PUBLIC MARKS from decembre with tags photo & lifehacker

Windows only: Create and mix your own file and media playlists with Freepath. Users can create file playlists from a variety of sources: files from their own computers, video files found on YouTube, photos from Flickr, nearly anything you can drag and drop from the web or your own computer can be dumped into Freepath. Once the files are placed within a playlist, users can opt to keep the list as spartan or create a slideshow complete with transitions and extra effects. One of the more unique features of Freepath is that files remain editable once they are embedded into the playlist.

Windows/Linux: Picasa, Google's photo management tool, has quietly announced a new beta that adds basic movie editing, fuller syncing to Web Albums, and many other features and changes. Actually, the biggest change in the new Picasa isn't in the software itself—it's a new "quick view" utility, which replaces the basic double-click viewing tool in Windows with a Picasa-friendly, drop-cloth-style window. Five new collage styles have also been added to the offerings, and Picasa's new "Movie Maker" tool lets you create slideshow-style clips out of stills or trim and paste video clips together. Check out Picasa's help section for more details on what's new and what's changed, or read on for a peek at some screenshots from the new release.

A standalone, portable version of the latest version 2.6.1 of the GIMP image editor is now available to download and run from your USB drive, plus two useful plug-ins: the GIMP Portable Photoshop Layout plug-in, which approximates the Photoshop dock and toolbox, and the GIMP Portable Background Window plug-in, which lets GIMP occupy a single window. [via]

Adds effects to your digital photos through a slick, simple-to-use interface. The program provides an impressive range of effects and can upload the results to photo-sharing site Flickr

They don't talk to one another. If at home after a vacation inf Thailand, I had a hard drive loaded with photos and I wanted a way to organize, caption, and publish them all at once without duplicating work. Here's how I did it with Picasa and Flickr.

The Digital Photography School blog has an instructive tutorial on using layers

Provides a set of filters that sweep through pictures with a lot of digital "noise" (think under-lit night-time shots) or artifacts (digital errors). The default filter will work for most photos, making them look crisper and cleaner...

a helpful tutorial on creating a grunge look in an image in Photoshop, like the one pictured above with the grungy corner.

The technique involves Photoshop's Match Color tool; the author shows you the simple steps to "borrow" the colors from a classic painting and apply them to your photo. The results? Pretty impressive! —Rick Broida

I published an article here on Lifehacker called Tips for Flickr beginners, a quick rundown on how to get started on Flickr. One year later I'm still as big a Flickr fan and user as ever, so it's about time to point out some of the more advanced features

help you build scrapbooks online using pictures, video, and several stylized templates.

Web site Scrapblog lets you create online scrapbooks with a powerful flash editing tool and tons of templates. Scapblog is one of the most robust, desktop application-like web apps I've seen in a long time; working in Scrapblog has a similar look and f