If you are someone like me, you might download a lot of images, music and video from the internet. However, over the course of time you might have downloaded tons of duplicates. In the past we have told you about several software which find duplicate files fast free and also allow you to find and delete duplicate files from your hard drive, however, lot of time has past since then and I had the changes to use another software specifically to find and delete duplicate images and pictures.

VisiPics is a simple duplicate image finder which works very well to find duplicate images. It allows you to scan through various folders and sub-folders to find duplicate images and delete them from a single interface. The best part is that it allows you to preview those images before you can actually delete them.

Once you have downloaded VisiPics you can launch it and select the folders you want to run duplicate checks on. Once you have selected the folders you can set the comparison filter for the images. There are three different filters available: Strict, Basic, Loose. Running the Loose filtering allows for greater comparison and a chance to find more duplicate images.

After you have changed the settings for finding duplicate images click on the play button and it will start scanning the folders and then running duplicate checks. The duplicate checks might take a while depending on how many images it has to compare and the type of filtering you chose.

Once the comparison is over VisiPics will show you the duplicate images in the left hand side container, you can hover over the images and see their preview and then mark the images by clicking on the image. Once you have scanned and marked the images which are duplicate you can either move them, rename them or delete them using the buttons in the right hand side container. You can continue browsing more duplicate images by clicking on the page links at the bottom of the left hand side container.

Overall, I have used VisiPics and have claimed over 1GB of space by deleting duplicate images, this is definitely a great software to compare and remove duplicate images from your hard drive.

Techie Buzz Ratings: 4.5/5

Download Link: Download VisiPics

Most of you might be already familiar with the term "Stock Photography". But, if you are one of those, who have no idea regarding this term, then let me explain you briefly. Stock Photography, also known as Stock Photos, are professional photographs of common people, events, nature, landmark, etc. These photos can be bought and sold on a royalty-free basis. The royalty free images are not actually "free". You will need to pay a one-time fee to use the image multiple times.

Stock photos are used in newspapers, magazines, textbooks, T-shirts, consumer advertisements, trade advertisements, greeting cards, calendars, websites, etc. You might also need some stock photos in the near future, but finding a great stock photography site with a large amount of useful photos as well as reasonable pricing is a difficult job. After browsing a number of stock photography sites, I finally found a collection of great photos at Depositphotos.com.

Depositphotos was founded in 2009 and it is the fastest growing free stock images agency in the world. You can find more than 4 million stock photos and vector images at Depositphotos. The design of the site is quite simple and easy to use. I was looking for a couple of royalty-free photos related to nature. I did a simple search with the keyword "nature". And within few seconds, I was able to find thousands of amazing nature photos. You can see the live example here.

You can easily purchase the required images using credits. For every dollar, you will get one credit. The images are available in various sizes, resolutions and dimensions. You can purchase the XSmall image for just 0.50 credits, while the value of XXLarge photo goes up to 6 credits. You can also purchase the vector image for 9 credits. Depositphotos offers 4 different payment options – Credit Card (Visa, Master Card and Visa Electron), PayPal, MoneyBookers and WebMoney. It also offers an unique "Pay-by-SMS" option, where you can purchase credits just by sending a simple text to the given number.

You can not only purchase stock photos but also stock illustrations on an individual basis along with purchasing them with a subscription. As soon as you join this site, you will get a free 7 days subscription with an option to download up to five photos of any size per day. It means that you can get up to 35 photos, without spending any money. The only catch is that you will need to link your credit card or PayPal account. After 7 days, you will be automatically charged $59 for the monthly subscription. But, you can cancel the order within first 7 days and easily get the required photos for free.

If you are a photographer, then you call also sell some of your great photos to potential buyers via Depositphotos. There is no limit on uploading and selling your photos. But, you will need to go through Application process. The expert staff at Depositphotos will ask you to submit five images that represent your best work. You application will be reviewed and accepted, if the images are of good quality and composition. Once accepted, you can sell your images and earn money based on commission. You can earn a commission of anywhere between 40% to 60% of the selling cost of the image.

There are number of sites offering stock photos. But, some of the stock photo agency offer good quality photos at a very high cost, while the others offer low cost images, which are not even worth buying. Depositphotos is one of the best site where you can get high quality stock photos, without burning a hole in your pocket.

Depositphotos also have also launched some special programs for bloggers and photographers which can be viewed at http://depositphotos.com/for-bloggers.html or http://depositphotos.com/for-photographers.html.

Disclaimer: The following post is a sponsored review of Depositphotos. All views provided in this post are unbiased and have not been influenced by the sponsor.

These days almost everything gets documented with images. Digital cameras, mobile phones and even screen capture applications deliver images with lots of info (geo tag, resolution to more detailed EXIF info, meta data) included within the file. These information is necessary for many purposes like studying the conditions for taking a similar snap. However, Windows explorer manages to reveal some of them while failing for most. FastPreview comes to your rescue.

FastPreview is a free tool that you can use to see all the embedded information within an image. The tool once installed, adds:

1. FastPreview tab in the file properties dialog box. This can be used to view/copy the values for the embedded info. You can copy a single attribute or copy the entire information with just one click. Adobe eXtensible Metadata Language (XMP) information, EXIF Camera/Image information, IPTC Media information can be obtained from the FastPreview tab.

2.   A nice image preview functionality within the context menu.

The tool also comes with an image viewer utility. Whenever you open an image using this viewer the image is opened in a mode to fit the screen. You can rotate your images from the viewer without losing the image quality.

The tool is compatible with Windows XP/Vista/7 32-bit and 64-bit versions. However, the 64-bit version needs SSE3 capable CPU.

Techie-Buzz Verdict:

For all who really wants to learn a bit of Photography studying examples, this tool is a lifesaver. The information provided for any image as I studied them really gets down to the most simplest detail like whether or not the flash was fired during taking the picture. The context menu preview proves helpful only if you have your explorer thumbnails disabled or else it seems a little waste of screen space. As a whole this a useful shell integration to know more about images.

[Download FastPreview]

DENVER–Photobucket Corporation, the world’s leading dedicated photo and video sharing service, today announced Snapbucket, the first of many upcoming additions to its award-winning mobile platform. Snapbucket, which complements Photobucket’s existing mobile app, enables users to snapphotos from their mobile device, personalize those photos through unique filters, effects, vignettes and frames, and then easily share with their social community. Snapbucket also allows users to create and save their own distinct sets of filter combinations. Best of all, both the original and personalized photos are automatically stored online in the user’s Photobucket account.

With our integrated platform, Photobucket is uniquely positioned to bring together the simplicity and spontaneity of mobile with the creativity and permanence of the web. In the coming months, we will continue to expand our leadership in mobile with additional products, including the release of a new creative video app.

Our users have been asking for more creative ways to express themselves through visual media,said Kate Hare, vice president of products at Photobucket. Snapbucket gives our users what they’ve asked for a simple, on-the-go application to capture, personalize and share their photos.

The award-winning Photobucket Mobile App spans all major platforms and is growing at a staggering rate. Mobile uploads have increased more than 600% over the last year with users uploading more than 20 million photos and videos to Photobucket.com every month. In January of this year, Photobucket also added their patented video technology to Photobucket Mobile. In just a few months, video uploads have quickly increased to upwards of two million per month. To accommodate this increase in user uploads, Photobucket is also announcing free, unlimited photo storage for all users, plus expanded video storage (500 videos up to 10 minutes in length).

We are seeing explosive growth in mobile, and at the same time we are adding a million new users a month on our website,said Tom Munro, CEO of Photobucket. With our integrated platform, Photobucket is uniquely positioned to bring together the simplicity and spontaneity of mobile with the creativity and permanence of the web. In the coming months, we will continue to expand our leadership in mobile with additional products, including the release of a new creative video app.

More information about Snapbucket can be found at www.photobucket.com/snapbucket. To create a free Photobucket account, users can visit http://photobucket.com or find the Photobucket Mobile Application available in the app store on all major smartphone platforms. Photobucket supports Mobile Web, iPhone, Android based devices, Blackberry, and Windows Phone 7.

About Photobucket

Photobucket is the world’s leading dedicated photo and video sharing service. With over 100 million registered members, Photobucket users upload over four million images and videos per day from the Web and connected digital devices. Photobucket hosts, preserves and protects photos and videos while bringing members the very best browsing, sharing and editing experiences. In addition to uploading and sharing with friends and family on the Photobucket site, users can also instantly share memories across all of the most popular social networks, instant messenger applications, through email, and from their mobile phones. Photobucket’s headquarters are in Denver, Colorado with a regional office in San Francisco, California.

If you are planning to get a business card for yourself, and you have no idea how to design it, here is a quick and easy way. Free PDF Card is an online service that can create a free business card for you.

Go to the Free PDF Card website and you will see a form. Each of the form fields represents a line in the preview business card (to the left) in a vertical order. Beside every text field of the form there are basic formatting options like bold, italics and font size. If you wish to show your company logo, upload it using the “Upload Logo” button. You can also show your image if it’s for a personal purpose.

Start filling the form with the info you wish to show on your business card. Do the necessary formatting until you are satisfied with its look. Every time you wish to preview the changes you have made, press the Preview button below. Following is a demo PDF card that I created for myself using Free PDF Card.

Once you have completed editing your free business card, press the Download button just below the card preview section. The card will be downloaded as a PDF file which you can print.

Microsoft Live Labs has rolled out a new web based tool named ZoomIt to zoom any image on the web. All you need to do is copy the URL which holds the image and then paste it in the create box and hit the button Create.

When I checked the quality of zoomed image, well, I am sorry to say that the Windows default zooming (in Windows Photo Gallery) served better. However the tool surely proves handy if you wish to zoom any image on the web and not necessarily download it.

The good thing about the online tool is that you can embed the zoom tool (with an online image you wish to show) on your web page. Following is an example of that.

Techie-Buzz Verdict

If you are an webmaster and wish to demonstrate a big image which you can’t embed normally use Zoom.it. This way you can embed the picture as a whole without disturbing your website layout.

[Windows and MAC]: There is one problem with Facebook photo albums, you are not shown any link to download the entire photo album in your computer. To download all the photos of a Facebook photo album, you have to click through each photo, load them in a new browser tab and save the images one by one. This procedure can be quite tiring and time consuming as well.

We have previously covered a Facebook photo download tool , which lets you download entire Facebook albums in your computer. But what about “Tagged photos” in Facebook? What if you want to download all the tagged photos of yours or may be some of your friends?

Enter Photograbber, a simple Facebook photo download tool which lets you download tagged photos of any of your Facebook friends. Once you have downloaded the package, extract and run the utility. This will open a browser window where you have to login to your Facebook account and grant the necessary permissions.

You will then be shown an authentication code, simply copy and paste it in the Photograbber preferences as shown below:

Photograbber will then display all your Facebook friends in a list, you can select yourself or any other friend from the list and then download all the tagged photos of that person in your computer.

The application searches your friends wall posts for images where you have been tagged. One downside is that you are not shown the thumbnails or any preview of the images in the application window. Photograbber goes to work and downloads all the photos at once, you are also not given any option to select the images you want.

I think Photograbber does a nice job, you don’t have to search for all tagged photos of a particular friend and manually download them.

Note: You can download only those photos which have been publicly shared by your friend. The application works if the privacy setting for the particular image is “Everyone” or “Friends” , otherwise not.

We have seen some really cool ways to create background images for your Twitter profile. There is Twitlay, which lets you create Twitter backgrounds from an image stored in your computer. There is also Twitbacks, which makes it easy to show all your social networking accounts as your Twitter profile background.

But wouldn’t it be a great idea to use a photo mosaic as a Twitter background? The idea here is to create a photo mosaic from profile thumbnails of your Twitter followers or friends. Here is an example:

MyFriendsMosaic let’s you quickly create photo mosaics from profile images of your Twitter friends and followers. Just visit the site and enter your Twitter username and choose followers or friends from the dropdown menu.

Once the mosaic is done, you can download the image in your computer. The site works with Twitter and Livejournal. The premier option let’s you buy custom templates such as: an image for the mouse pad, a coffee mug, a T-shirt or may be a handbag.

Techie Buzz Verdict

The site looks cool but the downside is that there aren’t any templates. All you get is a rectangular image which can be set as a desktop background or the background image of your Twitter profile. I would love to see different shapes being introduced, so that each mosaic looks different from others.

Techie Buzz rating: 3/5 (Good).

There are currently several programs that let even novices create abstract wallpapers without prior knowledge of complicated design tools. These programs have friendly interfaces and are generally rather easy to use. In one of my previous posts, I had talked about the wallpaper creator tool by X3Studios, which lets you create abstract vector-based wallpapers. Now, if you have a weakness for abstract fractal-like wallpapers, then you will find the free Flash-based Flame nothing short of addictive!

Compared to X3Studios, Flame does not provide you with as many options. Yet, there is tremendous potential for variety within its limited options. You have either a black or a white background, and are also provided with a brush tool which can be customized. Apart from color, saturation and opacity, you can even adjust other options such as size, softness, chaos and noise to change the nature of your brush strokes. All that you have to do to create fractal-like shapes and doodles is move your mouse around!

The trick lies in exercising control over your mouse movements. For smoothly flowing sheer color strokes, it is best to move your mouse quickly without keeping it in one spot for too long. Slow mouse movements simply translate into a harder, more intensely focused color, which may not be a bad thing if that is what you’re aiming at in the first place.

Finally, once you deem your masterpiece completed, you can save your artwork to your computer. There is, however, one rather crucial limitation. Your wallpaper can only be saved at a resolution of 1680 × 1050 pixels.

In spite of this, you can easily find yourself whiling away your time with Flame, enthralled by the sheer diversity present in every entrancing endeavor of yours!

Here, I have shared a couple of wallpapers that I made using Flame and would love to see the ones you create! I hope you have as much fun as I did!

I have always been a big fan of Picnik, the online image editor which I have mentioned several times in the past. Picnik provide users with a easy to use and simple interface to edit images online.

In an official announcement on the Picnik Blog, the folks at Picnik said that Google has officially acquired Picnik.

And all this leads us to today’s exciting news: we’ve just been acquired by Google! What does this mean for Picnik? It means we can think BIG. Google processes petabytes of data every day, and with their worldwide infrastructure and world-class team, it is truly the best home we could have found. Under the Google roof we’ll reach more people than ever before, impacting more lives and making more photos more awesome.

But why would Google acquire a online image editing company? Well, from what I could think of, Google’s Picasa Web does not have any image editing capabilities, so Picnik could be put to good use at Picasa Web. Another use for Picnik would be in Gmail and Google Buzz, where Google allows users to upload and share images but does not allow them to edit it.

Picnik definitely proves a good fit for lot of Google properties and it will be interesting to see how Google makes use of the latest acquisition. However, current Picnik users do not have much to worry about as they will be able to continue using Picnik as before.

There is no official note on the price of the sale, but we will try to update the post once we get information about it.

Google welcomes Picnik [via TechMeme]