No More Dirty Pix

No, I'm not writing about pornography. If you watch the movie "Taken" you'll see Liam Neeson, a former CIA agent trying to rescue his kidnapped daughter, obtaining a picture of one of the abductors from the evil-doer's reflection when he takes a picture of the daughter and her friend that ends up on the memory card of the girl's cell phone. Presumably Neeson or his buddies back at the agency have some fancy image-processing forensics software like Ikena that they use to clean up the picture enough to get a good ID of the bad guy. For $50, you too can have that software, now on the market as vReveal, which is nicely described in a New York Times article by Anne Eisenberg. Don't buy before you try it: the company offers a free 30-day trial. If you're just a home video enthusiast, this program is nice to have; if you're a blogger or trying to get pics or videos up on the web to promote your work, it's a must-have.