Create photo albums right on your iPhone with Album App Mini

As we’re well into vacation season, Album App Mini is a well-timed app to send your pictures to friends and family, in nicely formatted photo albums, without having to invoke software on your laptop or desktop.

Album App Mini lets you import photos from your camera roll or online photo services, like Flickr or Facebook, and create attractive templates and add text. Photos can be cropped, scaled and rotated. Text can be any color you choose, and there are several fonts and type-styles to work with. The app has 30 layouts for photo placement, which is certainly more than enough, and it has 5 themes. Album App Mini also has a tutorial, which was a bit difficult to get into. It looked like a video you touch to start, but in fact, it was a set of static pages that you scroll through.

Albums can be several pages, and the completed albums can be emailed — something the iPhone software doesn’t supply natively. You can upload photos to MobileMe galleries, but it looks like that function may be going away when iCloud appears.

When you’re done, you can email your finished album or send it to Facebook or Twitter. I noticed some image degradation when I emailed the album, so it looks like things aren’t going out at full resolution. The app also supports AirPrint.

Album App Mini is a reasonable US$0.99, although extra themes cost money, which is a growing practice I’m not wild about. I’d rather spend an extra buck on an app and get the whole thing. I like the way this app works, and I’m going to give it a full try on an upcoming photo trek to New Mexico. It’s a nice way to send a finished product while you are on the road. You can see some screenshots in the gallery, and feel free to comment on any other similar solutions you have seen and like.

Gallery: Album app mini

Add photo functionChoosing a photo layoutSave or edit mode

Create photo albums right on your iPhone with Album App Mini originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule part numbers, FCC filings surface

In further evidence that updates to the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule are due any day now, Engadget reports that FCC filings for the next-gen AirPort Extreme have surfaced, while 9to5 Mac has received part number info on both the AirPort Extreme and two models of Time Capsule.

Supposedly prices will drop across both AirPort devices, and the Time Capsule will come with two choices in capacity for its built-in drive, either 2 TB or 3 TB. Supplies for the Time Capsule in particular have been constrained in physical stores for a few weeks, and shipping times for the device have slipped in many of Apple’s online stores, too. References to both devices cropped up in a recent AirPort Utility software update, so all signs definitely point to a product refresh soon.

Engadget notes that Apple typically likes to debut new hardware on the store on Tuesdays; while we can confirm that’s traditionally the case, more minor bits of accessory-type hardware occasionally crop up on other days instead. The next time the Apple Store goes down (if it actually goes down at all), don’t be surprised if there’s a bunch of new AirPort hardware waiting for you when it comes back up.

AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule part numbers, FCC filings surface originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 05:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mobile apps leaving the web behind in usage

Mobile ad company Flurry has released a new analysis on its official blog stating that customers are making the transition lately from using the mobile web to spending more of their daily time in mobile apps. In the early days of smartphone prominence (and by “early days,” we mean about three years ago), the main feature on mobile phones was the web. You could check email, look up web pages, or browse the web on your smartphone, and that’s how most people used them.

Since the rise of iOS, however, mobile apps are picking up that time spent. And as you can see from the chart above, customers are now putting more time into mobile apps (about 9 percent more, it turns out) than browsing the mobile web. It should be noted that both stats are still growing — customers are spending more time on mobile phones than ever. But mobile app usage is growing even faster.

It’s not hard to see why this is, either. Mobile apps are maturing quickly, and it’s easier to get information from many of them now than it was just browsing around the web. Mobile apps also offer features like offline access and other things that the web doesn’t, so this shouldn’t be much of a surprise to anyone.

Mobile apps leaving the web behind in usage originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Talking Ben and friends get representation from William Morris

How do you know that you’re on the fast track to Hollywood stardom? Getting a good agent is the first step — and the fuzzy, funny characters in Outfit7’s app stable have found the best.

Talking Ben the Dog, Talking Tom Cat and the rest of the Talking Friends apps animated characters are now represented by William Morris Endeavor, the Tinseltown powerhouse led by Entourage inspiration Ari Emanuel (the brother of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel). The companies intend to bring the characters into films, TV and other entertainment properties.

The company’s apps have been downloaded over 135 million times across both Android and iPhone platforms; they feature characters that repeat back what you say in supposedly adorable fashion, and they react to various pokes, strokes and smacks in a cartoony manner. The latest Talking Tom 2 app (available free for both iPad and iPhone, but in separate versions) features interaction with Talking Ben (a cantankerous former chemistry teacher, which is actually quite academically impressive for a dog) and the option of having Tom call the ‘old’ Talking Tom on the phone so the two cats can mimic each other in a loop.

If you’re thinking “Wow, as a parent I have to be sure never to let my kids get hold of any of these apps, lest I lose my bearings and throw my iPhone out the car window in a fit of temporary madness,” it’s probably too late already. Did I mention they’ve been downloaded 135 million times?

Talking Ben and friends get representation from William Morris originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iPhone 5 is set to be released on September 7th

In a little over two months Apple will be releasing the iPhone 5. It is also rumored that the highly anticipated iOS5 will come preloaded.

The iPhone 5 will come pre-loaded with the iOS 5, the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system. Apple fans were dejected that the tech giant broke with tradition this year and refrained from saying anything about the next generation iPhone in its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).

Source: ‘Apple to release iPhone 5 on September 7; will come pre-loaded with iOS 5′

Tool: SVG Level Builder For Corona With Full Physics Support

I recently mentioned the excellent LevelHelper, and in the past I have mentioned quite a few level building, and editing tools.  I haven’t talked about too many Corona SDK tools on this site.. as they have become a dime a dozen, and many are somewhat overpriced.  This one however is somewhat different from those.

This tool is from Karnak Games and allows you to build your levels in the excellent open source Inkscape vector editing tool, which means that you can create some very complex paths like bezier curves with ease.  The builder also supports every Corona SDK physics property so you can implement complex physics within your games without needing to program.

Here’s a video of the level builder in action:

You can find the official page for the level editor here:
http://levelbuilder.karnakgames.com

If you haven’t seen Inkscape you can download it here:
http://inkscape.org/

The price is $49 at the time of this writing and apparently will be going up to $129 once the roadmap is complete (see the official page). The price seems very reasonable at $49, considering you see so many Corona tools at that price range that accomplish less.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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Tutorial: Building A Location Based App That Shows Nearby Gas Prices

Location based apps are in high demand, and there are so many ideas yet to be implemented.

I’ve found an excellent post mortem style tutorial by Matt Gallagher demonstrating the creation of an app that gathers gas price info from an RSS feed, and displays nearby gas prices within a beautiful user interface.

The tutorial demonstrates Matt’s thinking during the creation process of the app and the tutorial provides for an excellent code example demonstrating a multitude of functionality including how to retrieve RSS feeds, how to cache the data, how to get the location, how to use geocoding within the Google API and much more.

You can find the tutorial and source code here:
Process Of Writing iOS Application

It will take some time to go through this great example.

©2011 iPhone, iOS 4, iPad SDK Development Tutorial and Programming Tips. All Rights Reserved.

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Aetuts+ Hollywood Movie Title Series – Legend Of The Guardians

This entry is part 10 of 10 in the series Hollywood Movie Titles

Continuing our Aetuts+ Hollywood Movie Title Series, today’s tutorial will explain how to make the “Legend of the Guardians” flying logo style. In this tutorial using Cinema 4d, we will model beveled text and animate of the logo. Then in After Effects, we’ll complete our project with clouds, a lens flare, particles, and our final composite. Enjoy! ;)


Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mov

File size: 425.5 MB


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Get Started with Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, Basix Tutorials from Vectortuts+

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Get started with Adobe Illustrator and Indesign with this handy collection of beginner tutorials from the archives at Vectortuts+. We’re adding to our Basix category all the time, so be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay upto date with all the news, articles and tutorials as we publish them.

Continue reading “Get Started with Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, Basix Tutorials from Vectortuts+”

Coloring and Line Work in Illustrator CS5

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Do a search on “coloring comics,” and you get dozens of Photoshop tutorials. They all seem to involve building up areas of color with transparent brushes. Now you can achieve that same effect with Illustrator CS5, using the Bristle Brush.

Unlike Photoshop, however, Illustrator gives you the flexibility to edit individual paths. Since Illustrator’s brush strokes are vector, you can change the shape, width, color and blending mode to achieve exactly the look you want. You can even delete a brush stroke you don’t want. Try that, Photoshop! This tutorial will use another feature introduced in CS5, Draw Inside. Let’s get started!

Continue reading “Coloring and Line Work in Illustrator CS5”

How to Mix a Lonely Accordion

I’ve spent a great deal of time and words giving out pointers on how to mix the traditional instruments such as guitars, bass and drums. Mixing this up a bit, no pun intended, I’ve decided to give you a few pointers on mixing unusual instruments such as the accordion. With new Americana or roots music on the rise, with artists such as Mumford and Sons, it’s nice to be able to tackle folky instruments when they walk through the doors of your studio.



We’ll look at the traditional process of mixing an instrument, but since we’re dealing with an instrument we usually don’t come across, we’ll need to look at it just a little bit differently. I wanted to give this accordion a sort of lonely sound, playing in the distance but not out of reach. Kind of like that Simpsons episode when Lisa first meets “Bleedin’ Gums” Murphy playing saxophone in the distance. To accomplish this we’ll use some echo and reverb to make lonely accordion sound.

This is the audio we’ll be working with. It’s very raw, close and in your face.

Download audio file (Dry.mp3)


Step 1: Compression

Just like anything else, I want to add some compression to even out the peaks and fatten it up. I’m not compressing it a lot. Just a few dBs of gain reduction with a low ratio of 2:1 and a medium attack. The accordion jumps out a few times in the raw audio and we want to control those peaks.

Using these settings we’ve controlled the peaks and fattened up the audio a tiny bit. Mission accomplished so far.

Download audio file (Compression.mp3)


Step 2: Analyzing Frequency and EQing

Normally, you can look up in any reference book where so and so’s frequencies are. There are whole lists of EQ setting where you can look at any given instrument and it will say something like, “to reduce boxiness cut at ### Hz” or, “fatten the guitar up by adding 240 Hz.” But what do you do when you’re not really sure of the frequency information in a new instrument? Sure, you can do it by ear and just experiment, especially if you are more or less knowledgable of what the frequency ranges sound like.

But you can also use a frequency analyzer to tell you what the instrument looks like in frequency form. This is helpful if you’re stuck with an instrument and you just can’t seem to get it to sound right. There are some frequencies that are very dominating but you just can’t pinpoint them. That’s where a frequency analyzer can come in handy. The frequency analyzer in Logic that’s built-in to their EQ is a very helpful friend in those situations.

Turning to EQ, I did some adjustments to the accordion. I usually try to find frequencies I don’t like by boosting them all the way up and then cutting them when they pop out; a technique I used twice in this case. I also filtered out the low end, since I didn’t want it competing with any of low end instruments. You’ll hear this later when we put the rest of the instruments into the mix. Additionally, I boosted the accordion in the 800′s. I wanted a thicker sound and I found that a boost there thickened up the mids of the accordion, rounding out the sound.

Hear what we’ve got so far:

Download audio file (EQ.mp3)


Step 3: Echo

Now that we’ve got the accordion sounding like we want it to, we need to sprinkle it with space and effects to make it stand out. Subtle and creative use of effects are great to make things sound interesting. In our case we’ll be using echo and reverb to create the space we want around our instrumen.

Using a send, I’ve added a 1/16th note echo to the sound. Fiddling with the parameters I’ve come up with a sound that’s decent. It has that echo sound I want, but it’s a little too close sounding. We’ll fix that at a later stage.

Download audio file (echo.mp3)

Sounds good, but it’s maybe a little echoey. Not quite the lonely feel we’re after.


Step 4: Reverb

To make the sound of the echo a bit softer I’ve set up a reverb after the echo on the effects channel. It kind of works like a pre-delay but there are more reflections that we need to soften from the echo than if we were only using a pre-delayed reverb.

I just slapped on a simple reverb from Logic, the PlatinumVerb plug-in. This is a medium sized reverb that works well to soften the reflections from the echo.

It’s definitely a different sound now, with the reverb making those echoes sound a little bit further away, creating that lonely feeling I’m looking for.

Download audio file (echoverb.mp3)


Step 5: Master Reverb

Now, the final thing to do is to send both the effects channel and the original sound to a master reverb. I’m using a single reverb for most of the instruments. I do this to give the impression that they are all playing in the same room. I touched upon this technique in How the Hell do I Use Reverb Anyway!?! as it’s a very effective technique for gluing everything together.

With both the original and echoed channel sent to a master reverb we end up with the final result.

Download audio file (final.mp3)


Conclusion

We’ve managed to take a up close and personal accordion part and make it into a lonely solo echoing off in the distance. In the context of all the instruments it sounds pretty cool to me. Listen to the final mixed accordion with all the instruments around.

Download audio file (mix.mp3)

I think it blends really nicely with the rest of the mix. It’s not heavily drenched with reverb, but we’ve still managed to push it away to lonely land. By using subtle echoes and reverbs it’s easy to create an effect such as this.

What do you guys think? Any questions, or further observations are welcome in the comments. Have you been using similar tricks in your mixes?


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Update: Tell Us How Psdtuts Has Affected Your Life: Win a Wacom Intuos 4 Medium Tablet

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Update: Since we have only received a handful of submissions, we have decided to extend the submission deadline for this until July 20, 2011.

When we published our first article back in September of 2007 we had no idea how successful this site could become. In fact, we weren’t quite sure anyone would be interested in it. Since then, a lot has changed. We’ve grown from a small Photoshop blog to the largest Photoshop site on the planet. We’ve welcomed many new editors, authors, and readers to our site and have touched the lives of hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of people. Today, we would like to hear your stories. We want to know how Psdtuts has affected your life and we want you to share your story by uploading a video testimonial to our Facebook page.

I will be the first to tell you how Psdtuts has changed my life. When I left my 9 – 5 job, it gave me some much-needed income while I looked for a new position. When nothing panned out, Psdtuts gave me a part-time job assisting Sean Hodge, the previous editor, and finally, when I was promoted to editor, it allowed me to move to New York City to live with my girlfriend.

Now that I’ve told you how Psdtuts has changed my life. What’s your story? Have we helped you land a job? Have we helped you with a key project? Have we helped you make a major life change? We want to know! To encourage you to share your stories we will give one of you a free Wacom Intuos 4 Medium Tablet (via Amazon).


How to Submit

To submit, record a video testimonial explaining your story. This can be done on your webcam or camcorder. Feel free to have fun with this video – edit it, add animation, music, graphics or whatever you need to do to tell your story. Just try to keep the video between 1 – 5 minutes.

Once you’ve recorded your video, upload it to our Facebook Page. Follow the instructions below to upload your video.


How We Will Award the Tablet

After we have reviewed all the entries, we will choose our favorite from all the submissions. While we may take the quality of the video into consideration when we award the tablet, ultimately, the most important factor for judging the videos will be the story that is told. So don’t let your lack of video production skills get in the way of telling us how we’ve affected your lives.


Rules

  • You can only submit 1 video.
  • Avoid giving away too much personal information in your video. For example, don’t tell us your phone number or street address. We will figure all that out later on.
  • Submissions will be accepted until July, 20, 2011
  • While this giveaway is open to all of our readers, Amazon may not ship to your area. If that is the case we will send you the value of the tablet via PayPal.
  • Terms are subject to change.

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It’s a Bug’s Life – Inspiring Digital Art

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Bugs come in all different forms. Most people use the term for pretty much all insects, and in this article we’ve handpicked some amazing digital art. These pieces have all been made by artists with great skill in many different disciplines. If you would like to take a closer look at digital art featuring bugs then please take a moment to review this article below!


Spider by Antonio Peres

This spider has great reflections and a lot of nifty details, such as the bulb that makes the body and the motherboard. A clean and well-made bug indeed.


Cockroach by Marcos Falcao Filho

This 3D creation shows what may happen when you’re not at home. Many great details, including lights and shadows, makes this a very nice

piece of art.


I Wish Upon a Firefly by DianePhotos

A photo-manipulation combined with some digital drawing. The mouse is shot by the artist and slightly retouched, while the glowing dragonfly is painted on a Wacom Intuos in Photoshop CS3. Nice mix of

two worlds.


Sureallistic Ant by OrestART

The Fractalius Photoshop plugin has helped the artist create this stunning ant image in CS4. These processes don’t require many steps, but with a good base image they can surely give spectacular results.


Mosquito Prototype by Catfishy93

This shiny mosquito manipulation shows good work through many details, such as the creative needle to show that it’s sucking blood and reflections on the wings.


Bug by Justin Stearns

This bug concept was made for a modeling class and shows a huge bug with an intimidating facial expression. The tiny person standing in front of it makes it quite powerful and dramatic.


Jungle Monster by Jonas Skoog

This image was created as part of a tutorial series and featured in 3DCreative Magazine. Well-made with many great details and nice lighting and textures. The mist-like air and the jungle-style background puts it in a realistic frame.


Awakashi by Mike Corriero

Here’s a suggestion of a bug from the future. The large finned Awakashi is a large perdatory insect that is blind with sensatory organs of the side of the body. Not only does the artist have a great imagination, he can definitely draw too!


The Bug by Satthuphancung

This bug is referred to by the artist as a quick drawing but still shows good knowledge of drawing through the wasp-like body with the stinger and a powerful jaw. The blue eyes are definitely the star of the image.


Explosive Bug by Scott Gearhart

Scott drew this bug for a Creature of the Week challenge. We don’t know how that went, but this one’s definitely a well-drawn piece. The light coming from the tail area lights up its feet in a very realistic way and the wings give a feeling of movement.


Metal Bug by OscarDaSlawter

This spider-like metal bug looks good towards the black background. It challenges your imagination by having some distance. The red glow is a nice touch along with the rust on the back.


Bug – Framed by Capnhack

This mechanical bug was modeled and rendered in Cinema4D. Many good details, such as lighting, shadows, reflections and the construction of the feet makes this stand out as a very nice image.


Diablid by Matt Mills

Mills modeled this creature in Maya and rendered it using Maxwell Render. It’s a very detailed model that is creepy and reminds us of a cute hedgehog at the same time.


Little Bug by Goran Delic

This little, digitally painted, futuristic bug on its cold blue background has quite a few good details when you take a closer look.


Robot Butterfly by Brett Anderson

This robotic butterfly with some similarities to a dragonfly was modelled and rendered in Modo. The bright grey body gives a clean futuristic look, while the glowing red eyes stand out as quite mystic.


Dragonfly by Imaginism Studios

This type of dragonfly was seen flying around in the beginning of the Alice In Wonderland movie. The head of a dragon makes a funny twist and it’s detailed and has a nice mood to it with the shadow and green background.


Fly by Greg Medendorp

This fly has a plastic look, almost as if it was a toy. It was originally created for a video-production class as part of a commercial for bug-ball. Ever imagined playing tennis with huge bugs? That’s what bug ball is all about!


Spider Bug Boss by Alessandro Briglia

This is one of the final bosses in the video-game Lair. The blur of the wings give a sense of motion and it all has a solid realistic look.


Wasp Front by Paul Blackham

Paul Blackham spent about a week with modeling, uv, paint and pose for this wasp. It won him a 2ndplace in a competition. He surely got many nice details in there, from the hairs on the body to the transparent wings.


The Chilling Ant by Harald Oesterle

Ever wondered what ants do when they have their day off? This funny chilling ant illustration has nice colors and nifty details. The use of light and shadows gives a feeling of sunset.


Hippie Ants by John Strieder

With the use of Zbrush, C4D and Fryrender, John Strieder has made a funny 3D piece of some hippie ants.


ANT-ology by Martin de Diego Sábada

This illustration has nice colors and good lighting/shadows. It’s a humorous illustration that shows skill and creativity.


Ant by Gauntle

Ants are definitely popular to draw, and with these guys we’re getting a funny clean illustration with great light/shadow. It actually looks as if they’re Photoshopping!


Little Andy by Matt Mills

This ladybug has been modelled in Maya and rendered with Maxwell Render. Notice especially the use of light and shadows, along with the colors.


The Lonely Armybug by ScorpeS

This one was made for a school assignment as far back as in 2004. The lonely bug (a praying mantis) thinks he’s a hero. Nice lighting and vibrant colors make this one a very nice piece of work.


Listen to Me, Alice by Raoxcrew

This piece won a contest. Alice in Wonderland has influenced and inspired many digital artists, especially after the Tim Burton version came out recently. We especially like the blue ambient colors and the shadows.


To Bee or Not to Bee by Arghavan Khosravi

This vector-bee was drawn in Adobe Illustrator 2. It has a cartoon-like look and a nice and subtle color scheme. The shadowing and the 3D look of the feelers almost makes it pop out of the screen.


Sudenkorento by Pete Revonkorpi

This boy that flies through a field on a dragonfly is surrounded by a nice color scheme and even has the wind in his hair. It has a calm look and a strong personal fairytale-like style.


Centipede by Steve Rae

This centipede has some nice vivid colors and stands out really well from the darker background. Nice lighting and shadows too.


Mosquito by Shakil Awan

This poor mosquito is caught in the limelight and seems uncomfortable. The artist has made a true character out of this one, with good lighting and great expressions.


Do you like bugs?

We hope you’ve been amazed and inspired by some of these artworks. Bugs in general may not be the favorite animals for most of us, but these artworks are definitely up to the challenge. We’d love to hear which piece is your favorite and why. Feel free to share links to your own bugs with us in the comments.

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Photographer shot in city rioting

Police vehicles come under attack by loyalists on Belfast's Newtownards Road.Police vehicles come under attack by loyalists on Belfast’s Newtownards Road.
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Violence has flared for a second night at a sectarian interface near a Catholic enclave in east Belfast.

Three shots have been fired in the lower Newtownards Road-Short Strand area late on Tuesday but the gunman’s target is not known.

A press photographer was shot in the leg during the incident.

A barrage of petrol bombs, missiles and fireworks have been thrown at police lines. Two water canon vehicles have arrived but have not been used yet.

There is a large police presence in the area following Monday’s sectarian clashes.

The trouble has been reported as the most serious in the area for a decade.

Earlier on Tuesday a senior police officer described shots aimed at officers during rioting in east Belfast on Monday night as “attempted murder”.

Violence erupted at the interface at about 2100 BST on Monday.

Chief Superintendent Alan McCrum said the trouble was “orchestrated” by the loyalist paramilitary group, the UVF.

Two men are being treated in hospital for gun shot wounds.

In all 11 shots were fired – six from the nationalist side and five from loyalists.

Two shots hit a police Land Rover. Police said it was “clearly an attempt to murder police officers”.

Petrol bombs, fireworks, bricks, stones and smoke bombs were thrown and homes were damaged during the disturbances.

The PSNI said between 400 to 500 people were involved in the disorder.

Chief Supt McCrum said the trouble started after a group of young men came out of the loyalist Mount and Castlereagh Street areas, and made their way into the Catholic enclave of Short Strand.

“That precipitated a response from the community in the Short Strand, and then we were left with two communities, who for the next four hours were seeking to involve themselves in conflict across what was, and continues to be a very challenging interface in the city.”

Analysis

The riot in east Belfast was another reminder that Northern Ireland has a peace process but it does not have peace.

The number of walls between Protestant and Catholic areas has risen in recent years rather than fallen.

Outbreaks of violence are relatively rare these days, but tension in some areas continues to simmer.

One night of rioting normally leads to another in Northern Ireland. The challenge facing the police is to stop an isolated problem escalating.

Chief Supt McCrum said police believed that members of the east Belfast UVF were involved in the trouble.

“It would be a line of investigation to establish whether that was a co-ordinated and organised ‘organisational’ position (by the UVF leadership),” he said.

“But at this point we are satisfied that at the very least members of east Belfast UVF were involved in organising the disorder.”

The senior officer said police officers were initially “far outnumbered” by hundreds of people who were “hell bent” on disorder.

“We had additional resources in the Short Strand on Monday night, but no-one could have anticipated the scale of the disorder that took place,” Chief Supt McCrum said.

“No-one could have anticipated that hundreds of people would be on the street and that petrol bombs, blast bombs, sticks and bottles would be thrown over four to five hours.”

The PSNI said there was nothing to suggest that members of the Provisional IRA (PIRA) had fired shots and it was too early to say if dissident republicans were involved as their investigations were continuing.

Presbyterian Minister, Reverend Mervyn Gibson heard two bursts of gunfire after midnight.

“Two young men on the Protestant side were injured, both shot in the legs,” he said.

“I was with them both and helped others to arrange to get them to hospital.

“It really was a serious scene. I haven’t seen trouble like this for maybe 10 years in the area.”

Sinn Fein MLA Alex Maskey was also on the ground during the disturbances.

Missiles were thrown at police trying to restore calm to the areaMissiles were thrown at police trying to restore calm to the area

“The PSNI told me that they had injured people with plastic bullets on the loyalist side, people who were clearly the aggressors. I have no idea who else was injured,” he said.

Mr Maskey claimed members of the loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) took part in the attack on the Short Strand.

“I am very clear in what I am saying,” he said.

“I am making a very serious statement and as far as people in the Short Strand are concerned, the UVF launched an attack on the Catholic community in this area. I think it’s absolutely disgraceful.”

Laser pens were used to try and ‘blind’ police. One officer was treated for an eye injury in hospital.

Police said they are also investigating a report of an attempted hijacking of a bus.

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