Newsletter Archives

• FotoSketcher — Look, kids! Mom’s an artist!

  Posted on December 23, 2024 at 02:43 CST by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums

  FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  I’m not. So finding a free tool that makes me appear to be an artist was very exciting. And a portable free tool — even better!

  FotoSketcher by French developer David Thoiron (all things artsy come from France) lets you load a photo so it can make art from it. Let me show you. Grab a copy of FotoSketcher from OlderGeeks.com, and we’ll play around with it.

  The file you are downloading is a simple EXE file that you just click on to run. There is nothing to install. It runs on any 64-bit (most common) version of Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10. or 11.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.52.0, 2024-12-23).

  Freeware Spotlight Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, FotoSketcher, Image Editor, Image Generation, Image manipulation, Newsletters

• Upscayl — Killer robots are good at other things

  Posted on May 15, 2023 at 02:43 CDT by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums

  FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  All you hear about these days is the lightning-fast advancements of artificial intelligence. It’s as if no one had watched a single science-fiction movie in the past 30 years.

  Luckily, until our toasters take us out in our sleep, AI can be pretty useful. When you lack the skills to complete a necessary task, many free software programs that use AI are ready to help.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.20.0, 2023-05-15).

  Freeware Spotlight Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, Image manipulation, Newsletters

• How you can use generative AI images — legally

  Posted on February 20, 2023 at 02:44 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Suddenly, image-creation programs based on generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) have exploded into one of the most exciting tech breakthroughs we’ve seen in years.

  A big problem is that the developers of these capabilities — and perhaps you, if you use them — are being sued big-time. The charges are copyright infringement and theft of intellectual property from the artists whose works were “scraped” off the Internet to train the systems.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.08.0, 2023-02-20).

  Public Defender Art, Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, Image Generation, Image manipulation, Newsletters

• Photoshop Elements: Fun with pictures

  Posted on April 27, 2020 at 01:05 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  PHOTO EDITING

  By Lincoln Spector

  Special effects aren’t limited to Hollywood movies anymore — or professional photographers.

  Today, with some help from image-editing apps, even a snapshooter can perform photographic tricks — place yourself somewhere you’ve never actually visited, turn black-and-white into color (and vice versa). With the right tools, almost anyone can cleanly remove people from a photo — without cropping! (Are you paying attention, Match subscribers?)

  There are dozens of photo editors to choose from, but I’ve been using Adobe’s Photoshop Elements for longer than I can remember. It’s the cheaper and somewhat less powerful version of the classic Photoshop. It’s rare that Elements lacks a tool I need … but then I’m not a professional graphic artist.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.16.0 (2020-04-27).

  Software Adobe Photoshop Elements, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Image manipulation