Crop-Size iPad Pro

App Review: Crop-Size

The iOS App Store is a wonderful thing. So many apps to choose from for virtually every conceivable use. However, as there are now just so many applications in there discoverability can sometimes be a challenge. Case in point, Mark has often lamented about the inability to crop photos in iOS to specific dimensions. He was not alone in this search as I have heard other users complain about this apparent lack of the seemingly most basic ability.

Continue reading → App Review: Crop-Size

Dragon Anywhere for iOS Review

Dragon Anywhere for iOS has been a long time coming but details have been scare till now with Dragon Anywhere getting it’s release on a monthly payment system.

I’ve been a huge fan of Dragon Dicate products for years now. Once you get used to talking to computer and mastering Dictation commands it really is so much quicker and easier than typing.

Dragon Anywhere is the portable sibling of its desktop counterpart. Scheduled to be released I managed to get on the beta testing program and so far, it’s looking very solid experience.

Continue reading → Dragon Anywhere for iOS Review

New app allows users to ‘remix’ work by Godfather of pop art #Dazzleit

A new app allows users to ‘remix’ artwork by Sir Peter Blake, the Godfather of pop art, best known for designing the 1967 Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. Dazzle It is commissioned by 14-18 NOW: the First World War Centenary Art Commissions and supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Continue reading → New app allows users to ‘remix’ work by Godfather of pop art #Dazzleit

GoEuro. The Ultimate Three-in-one search for rail, coach and air providers in a simple to use app

GoEuro has launched a brand new free and easy to use app on Android and iOS, providing the best options for travel by train, coach or air, all at the simple touch of a button. The new app will allow users to compare travel time and prices from over 160 rail and coach companies as well as airlines globally, enabling them to compare travel time and prices for the full journey, and book their tickets in eight countries.

Continue reading → GoEuro. The Ultimate Three-in-one search for rail, coach and air providers in a simple to use app

App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.

There’s several ways you can speed up your website, use a CDN, get a better host but none of that is going to help unless your images are properly optimised.  JpegMini helps do just that, providing the optimum balance between compression, quality and clarity. If you used photoshop or Pixelmator and hit the file, export as jpeg function you could think that the jpeg defaults are set to optimal levels. Turns out this isn’t the case as theres more than one way to compress a jpeg for the best results

This is something I only found out thanks to the Mac And Forth podcast so I take no credit for this finding but JpegMini turns out to be a bit of a gem.

Jpeg mini is a small, easy to use program that shrinks down your jpeg image but proclaims to loose as little amount of the image detail as possible, all down to their own algorithms that look at all of the pixels in an image than taking just an average mix.

   
 App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
JpegMini

What this means in simple terms that JpegMini sees different shades of red as just that, different shades whereas programs like Photoshop tend to group reds in a more generalist sort of way and then clump them together.

Thanks to this more probing way at looking at the whole picture JpegMini claims to have less artefacts, color blow out and that annoying blockiness from things being over compressed.  / blooming when you compress images with their app.

I’ve now realised I’ve been making a mistake for the longest time at pulling an image into Pixelmatr, applying a resize, then exporting the file with the default settings looking at the small preview window trying to guess the right balance of size vs quality.  It takes a while to trust JpegMini to do the right thing as there’s no preview window, no quality settings just simply drag and drop the image.

So to test this I’ve pulled a selection of photos with varying colors and details for resizing and compression.

JpegMini has a default resize to 960 * 720 pixels, not enabled as default, with no other settings other than to where you want to save the new files.

So to test again Pixelmator, images were opened, resized and then exported as Jpeg twice.  Once with default compression settings and then with the level of compression adjusted to match the file size of JpegMini for a true comparison

   
Biscuit JpegMini 276 kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
Biscuit - JpegMini - 276 kb
Biscuit PixelMator Optimised App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
Biscuit - PixelMator Optimised - 242kb
Biscuit PixelMator Default 512kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
Biscuit - PixelMator Default - 512kb
Skyline JpegMini 66kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
Skyline - JpegMini - 66kb
PixelMator Skyline Default Export 148kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
PixelMator - Skyline Default Export - 148kb
PixelMator Skyline Optimised Export 68kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
PixelMator - Skyline Optimised Export - 68kb
Wales vs NZ JpegMini 176kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
Wales vs NZ - JpegMini - 176kb
PixelMator Wales V NZ Optimised Export 180kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
PixelMator - Wales V NZ Optimised Export - 180kb
PixelMator Wales V NZ Default Export 276 kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
PixelMator - Wales V NZ Default Export - 276 kb
WoodBuds JpegMini 156kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
WoodBuds - JpegMini -156kb
WoodBuds PixelMator Optimised Export 160kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
WoodBuds - PixelMator Optimised Export - 160kb
WoodBuds PixelMator Default Export 359kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
WoodBuds - PixelMator Default Export - 359kb

Another close up image where in the original 3.6mb file is surprisingly crisp given it’s taken on a iPhone

   
Desktop Tizi. JpegMini 93kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
Desktop Tizi. - JpegMini - 93kb
PixelMator Tizi Optimised Export 96kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
PixelMator - Tizi Optimised Export - 96kb
PixelMator Tizi Default Export 179kb App Review: JpegMini, Put Your Photo On A Compression Diet And See The Difference.
PixelMator - Tizi Default Export - 179kb

 

Here’s how things break down.

Image

Original size

Jpeg Mini

Pixelmator 85% Compressed

PM Matching Compression

PM Final

Biscuit 1

4.1 mb

276 kb

512 kb

55%

281 kb

WoodBuds

2.6 mb

159 kb

359 kb

48%

160 kb

Skyline

918 kb

66 kb

148 kb

58%

68 kb

Wales V NZ

2.4 mb

176 kb

269 kb

65%

175 kb

Desktop Tizi

3.6 mb

93 kb

179 kb

61%

95 kb

Overall

Not only does the file compression sizes speak for themselves but the quality of image is nothing to be sneeze at either.  The amount of compression and clarity, clarity being a keyword here, is spot on.

All of the image and bandwidth savings come at a grand old price of free providing you don’t want to do more than 25 images in a day. A normal edition is available via in app purchase for £14.99 with no limit on the amount of images you can compress but is limited to images of 28 mega pixel or less.  For those needing a multi user licence, plugin support and much, much more a pro version is also available with some seriously advanced features to boot with a price to match of £110.

If you want to take agenda at what Jpegmini can do with no uploads or perhaps take a snapshot of your website to see how much in terms of bandwidth / cdn costs you can save, JpegMini’s website will show you graphically what you can save. http://www.jpegmini.com/server

Overall.

Jpegmini represents fantastic value at being free if you want to do no more than 20 images a day.

If you’ve got a majorly busy website with CDN costs attached then JPEGmini is going to recoup its outlay in no time at all.

It;s hard to believe that with no tweaking or settings to play with images can get that compressed and still be as clear as they are.

JpegMini competently delivers in it’s promise to compress images without a major loss in clairty.  Recommended.

JpegLite Is Free From The App Store JPEGmini Lite – ICVT Ltd. JPEG mini with more features, 50mp picture limit and unlimited conversions £14.99 JPEGmini Pro, Lightroom support, all cpu core processor support and MUCH, much more £109.99

Burn Off The Xmas Calories With The Best Running Apps for your iPhone

2014 was the year I started running and actually did the fabled “couch to 5k” running plan and all it took to drop a stone in weight and trim up was 20 minutes a day going up and beyond that.  For kicks I’d have RunKeeper in the background so i could see my time and distances ever improving.  But RunKeeper is not the only app out there.

Continue reading → Burn Off The Xmas Calories With The Best Running Apps for your iPhone