Bloom 1.7 has been released. It brings new features such as working offline, improvements in the quality of the images uploaded, UI improvements, better native integration on Windows XP/ Vista and Mac and stability improvements.
Download it from http://antaki.ca/bloom/index.php
Have been using the 1.6 version of Bloom for a while on the mac, saved me many a headache uploading a lot of photos, however since 1.7 has been released I have not been able to use it, it loads the splash screen, then asks to trust the certificate and then simply shows that bloom is running, but never actually loads the interface, I can quit the program happily through the menu, just never loads the actual window to start using it. Am using a Mac.
Hi there,
First off… there’s a problem with the contact page on antaki.ca/contact.php. The verification box has a maxlength of 2 even though you need to enter three characters to answer it. So instead of sending you a message, I’m just writing it here.
I really like Bloom and I’ve been using it a lot. But I’m having trouble with the image resizing algorithm that you’re using. The images look grainy and ugly. Here’s an example:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=37895541&l=18962&id=409622
Notice the skin and hair looks grainy. The original image was smooth and clear.
How are you resizing the images? You shouldn’t be using Image.getScaledInstance(). Take a look at this article:
http://today.java.net/pub/a/today/2007/04/03/perils-of-image-getscaledinstance.html
Thanks and keep up the good work!!
Speedplane,
Thanks for letting me know about the maxlength I’ve fixed it. I’m not using getScaledInstance(), getScaledInstance() would probably produce a better thumbnail at the expense of the slower speed. I’m using drawImage() with a quality of 100% and I’m using the Bicubic Interpolation. I could improve the quality by using the multi-pass algorithm I will look into that for the 1.8 release.