In this weekly selection of visual communication tools you can find services to edit your pictures online, to take screenshots and videos of your own desktop, to create thumbnails of any picture and to discover which font has been used to write a document and more.

Photo credit: Hypermania

Here my selected visual communication tools for this week:

1. Pikifix: Web-based image editor lets resize, crop, and add effect to your images without any additional software
2. Jing: Downloadable application allows you to take screenshots and screencasts of your screen
3. Flickr Slideshow Generator: Generate embeddable slideshows from Flickr pictures
4. FireShot: Firefox extensions enables you to capture web-pages' screenshots
5. Easy Thumbnails: Create thumbnails and scaled copies of your images, setting contrast, brightness sharpness and more
6. Favicon: Online icon creator enables you to draw and save icons for your PC or website
7. Instant Eyedropper: Free download software lets you grab the HTML code of any pixel on your screen
8. What The Font: Upload a picture and discover which font has been used to type that document

Image Editing and Visual Communication

1. Pikifix
   
   Pikifix is a web-based image editor that you can use to edit your images with no additional software. You can decide whether to use a picture from your PC or to provide a URL, and immediately start editing it. You can rezise it, crop it, add effects, borders and captions. When you're done, you can save your image in JPG, BPM, PNG, TIFF and GIF, email it, and get the HTML embedding code. Free to use with no need to register.
   http://www.pikifx.com/





2. Jing
   
   Jing is a downloadable application for taking screenshots and screencasts of your monitor (or any region). You can invoke Jing via a keyboard shortcut, then select the area you want to capture, tell Jing whether you want a video or an image, and then let it do its work. Currently it is free to download for both Windows and Mac platforms.
   http://www.jingproject.com/





3. Flickr Slideshow Generator
   
   Flickr Slideshow Generator is a free website that generates slideshows using Flickr pictures and automatically gives you the HTML embed code. You can select photos by typing a Flickr user name, set ID, group or tags; then, you just have to click Generate, set height and width and you're ready to embed your new slideshow on your blog or website. Free to use, no registration needed
   http://fabiocavassini.com.ar/SlideShowGenerator.html





4. FireShot
   
   FireShot is a free Firefox add-on that anyone can use to take screenshots of any web-page with additional software. Directly from Firefox's interface, you can take pictures of the entire page or any region. It provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Screenshots can be saved in PNG, JPEG and BMP format, copied to clipboard, e-mailed or sent to external editor. Free to download.
   https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5648





5. Easy Thumbnails
   
   Easy Thumbnails is a downloadable application that allows you to create thumbnails and scaled copies of all your images. You can process images individually, in groups, or in whole folders using a simple file selector and built-in image viewer. Just set height and width, and use slider controls to rotate images and adjust contrast, brightness, sharpness, and other attributes. Free to download and use.
   http://www.fookes.com/ezthumbs/index.php





6. Favicon
   
   Favicon is an online icon creator, that you can use to create and personalize icons for your PC, desktop icons, or website, the one that appears in the address bar, next to the URL. You can select any color from the palette and start drawing anything you want, with a real time preview on the bottom. When you are finished, you can download your creation and start using it. Free with no registration needed.
   http://www.favicon.cc/





7. Instant Eyedropper
   
   Instant Eyedropper is a free downloadable software that works on Windows machines only, and that enables you to grab the HTML code for any color region of your screen. After the installation you will see a new icon on your system tray: just click on it, hold the left key and release it when you are pointing to the color you want to grab. When you release a little window will display the code, that will be automatically copied to your clipboard. Free to use.
   http://instant-eyedropper.com/





8. What The Font
   
   What The Font is an online service that allows you discover which font has been used in a document. It is really easy to use: just take a picture of a word that has been typed with that particular font and upload it in GIF, JPEG, TIFF, BMP formats (Max image size is 360 x 275 pixels) and, within a matter of seconds, it will tell you which font was used. The ideal letter height for the best search result is about 100 pixels. Free to use, no registration needed.
   http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

Originally written by Nico Canali De Rossi for Master New Media and first published on February 17th 2008 as "Visual Communication And Video Publishing - Selected Tools And Web Services - Sharewood Picnic Feb17 08"