Photos

How To: Make Your Photos Pop with Selective Desaturation —

As part of our ongoing efforts to showcase some of the fun effects you can apply with photoshop, we're going to touch on how to selectively desaturate an image.  There are multiple ways to achieve this type of effect; each method involving the utilization of Photoshops massive tool box to do the work for you.  We’re going to go over a couple of different ways to selectively desaturate, but first, what does that even mean? 

‘Saturation’ is a term used to describe the intensity of basic colors that make up an image.  As such, the lower the saturation of the image, the less intense the colors.  When an image has no saturation at all (see: desaturated) , it becomes a black and white image.  ‘Selective saturation’ usually involves converting an image into black and white, with the exception of a single part of a photo that remains in color.  Often, the part of the photo left in color is the primary subject.

Thousands of photographers have used this technique, with varying degrees of success, for a long time. We won’t claim that our example here is going to be high art, but it should serve as a nice guide. 

As in our previous tutorial , we will be achieving this effect by shooting our subject in natural light.  Unlike our previous tutorial, however, this affect can be achieved by shooting in a controlled light environment, so if you’ve got some off camera strobes you’ve been itching to fire, feel free to bust them out!

For this tutorial, we will be shooting a sleek Lotus Elise, parked right outside our offices.  Because the majority of this tutorial has to do with Photoshop, we won’t spend too much time going over your camera settings.  The car I’m going to be shooting is bright orange, a perfect color for this type of project.  When shooting, however, keep in mind that you want your subject to be much more bold than usual.  As such, I recommend taking a good light reading, then knocking your shutter down one or two steps to really get that color to pop.  Doesn’t have to be too dramatic; remember, you’ll have a chance to tinker with your light settings later in Photoshop. 

Once you’ve got an image that you feel will work, upload it to your computer and open up Photoshop.

The quickest and easiest way to go about doing this involves creating a copy of your current layer.  Click over your image in the Layers Palette on the bottom right hand corner of the screen.  Right click the picture, and select Duplicate Layer. 

 This will create two identical images, one on top of the other.  You may already see where I’m going with this.  Select the top layer in your layers palette, go to Image, and hit Desaturate.  You now have a black and white picture laid directly over a colored picture.

This essentially means that if you were to grab your eraser tool, you could erase away the black and white image leaving the colored image below.  Though this may sound easy in concept, it’s extremely easy to botch such a method, mainly because if you accidentally erase outside of the car, the color will spill over. 

In order to counteract this and keep your image looking as professional as possible, I will be covering two easy ways to selectively desaturate any focal point in an image.  Both of these methods can produce a professional looking photo, and can both be done quickly and efficiently with some practice.  

1.  Layer Masking 

Understanding the uses of layer masking can be an integral part in understanding the basic concepts of PS.  In this case, we have a desaturated ‘layer’ covering over the original saturated image.  By using a layer mask, we can choose which parts of the mask we would like to change, and which parts we would like to remain the same.  

In the instance of this tutorial, we want to keep a black and white, desaturated background, but we’d like to bring the colored car in from the picture beneath.  To do this, select your Layer Mask tool on the bottom right hand corner of the screen.   This will create a mask over your top layer that will appear as a white box. 

 

Make sure to select the white box¸ as you will be drawing on this mask to achieve your desired effect.  

    

Once you’ve selected the white box, select the brush tool (B), set its opacity and flow to 100%, and choose a nice, large, solid brush.  Begin painting over your car.  You’ll notice that your brush isn’t simply swiping black strokes across your canvas; this brush is bringing the color back into the car!  Keep in mind, however, that painting outside of the car will cause the color to bleed out; a common issue that can ruin the effect.  For the time being, however, don’t worry about the spillage.  Grab a huge brush and just paint around the general area of the car so that the whole vehicle is properly colored.  One of the benefits of a layer mask is that we can go back and touch it up afterwards.  

After taking a huge brush to the photo and painting on the layer mask, I came away with something like this.

You’ll notice that the car is fully colored, but so are segments of the surrounding background.  Layer masking offers a simple solution to this problem.  Reselect your brush tool.  Hit ‘X’ on your keyboard to alternate your back/fore ground colors, and switch to a white brush.  When layer masking, a black brush unveils the image below, but a white brush fights to keep the image black and white.  Zoom in on your image, and lower the size of your brush.  With your new white brush, carefully paint away the color that has bled over.  If a particular segment is giving you trouble, zoom in even closer and/or choose a smaller brush.  Also keep in mind that alternating between a white and black brush while layer masking is key to selective desaturation with layer masks. 

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After carefully brushing away at my car, I came away with this. 

You’ll notice slight errors on some of the corners of the car.  This can be easily corrected by switching back to a black brush ‘D’, zooming way in, and correcting the mistakes. 

You can zoom nearly infinitely with Photoshop, so don’t be afraid to realllllly get in there to correct your colors.

After a couple of minutes of touching up, this is what I came away with.  

Remember, when using layer masks to achieve this effect, alternating between black and white brushes and exercising patience is key.  

2.  The Pen Tool  

The Pen Tool can be a little daunting for people upon initial use, but learning to master it can truly open a lot of creative doors for future projects.  The pen tool allows you to accurately trace nearly anything.  The importance of a thorough trace?  Well, if you’ve got a situation like this one, a proper trace will ensure you ‘color inside the lines’ so-to-speak.

The pen tool works a lot like a connect-the-dot puzzle.  Put your cursor where you’d like to begin and click once.  A small square will appear.  Your next click will connect that initial square to another square, and so on.  You’ll notice, however, that the line between each of the squares is straight, which in turn makes it quite hard to trace a car (or any object) with curves.  

In order to get the hang of using the pen tool, open this image.  (Note:  If you’ve already had experience using the pen tool, skip ahead a couple of paragraphs, as this will simply cover the basic concepts.)  We’re going to try and make an accurate outline of this pen.  In order to do, let’s start around the middle, just underneath the cap.  Select the pen tool and make your first selection.  Since you’re connecting your points in a straight line, scroll along the length of the pen and connect your first two points by simply clicking once.  Continue towards the end of the pen.

 

 

 

Uh oh.  Now we have a problem.  The tip of the pen is curved, and the pen tool only seems to connect in straight lines.  We’re going to have to curve the line.  How is this done?  First, draw and connect two points from the one side to the other, as shown below.

Every line drawn by the pen tool can be curved or warped in any way you see fit.  In this particular instance, left click the center of the line you’ve just drawn to create a new point in the middle of the line.  Now hold CTRL to access your pens warping tool.  This should change your icon from a pen icon to a mouse icon.  Grab that middle point, and pull it outwards so it properly warps to fit the curved end of the pen.  You’ve just curved your first line! 

 

 
Just to make sure you’re getting it, let’s finish the trace. 

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We’ve pretty much got a straight line from here to the edge of the pen cap, so go ahead and punch that in.   

You’ll notice in my example that I slightly overshot, and that the back end of the trace cuts a bit of the pen off.  Again, this can be addressed easily with your pens warping tool.  I selected a nice middle point, and simply pulled the trace slightly down to accommodate the shape of the pen. 

Now we’ve reached the end of the cap, with another curve we’re going to need to trace.  This will be done exactly the same way as the opposite end. 

Draw a straight line from bottom to top, select a middle point, hold CTRL, and pull that point outwards to create a curve. 

Now that we’ve got an accurate trace, close the ‘path’ by reconnecting your final point to the one you started with.  You’ll know your path has been complete when a small circle appears next to your pen icon. 

 

That wasn't so bad was it?   Now that you know how the pen tool works, lets see how we can easily apply this to our selective desaturation tutorial! 

Like before, open the image you would like to use in Photoshop.  Duplicate the layer, and desaturate the newly created layer.  Again, you now have a black and white photo over a colored one.  This time, we're going to use the pen tool to 'select' the car in the image, which will drastically speed up our coloring process and do away with the need for all that touching up we experienced with the layer masks.  Select your car the same way you learned to select the pen (the actual pen, not the tool...I just realized how that could be confusing).  Trace slowly and carefully, and curve lines where you need to.  My trace looked like this (seeing the trace is kind of hard, click the image to enlarge). 

 

Remember, the accuracy of your trace is entirely dependent on how much time you're willing to spend on it.  Zooming in and curving correctly are very important, so take your time, and don't be afraid to step backwards (ALT+CTRL+Z) if you make a mistake!  

Now that you've got your trace, here comes the fun part.  Head over to your Paths tab on the right hand corner of the screen.  Here you will find a tiny image of your trace. 

Right click the image,and click on Make Selection.  This option allows you to take any trace you may have in an image, and select it.

Don't mess with any of the settings in the pop up screen, simply hit 'OK'.  You will now have a flashing line selection drawn around your main subject.  

 

 The main point of selecting anything in Photoshop is to focus the program on that selection and nothing else.  Think of making a selection as setting boundaries that can't be crossed, no matter what.  Since you have a selection of a black and white image over a colored one, and you want the car in color, maybe it's time to grab the eraser tool (E).  Select a nice, big brush, and make sure your opacity is set at %100.  Now begin erasing your top layer away.  Because the car is selected, it's impossible to erase outside of the boundaries you created!   

When you're finished, hit CTR+D to deselect your subject, and have a close look at your colored subject.  The more time you spent outlining, the less imperfections you'll find.  Still, as with layer masking, if you do notice any parts you may have missed, zoom way in with your eraser and fill them out.  

As selective desaturation is often used for commercial photography, I've added a little pizazz to the final image and came up with this:  

 

How Twitpic Face Tagging Does & Does Not Work (Yet) —

Any of Facebook's over 400 million users will immediately recognize some new features on popular Twitter photo-sharing service Twitpic today as users can now tag people in their photos. In an blog post this morning, the two-year-old company announced it had passed the 10 million user mark that it sees 40 million unique visitors each month. The company says they are releasing their Face Tagging functionality "to show [their] thanks" to the community, but could it bring headaches and worries with it too?

Sponsor

How It Works

Face Tagging literally works exactly like tagging photos on Facebook. While viewing a picture, the text "In this photo:" is displayed below it with a link to begin tagging the photo. By clicking the link, users can then pinpoint people's faces in the photo and a box will appear around the face, as well as a pop-up dialogue box in which to enter the person's name and Twitter handle. Once done, users hit the "Done Tagging" button to return to normal browsing functionality - just like Facebook.

Honestly, the only difference between tagging photos on Facebook and on Twitpic is that the "Done Tagging" button appears above photos on the former and below photos on the latter. While Twitpic's new functionality is a dead lift of Facebook's long-existing photo tagging feature, it is smart to copy the social networking giant. Why re-invent the wheel? Instead, Twitpic is giving users a familiar experience, making the process easy and intuitive.

How It Doesn't Work

When users tag a face in a photo, by default they can send a rather dry tweet announcing the tag and including the user name of the person tagged, effectively working as a notification. First of all, the inability to personalize this message is a bit of a downer, but you can always just uncheck the box and send out the tweet yourself. Secondly, by default it does this every time you tag a person in a photo. You thought Facebook notifications were bad? Just wait until someone tags a photo with ten people and unwittingly tweets the photo out ten times.

Additionally, the only way Twitpic alerts users that they have been tagged in a photo is via Twitter - so users could be tagged in hundreds of photos and not know it if the tagger chose not to tweet the tags. Users do have the ability to delete tags of themselves on other people's photos, but right now the only way of knowing of such photos is to be sent the tweet, which not everyone will choose to do.

In a phone interview today, Twitpic founder Noah Everett told ReadWriteWeb that additional features, like the ability to view photos you're tagged in, are in the works and should be out in a few weeks. The goal, he says, has been to launch the tagging feature and use user feedback to determine the next logical step.

What About Privacy?

That next logical step, for many users, may be privacy controls - something the new feature lacks. On Facebook, users have the ability to manage photos they have been tagged in and remove their association from a photo once-and-for-all. The only option related to photo tags for Twitpic users is the option to allow other people to tag their photos. Everett says they are looking into possible privacy controls, such as a blanket rule preventing anyone from tagging you, or specific user-based bans to avoid those "crazy ex-girlfriends", as he put it.

Personally, I use Twitpic mainly as a means to an end - I upload photos to the service for sharing on Twitter via a mobile application, which means I don't visit the Twitpic web interface too frequently. How am I supposed to know when I'm tagged in a photo if the user tagging me chooses not to tweet it? Even if I visit the Twitpic homepage, there is no way for me to view an aggregated list of photos I am tagged in and no system for notifying me of such photos.

Everett says they are looking into ways of notifying users, including email alterts, but hopes that eventually app developers will add the functionality using Twitpic's API. I guess the good thing is if someone decides to surreptitiously tag me in a photo, for now the general public has no real great way of finding it either.

An Impending Headache for Data Fans?

The other important thing to note from the launch of Twitpic's Face Tagging functionality is that it is a new stand-alone platform for a third-party application to another service. What that jumble of words means is that when other Twitter-based photo sharing apps add this functionality, it will be nearly impossible for users to effectively aggregate their tagged photos (and other meta-data) across platforms. With the low barrier of entry to Twitter applications, it seems likely that Twitpic's competitors would adopt similar features to keep up.

I spoke with Thomas Vander Wal, father of the phrase "folksonomy" which refers to collective tagging of meta-data, and he shared some interesting insights into this situation.

"Since others have done similar things on other platforms (Facebook, Flickr) the [intellectual property] is fuzzy and Twitpic can't claim it, so others are free to jump in," Vander Wal told ReadWriteWeb. "It would be in Twitter's best interest to build a central aggregation point for this."

This is exactly why Twitter is rolling out annotations, which have been testing recently and should be out soon. The annotations will create a standardized framework for third-party apps to build from, making interoperability between services much easier. Everett said he actually spoke with people from Twitter today about "coming together" and "rolling [tagging functionality] into annotations."

Strangely, however, Twitter mentioned in April that they planned on having "trending annotations" and letting developers battle for standardization. It would make sense that meta-data for tagged photos could be added to Twitter's annotations, and if the services adopted the standard, aggregation would be simple.

If not, then the entrepreneurial community, "somebody like PixelPipe" as Vander Wal suggested, would need to create another third-party Twitter service that would handle this aggregation - not an ideal solution going forward. We can't blame Twitpic for this fate: what they're doing is good in terms of pushing the platform forward. We can, however, bring up the privacy issues they've have raised with their new service and its apparent lack of controls, but then again, it is a brand new feature and more functionality is on the way soon.

Tagging photo courtesy of the LA Times

Discuss

Last week, comScore released its U.S. Online Video Rankings for April 2010. We noted that Vevo in particular saw big growth in its first couple of months on the Web.

But as Clickz this morning wrote, social networking site Facebook has shot up the rankings, too. With 41,335,000 unique U.S. viewers in April alone, the site is no match for Google Sites (which includes YouTube and Google Video), as the leader of the ranking for top online video properties in the United States boasts a combined viewership of more than 136 million users per month.

Facebook is climbing the rankings fast, though: comScore pegged its number of unique U.S. viewers at 13.3 million in April last year, so that means its viewership more than tripled in a year, according to the audience measurement firm.

Thus, Facebook has quietly nestled itself in the number 5 spot, just behind Yahoo Sites, Fox Interactive Media and Vevo. According to comScore, Facebook videos currently draw a bigger audience than known names like Microsoft, CBS, Hulu and Viacom.

Even if surprisingly few videos get viewed by users on average (5.6, compared to 96 on Google Sites and 24.7 on Hulu), the site seems poised for growth in this segment. With more than 400 million active users, the site could soon surpass Yahoo and Fox as one of the leading video destinations on the Web as far as the United States goes, and will likely fight a hard battle with Vevo for the number two spot in the rankings.

And as Clickz points out, a lot of the video content currently available on Facebook comes in the form of embedded YouTube units, but comScore counts views of those to Google Sites, so Facebook’s role in delivering video content to users is larger than the numbers actually suggest.

It would probably also help to stop hiding the ‘video’ page under the ‘Photos’ tab, which makes zero sense to me.

Rumors of a multi-touch trackpad for desktops Macs have been along for ages, but the last time we really heard of them was last October. Since then it’s essentially been relegated to the annals of Apple rumor history, but oh look! Just hours before Steve Jobs & Co. are to take to the stage at Moscone Center for the WWDC 2010 keynote, a trio of photos said to be of the mythical multi-touch accessory have surfaced by way of Engadget. The images look extremely convincing, but let’s try to not lose our heads over a rumor this early in the morning. We’ve got a long day ahead of us.

Read

One of tomorrow's announcements: iPhone HD —

Filed under: WWDC

The fact that Apple will be announcing a new iPhone tomorrow is about as big a secret as the fact that there's a lot of oil in the Gulf of Mexico right now. What we didn't know until now was the name of the product, and if photos that were leaked this morning are any indication, the new device is going to be called the iPhone HD.

Pursuitist received photos from a "European insider at TBWA/Chiat/Day," the advertising agency for Apple worldwide. We'll send you to Pursuitist to view the photos in deference to their find, but we are showing you a photo (above) snapped inside of Moscone Center that displays the iPhone HD.

Pursuitist also notes that the device will be offered in all white and all black, although the Moscone photo appears to show the phone in a rainbow of colors. Other features include a front-facing camera with video chat and an upgrade to iChat, better battery life, a camera with higher resolution (and a flash), and advanced apps management and multitasking with iPhone OS 4.0.

Of course, this could be a last-minute "leak" to throw off all of us bloggers, but the consensus seems to be that the new iPhone will carry the iPhone HD moniker. Only during tomorrow's WWDC keynote will we know for sure.

TUAWOne of tomorrow's announcements: iPhone HD originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LOL: The Reoccurring Prop Newspaper —

If you watch enough television shows and movies, then you might even start to notice that a bunch of the same props are used over and over again. I first noticed this with a magazine prop in various television shows including Married With Children, which featured a gum advertisement on the back cover. Someone on Reddit recently put together a compilation of photos from various television shows, commercials and movies, showing how one newspaper prop gets around and is reused, and reused again.

I don’t know the story behind this prop newspaper, but I assume it was created as a royalty free prop for television shows. Somewhere along the line, the prop became a reoccurring gag between propmasters. Something like how sound designers reuse the Wilhem Scream in every movie. Check out some examples after the jump.

Read the rest of this post on SlashFilm.com…

Here are some possibly related posts:

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Find Microblog Updates with Images — Google added a new advanced search option that lets you restrict the posts from sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz to updates that link to images. You only need to select "updates" in Google's left sidebar and click on "updates with images".


The new search filter is useful to find photos from recent events, personal pictures and random images from all over the world.


{ spotted by Google.org.cn. Thanks, TomHTML. }

12 More Websites To Show You the Hottest Twitter Topics —

In the past two articles, 9 Websites To Show You The Hottest Stuff on Twitter Now and 10 More Websites To Show You The Hottest Twitter Topics we’ve taken a look at just how much information can be found when you dig a little deeper on Twitter. Going beyond the list of people that you follow, there is no limit to the amount of realtime information that you can find.

In the third and final part of this article we’re going to take a look at how to use Twitter on the go when you’re travelling in a foreign country, how to find content that is personalised just for you, how to find the authoritative voices on Twitter, and a few other specialised sites that use Twitter to find information on specific topics or hobbies.

Authoritative Voices

Twittorati

Twittorati takes a slightly different approach to most Twitter related sites. Rather than plug straight into Twitter to establish what is popular, the site makes use of Technorati’s resources to determine who to follow on Twitter. The site tracks the tweets coming from the most popular and influential bloggers according to Technorati’s stats. It specifically features the Top 100 blogs, but there are plans to expand to include more influential voices from around the web. Tweets on Twittorati can be browsed by categories such as Technology, Business, Parenting and more.

The Twitter accounts include both the blogs’ official Twitter accounts, as well as the personal accounts of the people behind the scenes. You can also browse the most popular links being tweeted from these blogs, and their latest photos. Tweets are accompanied by additional information about the user, including real name and job title, as well as their Technorati authority rating. Logging in with your Twitter account allows you to reply or retweet directly from within Twittorati.

Travel

Twaller

One of the great things about Twitter is how easy it is to access it when you’re on the go, which makes it a great resource to use when you’re travelling. Twaller allows users to share tips and information when you’re on the road, and accessing that information couldn’t be easier. Using the site, you can either search for specific information, or can browse by region or city, with major cities in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, Australia and South America included on the list. Each city’s tweets is divided into several sections, including where to eat, entertainment, things to see, weather and shopping. Twaller relies on hashtags to provide it’s service so the website is only as good as each city’s residents choose to make it. Signing in with your Twitter account allows you to submit tweets about the city you’re in directly from Twaller, as well as reply and retweet.

A great travel Twitter resource to take a look at before you hit the road is Travel Note’s directory of all things travel related – from airlines, to travel agencies, to travel writers, if it’s on Twitter, it’s probably listed here.

Personalised

If you’re looking for a more personalised experience to avoid information overload on Twitter, there are several options available.

Feedera

After both signing up for a Feedera account and connecting to your Twitter account, Feedera will proceed to create a personalised digest to be delivered to your inbox on a daily basis. The process can take several hours to complete. The digest consists of what is considered the best content shared by the accounts you follow, divided into photos, links, videos and music.

Popular content is determined by how often the link has been shared on Twitter, as well as on Digg, Facebook, Delicious, and a few others. Each link is accompanied by the number of your friends who have tweeted that story.

ChatterBox

Signing up for an account with Chatterbox gives you a little bit more control over the kind of content that you will get to see. You can create as many “ChatterBoxes” as you like, each of which can consist of specific keywords mentioned on Twitter, and can even be further narrowed down to keywords mentioned by specific users.

ChatterBox takes it one step further, allowing you to share your results with other users of your choice. ChatterBox can come in handy when a company or team needs to be aware of specific information being shared on Twitter. For example, all Tweets about a specific brand can be listed in one ChatterBox, and shared amongst the staff. The members of the ChatterBox can then assign the response to a specific user, add categories, statuses, and priorities to these tweets, and even respond to users directly from within ChatterBox. ChatterBox is the perfect accompaniment to any corporate or company Twitter account.

Also be sure to take a look at Mahendra’s article, 3 Little Known Ways to Use Twitter Without Information Overload, which includes another great site for creating personalised feeds – Cadmus.

Search

Twitter’s search feature leaves a lot to be desired, but luckily there are a few websites that make up for its shortcomings.

Topsy

Topsy is a Twitter search engine that uses Twitter as a basis for the ranking of its search results. They are based on how popular a link is, as well as the influence of the Tweeple sharing it. You can search the web as a whole, can search specifically within Twitter, and can also do an image search. Results can come from within the last month, week, day or hour, and can be sorted by relevance or date.

Signing in with Twitter allows you to retweet directly from within the website, and you can also subscribe to the RSS feed of any given search, or even create an email alert. Opening a link will show you who has tweeted it, what’s been said, and influential Tweeters are distinguished from the rest, with the ability to filter the tweets down to only influential users. Topsy also overcomes one of Twitter search’s main drawback – the inability to search beyond the past 10 days.

Bing

Microsoft search engine Bing has decided to get in on a little bit of the Twitter action with their dedicated Twitter search engine. The home page features some of the trending topics and popular links. Search results consist of the most recent tweets containing the search term and the most shared links on Twitter.

Any given link will be accompanied by two tweets mentioning it, which can be expanded to display more tweets organised by relevance or date.

Specific Interests

If you have a hobby that takes up a lot of your time, chances are, there’s a Twitter-related website that you could find useful.

If you’re a wine aficionado check out WineTwits for the latest Tweets about wine related topics and events.

If you’re a sports fan, Twackle brings you the latest buzz on Twitter about the NFL, NBA, NHL and much much more.

For the latest on all things stock market related on Twitter, check out StockTweetApp

If health and fitness is what matters to you most, Wellness Tweets will definitely appeal to you.

And TwitArcade is the place to go if you want to share and find out about new online games.

What websites do you use to keep up with the hottest topics on Twitter? Let us know in the comments.

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The new-and-improved privacy settings which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday have landed in my Facebook account. When I read Zuckerberg’s description of them, I was cautiously optimistic. Having spent a bit of time exploring them, I’m way less enthusiastic.

Facebook privacy is such a complex topic that you could write a book about it. (Seriously.) But most gripes fall into two general, seemingly contradictory categories:

• Facebook doesn’t give users enough control over privacy!
• Hey, Facebook provides such a dizzying array of privacy controls that it’s hard to figure out what’s going on!

Making privacy easy while providing lots of control is a fundamentally thorny challenge. If Facebook has failed to nail it, it’s not because the company is stupid, evil, or careless–it’s because this stuff is hard. Its response seems to be based in part on the philosophy that privacy is to a great extent about what you want shared with which types of people.

So the centerpiece of the new settings is a grid that shows three kinds of people (“Everyone,” Friends of Friends,” and “Friends Only”) and a bunch of types of information you store on Facebook, from your status to your snail-mail address. But there’s no explanation of what the grid is showing you. It’s just not that obvious whether it indicates your current settings, or ones you might want, or what.

It turns out that the first thing you see are your current settings. By choosing another tab and then clicking “Apply These Settings,” or selecting “Customize settings,” you can control who sees what.

If you choose “Everyone,” then everyone gets to see all these items. If you choose “Friends Only,” then only friends can see them. Very logical so far.

But if you choose “Friends of Friends,” only some items (such as your status, relationships, and photos you’ve been tagged in) are visible to friends of friends. Others (such as your religious views and birthday) show up for friends only. I can’t figure out the inconsistency with the other “Everyone” and “Friends Only” options. And while you can choose custom settings for everything it defeats the purpose of this supposedly easier new interface.

The grid isn’t comprehensive. It’s labeled “Sharing on Facebook,” but much of what folks do on Facebook involves third-party apps, and there’s no mention of them. Another Everyone/Friends of Friends/Friends Only setting, covering app activity such as your name showing up on game leaderboards, is salted away on another page in Privacy Settings. Putting it in the grid would have made it easier to find, and would only have required one additional one row.

Even then, I’d probably be confused by the thing. I applied the “Everyone” settings to my profile. Facebook retroactively made some of my photo albums completely public–but not all of them. How’d it choose? Darned if I know.

One of the major changes that sparked the recent ruckus was Facebook’s new “Instant Personalization” feature, which provides information about you to Yelp, Pandora, and a new Microsoft service called Docs.com to help them customize your experience. When Facebook announced it, it was on by default, and there were no options relating to it in the’s privacy settings–if you didn’t like the idea, you were supposed to go to each third-party service individually to block it.

Instant Personalization is still turned on by default, but at least you can turn it off completely with one click. You don’t, however, get settings that let you pick and choose–to approve Yelp, for instance, but deny access to Pandora and Docs. Actually, I can’t figure out how to turn these settings off or on individually once you’ve seen an alert that shows up the first time you visit an Instantly Personalized site. Nor does Facebook explain what it’s sharing or how the third-party sites use the information. Which makes it impossible to come to any informed conclusions about whether you’re comfortable with the concept.

I was hoping that this privacy makeover would offer at least two features, neither of which are present:

• Ultra-easy settings for various levels of privacy that would span everything that has anything to do with Facebook–the service itself, Facebook apps, and other sites. They’d let you choose from a minimum of three privacy levels: extreme privacy, extreme openness, and something in the middle.
• The ability to opt in to opting out–by telling Facebook you never want new features it might add to share anything about you with anyone without your explicit permission. Zuckerberg’s blog post talks says that control “will also apply to settings in new products we launch going forward. So if you decide to share your content with friends only, then we will set future settings to friends only as well. This means you won’t have to worry about new settings in the future.” But it’s not clear what will happen with new offerings if I’ve chosen different settings for different current features. Once Facebook starts letting me check in to real-world locations, for instance, how will it decide how I want that information shared if I’m currently sharing my status with everyone but hiding all my photos?

Bottom line: Managing your Facebook privacy is still a remarkably convoluted process which isn’t explained clearly enough. Here’s a summary of the options you’ll get once you have access to the new interface:

Whew. That’s incomplete, too–I didn’t show the photo album-by-photo album settings, which let you block specific people from seeing your snapshots if you choose.

I’m not arguing that Facebook should do away any of this granularity. Kudos to it for offering it for people who want it. And I’m not a Facebook paranoiac–in fact, I just went in and loosened up my settings.

But when Zuckerberg titled his introductory blog post “Making Control Simple,” I hope that didn’t mean that the thinks he job is largely done…

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Managing what’s being said about them online has become “a defining feature of online life” for many Internet users, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “especially the young.” The center surveyed 2,253 users over the age of 18 about their attitudes and behavior online, and found that younger users in particular are more likely to both search for information about themselves and modify what they share with others, and also tend to be less trusting of social networks and other sharing sites.

Compared with older users, young adults are not only the most attentive to customizing their privacy settings and limiting what they share via their profiles, but they are also generally less trusting of the sites that host their content. When asked how much of the time they think they can trust social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, 28 percent of users ages 18-29 say “never.”

The Center noted that young adults “are the most active online reputation managers in several dimensions” and are the most likely to customize what they share and whom they share it with. Among other things, they:

• Take steps to limit the amount of personal information available about them online (44 percent of young adults say they do this, compared with just 25 percent of those between 50 and 64).
• Change privacy settings: a majority (71 percent) of social networking users between 18 and 29 have changed the privacy settings on their profile to limit what they share with others online, compared with just 55 percent of older users.
• Delete unwanted comments: Almost half of those users between 18 and 29 have deleted comments others have made on their profile, compared with just 26 percent of older users.
• Remove their names from photos: Over 40 percent of those users between 18 and 29 say they have removed their name from photos that were tagged by others, compared with just 18 percent of older users.

The report also notes that managing your reputation online is increasingly important because it’s where employers are searching for information about potential hires (a claim that’s backed up by other research). In fact, 27 percent of employed Internet users were found to work for an employer that has policies about how they present themselves online, including what they can post on blogs and websites or what information they can share about themselves, while 31 percent of employed Internet users said they’ve searched online for information about co-workers, professional colleagues or business competitors.

The Center said its research showed several major trends, including:

• Reputation monitoring via search engines has increased, with more than half of Internet users searching for information about themselves online.
• More people are creating profiles on social networking sites, with over 46 percent of adults saying they have done this, up from just 20 percent in 2006.
• Many also search for information about their friends: Almost half of those surveyed said they searched online to find information about people from their past or existing friends.

There’s a full version of the report available here (PDF link).

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Why New Net Companies Must Shoulder More Responsibility

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Stefan

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Mark Zuckerberg: I Donated to Diaspora project —

You might expect that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg would dismiss the four NYU college students who want to take on Facebook’s dominance of social networking by building a distributed, open alternative that includes a way for people to run their own servers.

But instead, Zuckerberg said he donated to the Diaspora project, adding to the $190,000 it has raised, in part because he appreciates their drive to change the world. (Note: This reporter followed up with Facebook’s press office Thursday to ask how much Zuckerberg donated to Diaspora, but the press office said they’d rather not answer.)

In an interview with Wired.com on Wednesday after announcing simpler privacy controls for Facebook, Zuckerberg also talked about where he sees the site going, his drive to make the world more open, why the face in Facebook is so important and why he wouldn’t start a social network if he were launching a site today.

Wired.com: What do you think of the push for an open, federated social network and the four NYU students who raised $200,000 for the Diaspora project without having a single line of code?

Zuckerberg: I donated. I think it is a cool idea.

Actually it reminds me of this cool thing we built early on called Wirehog. Early on, it was clear that users wanted more photos on the site. There were a set of users who would change their one profile picture every day. And we looked at that data and took that as people want to share more photos.

But photos are expensive and we didn’t have an infrastructure. We were just trying to grow the site and add more colleges to the site. So we built this personal web server that people could install on their computer where they could put all their files on it — which at the time were mostly photos but it supported videos and music — and share it with your friends. So in a way it was the prototypical platform app, but it was also a decentralized way to share information.

So I think it is a cool idea just based on that.

I think it is cool people are trying to do it. I see a little of myself in them. It’s just their approach that the world could be better and saying, “We should try to do it.”

(Editor’s note: Wirehog was killed off by Facebook after Facebook’s then-president Sean Parker — who co-founded Napster — argued that Wirehog would face the same ugly legal death that the infamous peer-to-peer music sharing site did. On Wednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference, Parker called it “illegal” and said he “put a bullet in it.”)

In an interesting way, a lot of the privacy stuff is much easier to do in a centralized environment. Some of the simple stuff like friend-to-friend, peer-to-peer stuff is simple, but once you start getting into friends-of-friends, you start running into problems like we did with Wirehog. If someone can come up with a new approach, then [that's] awesome.

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