative? If you think this task is hard to fulfill you are mistaken. Definitely, a proper printer is of vital importance. Please check your printer for supporting fabric printing options before you encounter frustration. Both laser and ink jet printers can be used for printing on fabric. We are not printer professionals, but ImageConverter Plus can prepare your images to be suitable for printing on fabric. As with any other printing dpi is the first thing to think about. Again, sometimes it's worth considering your own printer options, but generally the dpi recommended varies from 150 till 300 dots per inch. ImageConverter Plus will give you more flexibility in customizing your photos. Your photos must be in digital format coming directly from a digital camera or scanned from a traditional photograph. The most common image formats used for further printing on fabric are JPEG, PNG or TIFF (8-bit, uncompressed). For line art, the best picture format is a GIF file. Convert your images and adjust them for further fabric printing choosing from numerous output image formats. You may encounter problems, for example, colors appear very bright, or absolute black, or saturated. If that is the case ImageConverter Plus offers color correction options. Choose the images that you intend to transfer to the cloth and apply the necessary adjustment settings so that the image looks as natural as possible on fabric.

New computer, old software

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Christmas and New Year holidays are over. Lots of fun shared, lots of games played, happiness and joy as well and many gifts – these are the most common associations with the holiday time. We'll talk about gifts today. A brand new computer is a common thing to receive. But getting a new computer means not just excitement, but sometimes headache as well. Some programs installed have already been paid for, so changing hardware will mean paying twice for the same thing. But this is not necessary. What to do if you had ImageConverter Plus was installed and activated on a different computer, but you can't wait to use a new one? It is possible to use the same license you already paid for on a new computer. Changing hardware is not so infrequent, and we get requests from our users asking for assistance. There is no single solution we can offer. You should address our support service and explain why you need a new activation code. We are understanding of your specific needs.

Processing RAW photos made with Panasonic Lumix DMC-L10

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Some digital cameras offer the option to save photos in RAW format instead of JPEG. Possessing Panasonic Lumix DMC-L10 you are probably aware of this format’s strengths. The most common reason to shoot RAW is to handle tricky lighting situations. Getting the color right in a digital image is hard, and the automatic white balance setting does not always work. But instead of worrying about setting the white balance, you can make your best guess, shoot in RAW mode, then change the white balance of images on the computer. ImageConverter Plus allows you to view, edit and convert RAW and other formats from Panasonic Lumix DMC-L10.

"Remembering the past gives power to the present"

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Each family has something in its history to be shared with everyone or at least the following generations. Taking time to look through the family photo albums is a fun activity. This connects the present with the past. This helps to understand how you became who you are right now. This stimulates the younger generations' curiosity about their ancestors' accomplishments and personalities. It is also nice to recall the ancestors' habits and hobbies and compare them with the ones now existing among the family members. There are numerous websites devoted to genealogy trees, but even without those you can create your own family story. Modern technology makes it possible to scan the old family photos, digitize them and combine them into albums. If the photos were saved in some really outdated or rare image format ImageConverter Plus can help convert them into more universally recognized ones so that you can even share them on Facebook or any other online resources. Old photos may not look really perfect – they will at least need color correction. If that's the only thing where amendments need to be introduced ImageConverter Plus can make them look more modern, or vice versa, add some old glamour. If you intend to use your family photos on Facebook online resize them first so that the users could open their full-sized versions easier. Creating a digitized version of your family history album makes it possible to email them to all the relatives so that no one is lost and everyone remains in memories of all the family tree branches.

Add your own file to an existing PDF

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

PDF is the file format that is widely used for storing documents. Multiplatform access is one of its main advantages. No matter what device you use to view the image it will look exactly the same and cannot be amended. Saving information in PDF file makes it easy to transmit files between computers with different applications. It's important for many reasons, but it is of vital importance for storing legal documents intended for the court, or business charts, etc. When the information is transferred in between different applications there is no reason to worry about the information being altered by the third parties – PDF file is protected from any interference and will display the information stored in the file exactly as the author designed it. PDF is one of the image formats that have a lot of application methods – charts, language study books, diagrams, etc. Preserving the look and feel of the original source file becomes a priority you don't have to worry about. Another advantage of PDF is its ability to save both raster and vector images. ImageConverter Plus provides comprehensive support of the PDF image format. Realizing that a simple conversion to PDF is not a difficult task our image converter makes it possible to deal with multipage PDFs. If you would like to add a certain file (or a page) to the existing PDF file ImageConverter Plus offers this opportunity. When you launch ImageConveter Plus there will be several options offered: to safe the file as it is, to save the file into several separate pages, to save the file as a multipage file, or to add a certain file to an existing file.

Make the software be your mail carrier

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Among numerous email service providers Gmail is one of the most popular ones. The hordes of features, massive capacity and ease of use – these are just a few features that attract the clients. There is no storage limit; there is no fee charged, there is a possibility to access it from anywhere – what else would one need? Understanding that Gmail may be our users' preference as well, developers of ImageConverter Plus simplified the program interface as much as possible. Simplicity of usage is one of the strengths we offer our customers. Alongside with advanced and professional features we make the program as simple as possible for the beginners. If you have to send your photos by email the most common procedure would be resizing images, saving them in a certain folder, choosing the recipients and then completing the task. But why not make the program be your virtual "postman"? When setting the output folder for your converted images one of the options is "save to email". You can introduce all the necessary settings once and just make use of them each time you have to perform the same operation. ImageConverter Plus will save your settings. Apart from direct Gmail access we also offer direct FTP upload and direct reach of Picasa web albums, but we will reveal you all the secrets of fast and easy file sharing options later in our articles.

Updating list of cameras compatible with ImageConverter Plus

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Images created by cameras using RAW format contain the full spectrum of the data captured by the camera’s electronic sensor prior to all the processing operations. Choosing RAW format enables one to extract the best possible image one can get. Different camera manufacturers create different RAW file formats, and not all of them can be supported for conversion. View the updated list of cameras whose photos can be successfully converted with the help of ImageConverter Plus. Leica D-LUX 3 is now one of them.

How to look into the car with blacked-out windows

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Changing color for transparent is especially useful if the subject needs to be clearly visible in the website background, or when several images need to be layered on top of each other, or when something needs to be removed or hidden in a picture. Making a certain color transparent means that the color will be the same as the background. ImageConverter Plus allows changing any image color for transparent. This can be achieved by regular means or via command-line. Transparency is not so easy to achieve though. If you want to change a certain color for transparent you should note that even one and the same color may contain several color variations, so blue is not necessarily universally blue – it may be lighter or darker in some areas. In case you would like to change color gradations for transparent, choose "tolerance" option. You should also note that not every image format supports transparency, so your choice will be limited to PNG, GIF, TGA, BMP, TIFF, MNG, and PSD images.

Detail oriented vs “big picture”

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Both image formats – JPEG and GIF are widely used in the web. But although they have something in common there are several things that differ them fr om each other. First of all, the number of supported colors with GIF is much smaller than JPEG. GIF supports only 256 colors, wh ereas JPEG supports millions of those. This means that when converting image from JPEG to GIF the resulting colors may look different, unless the colors picked out are supported by GIF. ImageConverter Plus supports dithering – with this option the resulting colors will look most close to the original ones. JPEG was originally designed to support 24-bit photographic style images. This format keeps track of all the colors and their gradations and makes the photographic image be much smaller than GIF. But the number of colors which is significantly larger in JPEG is not always an advantage - it will not yield a smaller file when dealing with low color level and details like in computer generated graphics. JPEG is much better for images containing lots of colors and their gradations. In case your image contains solid colors or text, then GIF is the way to go – it's more detail oriented. Two other advantages of GIF are the ability to support transparency and animation.

How to convert a text into an image

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Converting text into an image is not the most common conversion task. We can hardly think of situations when it's really necessary – sometimes it's useful when you want to put some important text on a website, but don't want someone else able to easily take it and put it on their own; or perhaps you want to list some email addresses but want to prevent their owners from being spammed (thus you prevent the addresses from being easily copied and pasted into someone else's resources). But situations like those described are infrequent, and although there are programs that can help the users fulfill the task, ImageConverter Plus does not support this option. Still, we offer an alternative for dealing with text and images. Saving a text as an image is more common when someone wants to have a "hard copy" of the text document. In this case the document is saved as a TIFF image file. This guarantees that the text won't be lost or damaged. If that's what you would like to do, use our affiliate program Universal Document Converter. There are numerous options for dealing with text files of different formats. You can convert Word files to TIFF, PDF, or JPEG depending on your priorities.

Added support for RAW images generated by Samsung NX10

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Are you getting the most of your digital photos? If you are not using your camera's RAW format , you are missing a whole world of picture quality. Most professional photographers are enthusiastic about capturing RAW images, because all of the image data recorded by a camera's sensor is available. RAW files contain much more image data that can be used for color corrections or pulling detail out of highlights and shadow areas. Image details that would have been lost in shooting JPEG can easily be recorded with RAW. Handling RAW images ImageConverter Plus takes into account the unique characteristics of each supported camera’s native file format. Our newest graphics engine supports the RAW file format from the leading digital cameras, such as Samsung NX10.

Keepsake your children’s art work

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Children love to create their own artwork with paint, crayons, pencils, glue and any other art supplies they find. Art projects are wonderful ways to encourage creativity and imagination. Self expression through art projects lets children learn about themselves by using colors and design to describe their thoughts and ideas. Very often, these masterpieces that your children create are brought home and proudly displayed. But what do you do when all of the artwork begins to take over your home? One advice is to take photos of your child’s artwork and keep these photos in a scrapbook or create special online albums. This way, even if the artwork is discarded for space purposes, you'll still have the memory. ImageConverter Plus can help you optimize these photos for the web so that relatives living in different parts of the country also feel proud of their grandchildren, nieces and nephews and show off their masterpieces to the neighbors. There are lots of resources where you can participate in art project contests, post examples of your child's art projects online inspiring other kids, or simply organize them to keep the memories. If there are distracting elements in the photo taken, ImageConverter Plus will help with making the background transparent so that nothing distracts the viewer’s attention, and you can even create beautiful photo frames for the photos so that they really look like works of art.

Processing images with layers

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

Layers are one of the most powerful tools in photo editing. They are images or effects overlaid on top of one another. An example of a layer is an image layer, a text layer, or a shape. Some image formats like PSD or PSP support layers, while others like JPEG, BMP, PNG, and GIF cannot preserve layer information - they are flat image formats. ImageConverter Plus allows conversion in between those formats. Processing images containing image layers our software will merge all the layered images into a single final image. All the changes introduced in each separate layer will be merged into a single photo reflecting each layer's changes.

Detecting software bugs and performance issues

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:30:00 -0600

One of the options at using ImageConverter Plus is creating log file in the target folder. It means that each time you perform an image conversion, or resize your images, a special text file will be added to the target folder. Log files contain ongoing activities of ImageConverter Plus. Every single step of the conversion process will be included there. Log files will also record data about minor problems which were recovered, and the data about the way the program is used. You might not need to see this information right away, but it’s useful to put it silently aside and to request it later. The log file is especially important when you request technical support from us. Our engineers can analyze it to learn more about your case.