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If you think the biggest problem with a camera phone is the poor quality of the photos, a member of Congress might make you think again. Earlier this month, Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would ban camera phones from having a silent mode when taking a picture.

The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act (H.R. 414) would "require any mobile phone containing a digital camera to sound a tone whenever a photograph is taken." What's more, the bill would prohibit such handsets from being equipped with a means of disabling or silencing the tone. Enforcement would be through the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The text of the bill is short, and King's office has not released any public statements. Yet, the reasoning behind the legislation is clear. The text states that "Congress finds that children and adolescents have been exploited by photographs taken in dressing rooms and public places with the use of a camera phone."

At the time of this writing the bill has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce. The Camera Phone Predator Alert Act has no co-sponsors.

The Motorola ZN5 is a great phone and camera.

(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)

Ever since the Motorola announced the ZN5 last June, we've been waiting with bated breath to get our hands on the fancy camera phone.

Monday, it finally lands at T-Mobile. Designed in partnership Kodak (yes, that Kodak), the ZN5 is hardly the first camera phone we've seen, but it certainly stands at the top of the list. Camera options are top-notch, the photo quality is excellent, and the integrated Wi-Fi makes getting photos off the phone a breeze. Of course, it is a phone too, and on that front it succeeds by offering good call quality.

Other features were generous, and it's all wrapped up in a sleek and sturdy design. At times, the phone could be a little pokey, but the ZN5 is an appealing device that successfully blends "camera" and "phone."

Read on for our full Motorola ZN5 review and video and peruse a gallery of glamour shots in our ZN5 slideshow.

(Credit: LG)

We reviewed the original Prada phone more than a year ago and loved its style but weren't happy with its lack of support for 3G. On Monday, LG announced the second generation of the phone, and guess what? It will support 3G and more.

Design-wise, the new Prada will look almost identical to the original, with one major difference: a QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the handset. The keyboard is very thin and therefore won't make the phone much thicker.

The keyboard is definitely a welcome addition for those who like typing on the phone. You can, of course still, use the onscreen button to manage calls the same way you would with the original phone.

Apart from 3G support, the new Prada's features include video calling capability, a full HTML browser, a 5-megapixel camera, and Wi-Fi capability.

The new phone will be available with a starting price of 600 euros (about $820) though major EU mobile dealerships in the fourth quarter of this year. For now, it's unclear when or if the phone will be available in the U.S.

Because not everyone has a Nokia N95 or comparable luxurious 5-megapixel camera (including me,) most of us have to grudgingly accept our camera phones' variable output quality or take the time to fix photos of emotional value. (Or blackmail value, which is also extremely powerful.)

There are a ton of tips out there for improving mobile phone images, and most of them involve a proficiency in advanced image-editing tools and a working knowledge of the parameters required for a dizzying number of tools. That's surely a fun challenge for digital photography enthusiasts of all levels, but what about those with limited time on their hands who just want a quick, reliable fix?

Though subtle, the image on the right exhibits lighter corners and smoother, brighter tones. Compare the curtain noise, for instance.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Mobile media editors

Artifacts from JPEG compression are common problem spots. You've seen those choppy edges and gradients, and abundant digital noise. You've also no doubt noticed that contrast, sharpness, and color quality routinely suffer. There's always trying to eliminate them with an editing app built for mobile media, like Roxio Media Manager, which comes included in my BlackBerry desktop software. However, I found that neither the basic tools to manually or autocorrect photos adequately fixed exposure, saturation, and sharpness; nor did it reverse the glaring red-eye in individual or batch modes.

The freeware app Mobile Photo Enhancer performed much better. A sometimes laggy processor, the app nevertheless noticeably improved photo quality, especially the smoothness and brightness of skin tones. Its basic tools did allow for some sensitivity in reducing noise, sharpening the shot, adjusting levels, and optionally doubling the image resolution. While the overall photo quality improved, the app once again failed on red-eye removal.

Quick fixes with image editors

Before editing, the subjects resembled demonic zombies. Brightness, saturation, and a combination of automated and manual red-eye correction reinstated the glow of health.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Automated batch editing salvaged my photos enough to pass on to friends, but unsurprisingly, individual editing focused on problem areas of sharpness, contrast, and color saturation produces much better photos. Favorite free editors from CNET Download.com include IrfanView, FastStone, and Paint.NET.

The first step is getting levels and contrast in order. See if you like the looks of your program's auto-levels. If not, undo the change and start anew by tweaking brightness and contrast. I usually amp up each considerably. Next, I attack dullness by increasing the saturation, often by 5 to 10 units. This notably improves skin tones and banishes that drained, vampiric matting produced by dimly lit photos, but too much can make the subject looks candied.

Most of the portraits that file out of my BlackBerry are hard hit by red-eye, which only some image editors are skilled at fixing. The freebies, on average, are not. In those cases, zoom in on the eyes to hand-fix them with a pencil, brush, and color-picker tool. It admittedly adds a few minutes, but makes a big difference in the overall image by the time you zoom back out.

I follow up the whole procedure by lightly sharpening the image or the image edges if that's an option in the program I've opened. Oversharpening images can leave them grainy, especially if they're again saved as JPEGs.

Tips for intermediate-to-advanced users

The five-step process above is considerably more involved than a one-click batch conversion, but it will hardly satisfy photography enthusiasts or perfectionists. I'll leave you with an example of a more advanced technique that makes use of image layers and manual blurring, and invite you to share your own methods for improving camera phone photos in the comments below.

(Credit: Crave UK)

There's nothing worse than having your mate shove their fancy new camera phone, such as the Nokia N82, in your face when you're not exactly rolling in moolah. But if you're on a budget it doesn't mean you can't find a good mobile snapper. In fact, it's worth keeping an eye on the pay as you go shelves for older handsets that end up there--you can often find a bargain.

If old phones don't float your boat, LG has come up with a relatively inexpensive solution in the KC550 slider. It doesn't have 3G or Wi-Fi, but it does come with a 5-megapixel camera that takes good shots in daylight. It's worth mentioning that there's only an LED photo light on the camera, so shots in low light don't come out brilliantly, but in the daytime it performed just fine.

As for the rest of the KC550, we don't have too many complaints. The keypad is easy to use, and the screen is large enough to prevent unattractive squinting. Overall it's a pretty, well-built phone and feels like one too--it's neither too heavy nor too light.

Typical to LG's new fleet, the KC550 exudes a certain style and doesn't shout pay as you go, which is a welcome change. It currently goes for about 170 pounds (about $339) SIM-free from Play.com, which sounds expensive but isn't compared to other 5-megapixel snappers. Expect a full review soon.

(Source: Crave UK)

(Credit: Crave UK)

LG has just announced the latest addition to its Black Label series--think Chocolate-- the LG Secret. It's set to be a stylish new phone for fashonistas who want something that looks sexy and functions, er, sexy.

It's also going to be the slimmest 5-megapixel camera phone ever made, at 11.8 millimeters thick, with support for shooting video at 120fps into DivX format. There's also built-in photo and video editing features, including the rather alarming 'facial editing' and technology that automatically alters the lighting in a photo to produce a more enjoyable image.

Other features include a touch-sensitive glass LCD screen, Bluetooth, music playback, games, office document support and an FM radio. With a tie-in to Google products, Secret users can access Google Mail, Google Maps, and YouTube videos. Exactly how this is integrated will be revealed in our man-on-the-scene Andrew Lim's hands-on piece very soon.

(Source: Crave UK)

Though carriers have loosened some of the reins in the last couple of years, it still can be a tricky process to get photos off your camera phone. The most common method, sending your snaps as a multimedia message to an e-mail address, costs money. Sure, you can offset individual messaging fees with a messaging plan, but that too will add a few dollars to your monthly bill. A Bluetooth file transfer is a better (and free) option, but you'll need Bluetooth on both ends. Also, up until recently some carriers restricted Bluetooth use so they wouldn't lose out on messaging fees.

But while the restrictions are no longer the case, we're always fans of more choice and Alltel yesterday announced a new option for managing your camera phone photos. Select Alltel phones now will offer a new service from Ontela called PhotoCopter. When you take a photo, PhotoCopter will automatically save a copy of the image to your home computer and online photo albums such as Photobucket, Flickr, Blogger, and Snapfish.

Sound convenient? Well, it is in a way. If you're an avid shutterbug and love to save your snaps for posterity, PhotoCopter can save you a bit of work. According to Alltel, it requires 100 keystrokes to transfer 10 pictures to a computer. That may seem to be a bit of a trivial comparison, except then you're talking about a hundred photos.

It might even save you money as well. Though PhotoCopter is $2.99 per month, that's three dollars less than Alltel's cheapest messaging plan for 300 messages a month. While you can always transfer photos with cell phone syncing software and a data cable, that method sort of defeats the purpose of being wireless.

We have to gripe that PhotoCopter is available only on the Motorola Razr2 V9m, the Motorola Rokr Z6m and Alltel's versions of the aging Razr V3. That leaves out nifty handsets such as the LG Glimmer. Hopefully, we'll see support for more models soon.

Call it quits, Nikon; it's over.

(Credit: Crave)

File this one under the "I have no basis for my opinion but I'm going to spew it anyway because it may jumpstart my sales" department. File it under the "convention of fools" department while you're at it too.

According to the Carphone Warehouse -- one of the UK's leading retailers of cell phones and services, sales of camera phones will eventually overtake digital cameras and will ultimately lead to the digital camera's demise.

To prove his point, the company's CEO had the following to say: "It's not all about megapixels. There is high consumer demand for gadget convergence - one all-purpose device to replace cameras, MP3 players and PDAs. The next stage in the evolution of the mobile phone is taking the mobile device beyond talking and texting to fulfill this demand."

Hold on, it gets even better: "The digital stills camera is a disappearing breed, in particular at the lower end of the market. Camera phones are much more convenient for capturing spontaneous shots ? people want to be able to take pictures when they want and where they want. The stand alone DSC may not be extinct yet but there is a chance it will join the VHS video tape, the Cine-film recorder and even the film camera as a technology of the past. The photographic market is changing rapidly and the digital camera's position within it is not assured."

Maybe I missed the memo, but this guy is kidding, right? He can't be this foolish. Shall we take a look at why Carphone Warehouse's CEO may take the prize for the dumbest statement made in the past month?