crop

Big Lens is an image-editing app with a unique interface for adding effects and manipulating focus in your images. You start by snapping a picture or importing one from your photo library, then use touch-screen controls to set the aperture, change periphery blur levels, and adjust background light to create a bokeh effect. What's interesting about the app is that you have the ability to draw where you want focus or blur effects.

You start by drawing over the part of the image you want in focus, then hitting the arrow in the upper right to apply the effect. … Read more

PhotoToaster is an image editor with tons of preset effects and custom options to give your photos a stylized look. To "toast" a photo you can either take a new picture with your iPhone camera or choose an image from your photo library. Buttons across the bottom of the interface let you experiment with the different effects.

With PhotoToaster, you can use one of several global effects for a photo or use them as a starting point--this app lets you customize the effects to your liking using onscreen sliders. Global effects include retro looks, black and white effects, … Read more

Picfx lets you play around with 47 different effects and 13 different styles with which to tweak your images, and adds some extras not found in other apps of this type. As with most image manipulation apps, you can snap a fresh photo with your iPhone camera or import a picture from your photo library. Across the bottom of the screen are icons of leather-bound books, each of which represents a bunch of effects. The categories are broken up into Grunge, Classics, Textures, Light, Space, and Frames. Once you've selected a photo, the layout makes it easy to pick … Read more

Stoned wallabies, high after snacking on local opium plants, are responsible for carving out crop circles on Australia's southern island state of Tasmania.

OK, we had the same "say what?" reaction upon first hearing about this story. But Lara Giddings, Tasmania's attorney general, recently told a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops that the animals get "as high as a kite after munching on the plants before trying their artistic touch with the local terrain.

"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Giddings told the hearing, according to the BBC News.

And then they do what any self-respecting wallaby would do in such a state: They crash.

"We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high," Giddings said.

OK sure. But who got the wallabies stoned? Aliens, that's who.

This article originally appeared on CBSNews.com.… Read more

If you're looking for a full-featured image editor at a relatively low price, Pixelmator fills the bill nicely. Sporting a smooth Mac-friendly interface, Pixelmator offers a layout much like Adobe Photoshop with separate toolbars offering standard selector and paint brush type tools, a color-picker, a layer manager, and a brush picker with large array of options, from "follow direction" to multiple jitter settings. Pixelmator also has support for Adobe Photoshop brushes.

Also like Photoshop, Pixelmator comes with all the image manipulation tools you might need for adjusting color, saturation, brightness and contrast, and many more. If you … Read more

Apple has added a lot of new features in iOS 5, one of them being the ability to edit pictures directly in the Photos app. This feature is very easy to use and almost feels like it has been there from day one, even though it has been noticably absent.

Look through the slideshow below for a step-by-step guide on how to edit photos on your Apple device on iOS 5.

There's no point in firing up a huge image-editing suite when you just need to perform a simple task like resizing or cropping an image. That's why there are programs like Quick JPEG Resize and Crop. It does exactly what the name suggests and nothing more, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you find yourself frequently needing to perform these tasks, this program is one of the most efficient ways to get them done.

Quick JPEG Resize and Crop has a simple interface that's quite easy to figure out. Users can navigate to the desired … Read more

Not every photo taken is a masterpiece; some are upside down, or sideways, or have extra "scenery" that you didn't choose to include. For these issues, the Android gallery app offers a few simple editing tools to help correct image orientation and tidy up photos.

Getting to the editing menu:Open a picture from the gallery and then press the menu button. This menu is only available when previewing a photo by itself. Now, select More from this menu.

Editing choices will appear in the new pop-up menu, such as Details, Set as, Crop, Rotate Left, and … Read more

Acorn is an easy-to-use but still relatively feature-filled image editor that provides a lower-cost alternative to professional editing programs. With its slimmed-down interface--just a single palette and a document window--Acorn feels much like Apple's iLife applications, but it still provides a full array of editing features, including multiple layers (with masks), vector shapes, filters (such as tilt-shift, plus support for Quartz Composer compositions), blending, gradients, text and drawing tools (including a Brush Designer for custom brushes), and a hex color picker.

What makes this app most appealing is its ease of use and raw speed: Acorn takes full advantage … Read more