Learn how to crop, rotate, flip, and edit a photo or add a signature to it using Dropbox for a streamlined file storage, sharing, and editing experience.

In addition to being one of the best cloud storage services, Dropbox can also serve as a quick photo editor for basic adjustments.

Sure, it’s not going to replace your dedicated photo editing apps like Pixelmator, Snapseed, or Photoshop anytime soon, but if you just want to crop a picture, rotate it, flip it, or change its color settings, Dropbox has you covered. You can even sign the image or send it to other people so they can add their digital signature.

These built-in photo editing features ensure you don’t have to go out of Dropbox or download the file locally to make minor edits before sharing it with coworkers or saving it to the cloud for future use.

Edit an image in Dropbox

You can edit photos in Dropbox using a computer or iPad web browser. You can’t make edits using the Dropbox mobile app or website.

1) Visit Dropbox.com in Safari, Chrome, Edge, or another browser on your Mac, Windows PC, or iPad and double-click the image you want to edit.

Note: You can’t edit HEIC images (the photo format your iPhone uses) in Dropbox. Therefore, use the Save As option in the app to convert HEIC to JPG or PNG, and follow the steps below to edit the converted image.

2) With the image open, click Edit from the top left corner of the Dropbox screen and select Adjust.

3) You can now change the light and color aspects of the image by adjusting the Brightness, Contrast, Highlight, Shadow, Exposure, Saturation, and Temperature sliders. You can also enter a number in the box next to them or use the arrow buttons to fine-tune the values.

4) Rotate, flip, or crop the image by using the respective buttons located at the top (or when hitting Edit in Step 2).

5) Once you are happy with the edits, click the Save button in the top right corner and choose to save the new edited image as a copy or have it replace the original.

Sign the image in Dropbox

Dropbox allows you to add a digital signature to your image or send it to other users for them to sign.

One important thing to note is that signing the image converts it to a PDF. So, if you’re comfortable with that, follow the steps below to add a signature to the picture using Dropbox. If keeping the original image format intact is crucial, you can use your iPhone or iPad to add a signature or watermark to your image.

1) Visit Dropbox.com in a computer or iPad browser and locate the image you want to sign.

2) Click the three dots icon next to the photo file and select Self-sign or Send for signature.

Self Sign

Use this option to add your own signature to the image.

• After selecting Self-sign, the image will open in the Dropbox editor as a PDF and display a box to add your signature. You can draw, type, or upload your signature and insert it into the image.
• Once the signature is inserted, drag it to the desired spot, such as the bottom-right corner. Adjust its size or rotate it as needed.

After adding the signature, click the save button, and Dropbox will prepare your signed document and save it as a PDF.

Send for signature

Use this option to have other people sign your document. The free version of Dropbox allows up to three signature requests per month, whereas the self-sign option mentioned above is unlimited.

• After selecting Send for signature, enter the names and email addresses of the people you want to sign your image. You can also enable an option to specify the order in which they should sign.

You can access all aspects of Dropbox Signature by visiting dropbox.com/signatures.

Can you edit images in the Dropbox mobile app?

The Dropbox app on iPhone doesn’t allow image editing. However, any edits you make to an image using Dropbox’s web version on a computer or iPad will sync to your iPhone.

If you need to edit a Dropbox image on your iPhone, download it to the Photos app and use its built-in editing tools to adjust the appearance, crop, rotate, flip, or modify the picture. You can also use the Markup tools on the editing screen to add a signature or hide sensitive areas.

Furthermore, the Photos app has a hidden feature that allows you to copy the edits made to one picture and paste them to several images, thus enabling quick batch edits!

Related: How to set up and use Dropbox on your Mac

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/12/20/how-to-edit-image-in-dropbox/

Topaz Photo AI, one of my favorite tools for the desktop for enhancing sub-par photographs, has picked up some important updates this week in versions 3.4.0 and 3.4.1.

The former, which released on Wednesday, included a bevy of new features and important changes which are highlighted in a blog post shared on Topaz Labs’ website. From what we can gather, the updates introduces the following changes:

• Added Intelligent Text Detection for Preserve Text
• Added Major Improvement to the Crop Tool
• Added Face Recovery for Side Faces + macOS 12
• Added Regeneration for Super Focus
• Added Camera profiles for Olympus and Panasonic RAW
• Added In-App Support Outreach
• Added Welcome Screen with Tutorial Videos
• Added Tutorials inside Suggestions
• Added Sample Images
• Added -crop suffix to file exports with crop
• Updated model selector for Upscale
• Multiple fixes for product metrics
• Fix applying presets sometimes moving some filters below upscale
• Fix crash on startup when offline
• Fix crash when adding multiple sharpen enhancements
• Fix subject masks always saying “auto”
• Fix reactivation window not appearing on windows
• Fix OpenSSL issue with plugin flow
• Automatic Lensfun Update
• Exiftool update

The smaller v3.4.1 update brings some additional bug fixes that were necessary after the v3.4.0 release and is recommended for all users. This update introduces the following changes:

• Fixed grid artifacts with the High Fidelity v2 upscaling model
• Fixed issue with crashes during import on some images
• Fixed some incorrect spacing and colors in Light Mode
• Updated app icon

From what we can gather, Topaz Photo AI is getting a lot better at detecting text inside of images and attempting to preserve that text. This is important, as AI-based photo improvement software tends to deal significant damage to text inside of images. By preserving that text, important details in images are improved, while text remains the same as when it was captured. This all happens automatically now, instead of requiring you to manually mask out text yourself.

Another major feature is regeneration for super focus, which can be extremely helpful if you aren’t happy with the results of the Super Focus tool. When this happens, you can forcefully re-generate a Super Focus result, hopefully getting better results the next time. Topaz Labs calls this seed regeneration, and by getting multiple output versions, you can select whichever one looks best to you afterward.

The Crop Tool, which lets users remove unwanted portions of an image from a photograph, now supports both size mode and aspect ratio mode, giving users more options with respect to image output. This can help make the resulting image outputs more uniform when working with a portfolio of several images.

Face Recovery, an AI-based feature that helps fix faces that don’t come out nicely in photographs, is getting a boost in this update as well. Now, faces captured from the side will be fixed better than ever before, and it now works on macOS 12 for the first time. Topaz Labs says that the updated model is more conscious of skin tones, jewelry, and other factors that older models may have struggled with.

While this update is a free upgrade for existing users, anyone who isn’t already taking advantage of Topaz Photo AI can purchase a copy for themselves from Topaz Labs’ website for $199. The software can be used on macOS as well as Windows.

Are you impressed by the latest updates? Let us know in the comments section down below.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/12/19/topaz-photo-ai-v-3-4-1-update/

Apple on Wednesday tweaked its software update servers by unsigning iOS & iPadOS 18.1.1, a move that now causes said servers to deny user requests to install these firmware versions on iPhones and iPads.

Consequently, anyone who updated to the newer iOS or iPadOS 18.2 firmware can no longer downgrade to the older iOS or iPadOS 18.1.1 using traditional means, nor can anyone who is using an older version of iOS or iPadOS upgrade to iOS or iPadOS 18.1.1 using ordinary means – however the DelayOTA firmware upgrade method remains available for the next 90 days.

Firmware downgrades aren’t a common practice today, but they remain one of the only remedies that end users have at their disposal to return to a stable version of iOS or iPadOS whenever a software update brings instabilities that affect the regular use of a device. Although uncommon, there are multiple examples of this happening in recent memory, including the following:

• iPadOS 18.0 bricking M4 chip-equipped iPad Pros
• iOS 16.0 over-prompting users on clipboard access when pasting copied content into another app
• iOS 14.7 breaking the Apple Watch’s ability to be unlocked with the host iPhone’s Touch ID sensor
• iOS & iPadOS 13.2 imposing incredibly aggressive background management on backgrounded apps

Troubleshooting aside, firmware downgrades have more historically been used to put iPhones and iPads onto earlier and more vulnerable firmware that can be jailbroken. Apple continuously patches over security vulnerabilities with each software update, so downgrading has long been a way to increase jailbreak eligibility.

Apple likes to argue that by unsigning older firmware and forcing software updates, its users are safer from security threats. On the other hand, blocking even advanced users from being able to tinker with any firmware they please seems more like control and anti-jailbreaking tactics than having anything to do with users’ security. After all, users who want desire security would willingly upgrade rather than being forced to.

The iDownloadBlog team has always advocated for jailbreakers and would prefer if Apple allowed users to install whatever firmware they wanted on their device. But given the Cupertino-based company’s hardline stance against jailbreaking, it seems unlikely this will happen without Apple being compelled to by governments, much like how the European Union forced Apple to move from the proprietary Lightning port to the more universal USB-C port.

In any case, you can always see what firmware version(s) are or aren’t being signed for your iPhone or iPad by checking the handy IPSW.me website. You can also acquire any firmware file that you may need for your device from our dedicated Downloads page.

Are you upset to see that iOS & iPadOS 18.1.1 are no longer being signed? Let us know why or why not in the comments section down below.

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/12/18/apple-unsigns-ios-18-1-1-stopping-downgrades/

Learn how to autofill usernames and passwords saved in the Apple Passwords app or iCloud Keychain when logging into websites using the Firefox browser on macOS.

Apple’s new Passwords app is well-integrated with Safari, but if you use Firefox as your primary or default browser, manually copying the email address, username, password, and two-factor authentication (2FA) codes from the Passwords app and pasting them on the login screen can be inconvenient. Additionally, if you use a clipboard manager app on your Mac, the copied password gets added to it, which can pose a privacy issue.

To address these problems and ensure a better experience for its users, Apple has officially published a Firefox add-on/extension called iCloud Passwords. You can set it up in Firefox on your Mac, running macOS Sonoma, macOS Sequoia, or later. The extension helps autofill login details and even verification codes from the Passwords app (macOS Sequoia or later) and iCloud Keychain (macOS Sonoma).

Apple’s iCloud Passwords extension also claims to generate and save details when you’re signing up for a service in Firefox, but I found the experience to be far from ideal (more on it later).

Set up iCloud Passwords extension in Firefox on Mac

The setup is fairly straightforward. Here’s how I did it on my Mac running the latest version of macOS Sequoia 15.2.

1) Visit the iCloud Passwords add-on page in Mozilla Firefox and click Add to Firefox. Then, choose whether you’d like this extension to work in private windows, and click Add in the top right corner.

2) Click the puzzle piece extensions icon and then the iCloud Passwords extension to open it.

3) After you click the extension, an Enable Password AutoFill for Firefox popup will appear, showing a code. Enter this code in the iCloud Passwords extension box to complete the setup.

Fill iCloud Passwords in Firefox when logging into websites

With the iCloud Passwords extension set up in Firefox, visit a website’s login page where your details are saved in the Apple Passwords app or iCloud Keychain.

When you click the username field, the iCloud Passwords extension will display a popup. Double-click the displayed username or email address to fill it in. Note that a single click doesn’t always work, which can be frustrating.

Similarly, when you need to fill in the password, double-click the suggested saved password in the popup and then authenticate with your Mac’s password or Touch ID if prompted.

Note: If you also use Firefox’s own password manager, you may see suggestions from it as well. Additionally, Firefox may prompt you to use its email masking service and cover the email address shown by the iCloud Passwords extension, making the experience a bit more frustrating. But you can turn these off from Firefox settings.

Fill in iCloud two-factor verification codes in Firefox

If you’ve set up 2FA verification codes for a service in iCloud Keychain or the Passwords app, the iCloud Passwords extension will suggest the code when the website asks you to fill it in. Simply double-click the suggested code, authenticate with your Mac’s password or Touch ID, and complete your login.

Generate strong passwords and save sign-up details to iCloud

The description section of the iCloud Passwords extension says:

Any new passwords you create in Firefox are saved to your iCloud Keychain so that they are also available across your Apple devices.

However, after several tests on different websites, I found that Apple’s Firefox extension doesn’t allow saving details when creating a new account. Additionally, there’s no option to generate a password directly on the sign-up page. Instead, it only offers the choice to open the Passwords app or visit the page in Safari (as shown in the screenshot below).

But you can open the Apple Passwords app from the extension popup, hit the plus button at the top, and then save the details or generate a strong password randomly. The experience isn’t intuitive, which may explain the poor user rating (3.2 out of 5) for this Firefox extension.

Bonus tip: Use the Passwords app menu bar extension

If the iCloud Passwords extension doesn’t seem exciting enough, I recommend enabling the Apple Passwords app extension in your Mac’s menu bar. It makes accessing your passwords much easier. You can just click the username and password field in the popout menu to copy them.

Related: How to use iCloud Passwords on Chrome for Windows

Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/12/19/how-to-autofill-icloud-passwords-in-firefox/