Eager to emphasise your best feature in photographs, or perhaps tone down your worst? Or are photographs of friends and family displaying insufficient levels of mirth messing with your world view?
Not only are cameras allowing you to remove trace of foul moods from the people in your photos, but new software from Microsoft digitally creates a "perfect" photo without you even having taken the actual shot in question.
The new feature is in the latest version of Microsoft's Photo Gallery, which is part of the Microsoft Live Essentials suite - it does the interesting, some might think strange, courtesy, of combining the best aspects of your various bits from myriad photos and melding them together to produce the ideal shot.
Called Photo Fuse, Microsoft is hoping that the feature will prove especially popular for events such as weddings, although you'd think it might take a bit of the fun out of ‘Hens' and ‘Bucks' nights.
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| Which do you like best? Microsoft's Photo Gallery lets you pick which elements of your photos you like best, and combines them into a best-case image |
Photo Fuse is one of many ways automatic cameras and editing software features can now alter not only the exposure, but also alter the makeup of the scene. Another feature that Photo Fuse reminded us of is "Smile Shutter", which Sony advertises on its web site with the tagline, "Happy Moments".
Sony says that its T200 and DSC-T70 cameras are designed to recognise smiles according to a number of variables, such as rising cheeks and cheekbones, the appearance of teeth or narrowed eyes. If the feature is turned on - and you don't have to use it - the camera waits till it sees the appropriate grin, then takes the photo.
Sadly, the feature appears to lack the ability to spot cracked or fake smiles, so users could expect to see photos of their friends and family looking, well weird. And you'll probably struggle getting that picture of a guard at Buckingham Palace or other famously dour-faced subjects like Sydney taxi drivers.
As well as Smile Shutter, many modern compact cameras offer intelligent scene detection, face detection and motion detection. Facial tracking lets some cameras keep certain people in focus, while some cameras also have the ability to switch focus priority on adults or children.
Fujifilm recently launched a camera it says can recognise profiles up to a 90 degree angle, compared to most other snappers in the market that pretty much require the subject's face be caught straight on.
