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Free Google app to scan all your physical pictures powered by magic

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

The title may have been just a little exaggerated but most people, computational photography does feel like magic. Google knows you have boxes of photos just collecting dust and deteriorating. Our unofficial benevolent leader (aka Google) has decided to use its computer science chops to help Joe Regular digitize those boxes of old photos without having to fork over $500 for a flatbed scanner or spend hours retouching pictures.

The app takes multiple pictures of each photo and completely get's rid of glare. Then it automatigically  performs edge detection, perspective correction and smart rotation.

If you so chose, you can then upload your new digital cherished memories into the loving arms of Google Photos. 

If you are a computer geek and want to understand the magic of computational photography in an easy to understand manner, check out the new NAt & Lo video below.

Download the free app now:

 

Canon SL1 may be the perfect family dSLR

technologyEdward Kiledjian
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As the holiday season approaches, you may be looking for a great all purpose camera and the Canon Rebel  SL1 will definitely not disappoint. It is called the world's smallest and lightest APS-C dSLR.

The Rebel SL1 is the smaller brother of the larger Rebel T5i. They both share the same 18MP sensor and DIGIC 5 processor.  Its fantastic that Canon was able to fit all of the t5i guts into such a small body and at the same time keeping most of the Rebel family buttons intact.

Typically most users jumping to this family of device are coming from point and shoot devices and are looking for better quality photos but also fast autofocus. The Rebel SL1 won't disappoint with the generation 2 of Canon's hybrid CMOS Autofocus system. 

Picture Quality

Even though I knew the SL1 contains the same guts as the T5i, I was expecting sub-par image quality but I was wrong. The device produced beautiful beautiful, vivid and sharp JPG images from ISO 100 to ISO 800. The in camera processing was excellent which means you won't have to save in RAW then spend time converting to JPG with a PC app. When you reach ISO 1600, you start to lose some of the finer detail and the inclusion of light artifacts.

As you continue to increase the ISO, the images become less sharp, you start seeing chromatic aberrations and you lose some of the vividness. The worst of it hits around ISO 12000.

The camera supports the Canon RAW format and at lower ISO (under 1600) the quality is comparable to the in-camera generated JPG. The higher the ISO the better it is to shoot in RAW so you can perform post-processing to improve the final results.

 

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Conclusion

Overall I think this is a fantastic camera for the general camera user looking for a small and light dSLR. The design is small but easy to grip. Images up to ISO 6400 are wonderful even when using the in-camera JPG conversion feature. The screen is touch responsive and a good representation of the picture you will take. The new hybrid auto-focus is fast and accurate (little lag between press and take). Little chromatic aberrations and full HD video recording capabilities.

Are there any negatives? Yes Sir!

Although many may prefer the smaller frame, those with bigger hands may find it too small.the Autofocus illuminator is built into the flash which means the flash has to be enabled to use it. This is not desirable because I tend to prefer non-flash pictures when possible.

Overall an excellent purchase for most consumers and highly recommended. 

PicBackMan helps protect your pictures

ReviewEdward Kiledjian

Of everything I have on my home PC, nothing is more important than my pictures and I am sure many of you are in the same boat. In a previous article, I spoke about the 3-2-1 backup strategy to protect your irreplaceable files. 

So how do you "easily backup your digital treasures" onto multiple online services? Enter PicBackMan. It is a simple program that can help backup your social network pictures (locally) and at the same time backup your local pictures to one or more online services. You create a free account so the app can store your connection settings and then jump straight into the simple configuration.

As mentioned, you can configure sources to backup from, think Instagram, Facebook, Foursquare, etc. Then you can choose the destinations to backup to, like Skydrive, Flickr, Picasa, SmugMug, Dropbox, etc.

Once you have configured once source and one destination, the program springs [automatically] into action and start backing up your pictures. Of course it monitors the dedicated source locations and automatically performs a backup when a new picture is found.

One interesting feature is how granular the configuration can be. You can setup different [local] folders for the different services and then configure the app to upload the content of those folders to specific online services. As an example, you can have a FACEBOOK directory locally and tell the app to automatically upload everything in that directory to Facebook.

 They currently have a Windows version only and it works in Windows 7 and Windows 8. They will be releasing IOS, Android and MAC versions in the future.

With products like this, I alway wonder how it will be monetized. At least right now, the service is free but it seems the developers may add additional for-pay functions later (which is fine with me).

 

Tell the app where your pictures are, online and offline

 

Tell the app where to backup your pictures

Verdict

I played with the app for a couple of weeks and tested various complex backup and save designs, the app worked flawlessly. I think this is one of those little gems that may become a must on all of your PCs and [soon] smartphones.

For me the winning combination was the power, simplicity and reliability. I give this app two thumbs up.