Charles Moore Reviews Bling! It Image Enhancement Program For Web Auctions
Bling! It for Windows has been out for some time, but the Mac version was introduced at this year's MacWorld Expo 2008. The developers, Vertus-Tech, whon also make the professional masking software Fluid Mask, say Bling! It users, even those without any prior image editing experience, have found that the software helps raise the achieved sales price of their products and increases the click-through-rate over standard thumbnail images. By giving product images a “shot-in-the-studio” look and feel, Bling! It creates images which attract more attention from buyers, helping sellers achieve higher prices for their products and move previously stagnant inventory.
Of course it's possible to do the sort of graphics work Bling! It does with Photoshop's Background Eraser tool and layers if you know your way around that complex and expensive application, And Photoshop Elements also supports pulling images from their backgrounds, but but Bling! It provides you with relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use technology designed for the explicit purpose of replacing the background in digital photos leaving only only the item of interest. For example, take this photograph of my 1974 Guild D-25 guitar - one of the last ones built with a solid mahogany back, and which actually is for sale. The basic shot isn't too bad, but it can be made a lot better for a for sale ad by eliminating the background and adding a more appropriate one that focuses attention entirely on the guitar.
With Bling! It's automated tools, we can remove the unwanted content (the bedspread) from the photo and then then add a different background that will compliment and highlight the instrument to its best advantage., such as a solid block of a contrasting color. You can also add shadowing, highlighting, and other final touches. You can also include a logo if you have one to represent your home business or other message. Then your photo is ready to go on the auction site to help you make your sale.
But first you need a photo to work with. The Vertus folks provide a number of tips on how to take an ideal photo of the item to work with including composition pointers and lighting guidelines. They note that positioning the product against a uniform background, such as a solid color is best, and that a busy background, such as the patterned bedspread my guitar was sitting on will make it more difficult for Bling! It to distinguish the product from the background.
Too bad I hadn't read the instructions before taking my guitar picture, as I discovered that it was virtually impossible for Bling! It to distinguish automatically where the strongly vertically-grained mahogany top of the D-25 ended and the bedspread began, making it necessary for me to remove the busy background using the Delete Exact Brush and Erase Exact Brush rather than the automatic Delete Local Brush.
I had similar difficulties with this photo of my Rolleicord VB camera, and had to resort to the same solution. On the other hand, a sample photo of a guitar laying on a white dropcloth from the Bling! It Web page cleaned up nicely and quickly using the Delete Local Brush, so it pays off to heed the suggestions. Care Taken in choosing the background of your product shot will pay dividends in less time needed editing once you're in Bling! It
A digital camera of at least 3 megapixels is recommended, and it's suggested that you take lots of photos and choose the best one for your ad. I did that, but they were all on that floral pattern bedspread.
Bling! It starts up with satisfying dispatch, even on my old 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4. To import an Image into Bling! It, the drill is to go to the File menu and choose Open. The Open dialog box appears in which you browse for and select the image file you want to import.
Unfortunately, dragging and dropping an image on the Bling! It icon in the Dock is not supported, and I found that dragging an image from the Finder into the open Bling! It application window would work sometimes and not others. You can open the following image formats in Bling! It:
.bmp
.jpeg
.jpg
.pbm
.pgm
.png
.ppm
Note that Bling! It only saves in the JPEG format, which is the most common image format for the Web.
Speaking of the application window itself, it is both attractive and intuitively user-friendly to use, with tool tips for the various tools appearing on mouseover.
Preparing a photo of an object in Bling! It for ad presentation involves a straightforward and specific series of steps, which can be outlined as:
• Delete the background
• Compose and edit the picture with a new background
• Add effects
• Enhance the object Resolution
• Save the image
Step 1. Remove the Old Background
If you have a photo with clear contrast between the object and the background, this step can be pretty quick. When you import an image, Bling! It will attempt to draw edges around what it estimates to be the object's periphery.
If the program guesses reasonably correctly, Bling! It will do the heavy lifting by tracing all key edges in the image. then it's just a matter of a few mouse clicks with the Delete Local Brush and you're good to go. Simply paint Delete outside these edges and Bling! It will flood-fill right up to the edge, the background changing to a reddish shade as you paint.
On the other hand, if the contrast between the object and background is less than optimum making it difficult for Bling! It to determine the object edges, as in the case of my guitar and camera photos, the background elimination procedure will take substantially longer.
Bling! It provides some tools for fine-tuning the edges. The Number of Edges slider sets how finely Bling! It divides an image into objects, while the Edge Width Threshold slider sets the minimum width in pixels of a color or texture transition that Bling! It recognizes as an edge. If you set a low threshold, Bling! It finds many in-focus and sharp edges; if you set a larger threshold, Bling! It finds fewer but broader edges, such as those found with out-of-focus edges. However, these are essentially intensity and sensitivity sliders don't apply in real time, with each change requiring the program to refresh the entire image, which can get quite tedious on a slowish Mac like mine. The process should execute much more briskly on an Intel Mac, but an instant preview would be much appreciated, and while the minimum system requirement spec. is simply a G4 with 512 MB of RAM, I would say that using it on hardware less powerful than my 1.33 GHz G4 with 1.5 GB of RAM would require patience.
Speaking of previews, a subwindow called the "Paintaway Viewer lets you monitor your changes as they will appear in the corrected image, and is by default visible in the Delete Background tab and can also be opened from the View menu, or you can hide it if you do not want the viewer intruding in your workspace.
You can preview your image in the Viewer in three progressive sizes:
• Small View
• Medium View
• Large View
Step 2 - • Compose and edit
You can optimize the size and format for Major Auction Sites Like eBay and Amazon with a simple pull-down menu selection. Bling! It has preset values for various auction site image specifications which automatically resizes the image's dimensions but also sets it to the correct data weight (kilobytes) as well.
You can choose a background from Bling! It's built-in library, a selection of other backgrounds that can be downloaded from the Bling! It Website, generate a background from scratch using Bling! It's background design functions, or import a background image of your own.
The positioning tools also appear in the Compose Picture tab. Their functions are:
• Compass - Changes the position of the image over the background.
• Arrows - Rotate the image.
• Sizer - Resizes the image relative to the background
• Pushpin Tools - Move and rescale color gradients; move the pushpins to try different effects.
Step 3 - Add Effects
With your basic image, background, and composition settled, you can now use Bling! It’s tools to improve the product’s appearance. If the object image isn't quite as sharp as it might be, you can use the Sharpen Image slider to eliminate fuzziness. while the Apply Shadow tool can be utilized to create either standing shadows or drop shadows to make it look like the object is either standing up or lying down, and the Highlight Brush can be employed to Increase the intensity of highlights on the object, lifting the saturation and brightness of a particular area.
Bling! It will automatically ensure that the data weight will never go above the limit but will maintain optimal product resolution. without editing-out anomalies. Sharpen the product; add a drop shadow or lift highlights. Even add a logo to the image.
Step 4. Enhance the Object Resolution
Web image resolution is greatly affected by data weight limits. Bling! It can independently vary the resolution of the image and the background to estimate the product’s optimal appearance under the data weight constraints. This may be adjusted using the Background Compression tool in the Final Image tab. This can be useful for images with low file sizes where the object and logo may appear pixilated due to compression artifact. The Background Compression slider transfers the allowable data weight from the background to the foreground, thereby enhancing the appearance of the object and logo and compressing the background further. You can also use this feature to make the background appear out of focus and the object sharply focused, thereby increasing the perception of depth of field — essentially the same effect as you would get using a long camera lens or a wide lens aperture in the old days.
You can also set the Max File Size.
Step 5 - Save the image
Just click the button and save to export the tweaked image as a JPEG file.
In summary, Bling! It is a slick little one-trick-pony that can accomplish its trick well provided you take care shooting or selecting the basic image (ie: background) you will use. THis program is really intended for people in a hurry who just want to fix their ad photo without a lot of hassle or the necessity of advanced image editing savvy. That can be a source of frustration for those of us well-versed in the use of full-featured bitmap image editing programs, but it's also fun and a bit magical when it works well. On the other hand Photoshop or Photoshop Elements can do pretty much anything Bling! It can do, probably better in most cases and definitely with more control and flexibility. On the other hand, both of those Adobe programs cost substantially more than Bling! It and require scaling a much steeper learning curve.
To determine whether Bling! It is for you, the best approach is to simply download the demo and try it out.
Mac System requirements:
. PowerPC G4 or G5 or Intel processor
. Mac OS X v.10.3.9, or 10.4.9 or later (worked fine in Leopard 10.5.2 for me)
. 512MB of RAM
. 250MB of available hard-disk space
. Internet connection or email required for product activation
$49.95
For more information, visit:
http://www.blingit.us/
Charles W. Moore
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