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Often us photographers think we did a pretty good job with optimizing our different picture files, but then when a text editor is used we are able to see that they still contain a ton of data that can actually be removed.  Yep, there are different programs out there that can be used to extract this information from the different GIFs, PNGs, or JPEGs, and still allow the photo look great, but many of these programs require a pretty specific knowledge to use them.  Unless the user knows what they are doing when it comes to command-line tools, they are pretty much out of luck. Until now.

Two members from the Yahoo exceptional performance team, Stoyan Stefanov and Nicole Sullivan, took what they knew of these tools and built a single application called Smush.it that does all the optimizations for you in just one place.  Completely cloud-based, it allows you to upload images, give the image a URL, or use it as a Firefox extension.  The program shows you how many bytes you’ll save, and then gives you the images as .zip file for you to replace them on your site.

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Sections: Computers, Software / Applications, Imaging, Accessories, Digital Cameras, Peripherals, Displays, Storage, Web, Downloads, Web Apps, Web Browsers, Websites

In private beta testing mode since January, the England-based ProofHQ has just opened it’s program up to the the public. What makes it so appealing to so many is the obvious allowance for collaboration. ProofHQ makes this simple with the use of several formats on the web. Blogs, social media applications…users are able to comment and give feedback on a project that can be seen by anyone working on it by using embeddable objects.

There is no cost for this new personal version, unless you want to upgrade to a more advanced package that offers more storage.  The free package only allows for five proofs a months (50 megabytes of storage), and the upgrades run anywhere from $29 to $99 a month. However, you can get a feel for it to see what you think by taking advantage of their 14 day free trial offer. It is both PC and Mac compatible.

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Sections: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites

Don’t look now but Adobe’s free Photoshop Express is gradually becoming a powerful online image editing tool. They have just introduced some new features, which include a slide show feature. This slide show works similar to other online slide show applications such as SlideShow and the slide show tools found in Flickr and Photobucket. Users can also choose to embed the Photoshop Express slideshow on websites, blogs, and social networks.

Aside from the slide show feature, Photoshop Express has also recently introduced the ability to interact directly with photo-sharing community such as Flickr. This feature, as we previously mentioned enables users to take photos in their accounts from Flickr, edit them in Photoshop Express then export back to Flickr. Sounds neat eh? Wait, there’s more. Users can also easily save a copy of their edited photos and then tinker with the copy instead of the original. Hence users are assured that the original copy is intact even if they mess up the new version.

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Sections: Computers, Software / Applications, Imaging, Web, Web Apps, Websites