I use gThumb for organizing and viewing my photos. One feature I wish it had (version 3.8) was the ability to list un-tagged images. I recently figured out a way to do that. I search for all images, then tag them all with the tag “temporary”. Then using the find (search) dialog I search for those images that only have the tag “temporary”. The first step of tagging all images takes a while but after that it makes it easy to find “un-tagged images.” Those are the images with only a “temporary” tag.
I keep getting ads for Topaz up-scaling software, and have wondered if it is any good. Not that it matters, since I am running on Linux computers, and Topaz is Windows. But recently I found an open source up-scaler program names Upscayl, which runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac. So I installed it to do some testing. First thing I discovered is that my built in graphics card wasn’t powerful enough to run the software. So I had to buy a Nvidia GPU. I bought the least expensive one I could find, and it runs the software just fine.
My simple question is how does this software compare to scaling in Gimp. For example, if I take an image and scale it 400% in Gimp, how does that compare to scaling the image 400% in Upscayl.
So I took an image I have of a hummingbird.
I will upscale it and then crop it to the same dimensions, 1920×1080 pixels.
Here is the new image up-scaled by Gimp.
And here is the image up-scaled by Upscayl.
Upscayl did create a sharper image. Interestingly, the image it created is at a lower resolution, 300×300 ppi, where Gimp left the image at 350×350 ppi. But the Upscayl image is slightly larger, 1.3MB compared to 1.2MB
So let’s try 800%. Here is the file size before cropping.
Here is Gimp’s output cropped to 1920×1080.
Upscayl has a feature called “Double Upscayl” which runs the upscayl twice on the image. Running Upscayl takes longer that Gimp, especially if doing the double upscale. Here are it’s results. So first I left the scale factor at 4x and checked the “Double Upscayl” checkbox. This resulted in a much larger image, since it first did a 4x, and then another 4x. That is a 1600% scale factor. That isn’t what I wanted, but here is that result. First the uncropped image size.
And the cropped image. At this level of zoom you can see that the AI has sharpened the feathers too much.
Ok, now lets run Upscayl at 8x, without the doubling checkbox checked.
Here is the uncropped image size, it matches the 800% Gimp scaled image.
So what do I think? Well it certainly looks promising. Upscayl has different algorithms you can choose. I was using the ultrasharp. I also suspect that the image subject will make a difference. Does the image have blurry areas; how does it do with people; what about text in an image, etc.
Download the zip and unzip the file to get the installer. Run the installer. It should work, but use it at your own risk. It doesn’t access anything on your computer or track anything. Note that when you run the installer you may get a “Windows protected your PC” message. That is just telling you that Microsoft sees me as an unknown publisher. If you get the message, click the more info link and then click the run anyway button.
Effect: Hand the spectator four aces. Take the aces one at a time, insert each into the center of the deck, followed by several in-the-hands swing cuts. After the second ace you can show the top and bottom cards. After inserting and cutting the fourth ace, you split the deck in half and give it one riffle shuffle. The aces are then shown on top. (That is a bare bones presentation, once you have the aces on top you could do anything you want. For example you could do an in-the-hands Triumph.)
This is an update to the Faro Game that I wrote. It allows for up to eight players to play the game. The basic gameplay is similar to the single-player mode with the following exceptions/additions. The instructions for the single-player game are here.
I have to admit that I am a cat lover. I can tolerate dogs, some I even like. But cats have my heart. One thing I enjoyed when I was traveling was seeing and taking photographs of cats.
Cat in Valbonne, France
NW Portland, Oregon
Aubry, cat that visited the office, Portland, Oregon
I enjoy word games like Scrabble and decided to write a couple of games that I could use both for the pleasure of playing, and also as training aids for playing Scrabble and other word games.
Anagram game
The first I wrote is an anagram finding game, simply called wordgame. It shows seven “tiles” any you try to find all of the anagrams.
Word finder game
The other game I wrote is a “word finder“. It can be played on mobile (phone) or desktop devices.
