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Tag: image

  • Freeware Shorts: RealWorld Paint (Image Editor)

    Over two years ago I reviewed RealWorld Paint.COM and was impressed. Recently the author released a major update (Version: 2011.1) with a slightly changed name (RealWorld Paint). Once again he sought advice at the DonationCoder forums as well.

    This new version has several new features, some of which are listed below that make RealWorld Paint even better and probably even more complete that is required for most users.

    RealWorld Paint

    The features are: Support layers with styles (individual layers can be filtered with the likes of blur, rotate and more and even worked on with Photoshop tools. This is followed naturally by Photoshop (.psd) format support and a few other formats too. More tools are added that include lasso and liquify. Additional command line support is explained here. An interesting animation tool (Create—>Create Animation) is also new which splits an image into rows and columns which then creates a sort of filmstrip animation with the divided parts of the image.

    RealWorld Paint is available in a portable format as well.

  • Freeware Shorts: Kestrel GX (Photo Editor And Organizer)

    Kestrel GX (Version: 1.2.1 as of this post) is an attractive photo editor that also helps organize photos into one or more databases. It supports many image formats including JPG and others but also Photoshop’s PSD format and RAW formats. Photos can be arranged into PDF albums to share easily with others. The usual edits like resize, rotate, flip, convert, remove red eye, saturation, rename and others are available but Kestrel GX lets you choose an external application (File —> Open In External Editor) for editing images.

    Kestrel GX

    Kestrel GX is perhaps mostly useful as a photo organizer. Not only it can be used to edit and search EXIF, IPTC and even GPS data associated with images but it can also be used divide images by rating, category and keywords and store them into their own database(s) managed by the program to view and also search for later.

    Kestrel GX has print capability that includes a few ways or templates to print and also a slideshow (View —> Slideshow) with 163 transition effects. To top it all of it does both image and text watermarks (File —> Watermark Images) too. Kestrel GX is one of the most complete photo applications out there and is free for personal and educational use only. It requires Windows XP and up.

  • CollageIt Review And Giveaway

    Comment below for your chance to win a CollageIt license from Pearl Mountain Software!

    CollageIt is another very easy method to create image or photo collages. CollageIt provides templates to create a virtually unlimited number of image or photo collages.

    CollageIt

    When first opened CollageIt provides 15 general templates. These spread or distribute images in somewhat different and random ways. After choosing one of the templates the main program interface opens where photos from one or several locations can be added. If you need to you can choose a different template from the bottom left corner.

    The Page Setup button lets you pick a page size. Desktop wallpaper, A4, scrapbook and envelope are just a few of the available sizes. DPI (dots per inch) and orientation are also options here.

    The Background button lets you choose a gradient or background image that will lie behind and around the collage. Image opacity and fill are also options here.

    The Random Layout and Shuffle buttons just add a bit of variation to the collage as do options like Rotation and Auto Sparse. It is fun to play with these and see the result with the Realtime Preview option.

    The Layout and Photo tabs to the right add even more customization options that include changing the spacing or margin or adding borders or frames to each individual photo. A rather limited black shadow – to the whole collage area – option is also available.

    The crop button (under the collage preview) also works to cut individual images. Just click on one image inside the collage preview and then press the Crop button and play with your collage.

    CollageIt works on Windows 2000 and newer versions and is also available for the Mac. The licensed version removes the CollageIt watermark and adds the aforementioned crop option.

     

  • SpringPublisher Desktop Publishing Review And Giveaway

    Comment below to win one of three SpringPublisher licenses!

    SpringPublisher is a desktop publishing software that comes with a set of templates to create (two sided) business cards, flyers, letterheads or postcards. Besides choosing the pre-supplied templates one can download extras from within the program or if needed start with a blank project or canvas.

    SpringPublisher

    The blank project option lets the user choose one of the four formats (business cards (again two sided), flyers, letterheads or postcards) with given standard sizes or to work with custom sizes. A bleed size setting is also available which in publishing terms is analogous to padding or border around the canvas.

    Once inside the program images, shapes and text can be added and a few effects also are available. These effects are accessed at the bottom right side of the program interface and include rotate, shadow, opacity and tile. Additionally one can add a layer effect which is the same as pushing any element (image, text or shape) behind another. This latter setting allows SpringPublisher to be a bit more professional looking.

    Version 2.1 as of this post SpringPublisher, in tests, isn’t the fastest program ever but a good and easy to use one. A freeware version is available with a few limitations.

  • Picture Collage Maker Pro Review And Giveaway

    Comment below for your chance to win Picture Collage Maker Pro from PearlMountainSoft!

    Picture Collage Maker Pro is a fun and useful program from Pearl Mountain Software. With it you can create collages of pictures just to keep as images or as scrapbooks and you may also create greeting cards, desktop wallpapers and calendars.

    Picture Collage Maker Pro

    Upon start up Picture Collage Maker Pro offers four choices on how to proceed. The first method is to start a blank collage. Here one can choose different sizes of paper, greeting cards, desktop wallpaper or simply a custom size. The second option is a template wizard, in this case photos are added and then one of the pre-made layouts (greeting cards, collages, etc.) are chosen. The third option is to create from template, this is essentially the same as the second option but the user will see the layouts first and then add photos. The fourth and last option is the grid collage wizard which lets the user divide a page into equal size grids and then include images in a rectangular grid.

    Once in the program Picture Collage Maker Pro supports drag and drop to add images. Images can then be aligned, resized and rotated. Additionally one may choose a background and it is also possible to add masks, frames, clipart and shapes. All in all Picture Collage Maker Pro is a complete program and it is easy to use (see image for a sample I created in seconds) and comes complete with built-in print capability.

  • Freeware Shorts: Imagina

    Imagina

    Imagina (Version: A 1.7 build as of this post) calls itself the next generation image viewer and editing tool or ‘virtual lightbox’. Its interface features the Microsoft Office style ribbon. Images can be opened using the camera icon in the top left corner and then any one folder viewed in one of several ways. One viewing method is the 3D effect, an attractive if somewhat CPU intensive way of navigating image folders.
    Imagina also features such tools as noise reduction, support for tags, flip, resize and straighten among others. A ‘period style’ feature is a slightly enhanced sepia and black and white effect. Imagina also does a bit more than usual in the colour editing department in terms of its brightness, hue and saturation controls.
    As image viewers go Imagina is more advanced and does a bit more than one might expect. Look for its additional features including playing movies at http://www.planetimagina.com/about.html

  • Capture View: Freeware Screenshots Software

    Capture View is a capture or screenshot taking program that looks slightly different than others of its kind. When opened the program looks like a transparent window opening to whatever is behind it, be it the desktop wallpaper or other open window. Capture View has several capture settings or methods and one of those is what is seen through the aforementioned interface. By moving or stretching Capture View’s own window the screenshot area can be adjusted.

    To take other kinds of screenshots like the usual whole screen, individual window or others Capture View’s Type menu must be used. The same menu includes settings for automatically adding transparency, backgrounds, color invert and other effects to the captured screenshot. Delayed captures are also configurable here. The Alt+Q keys or the Capture button are two methods to take the screenshot itself.

    Any thing captured, even if not yet saved, can be viewed using the Thumb Strip (accessed via the icon to the right of the small red square). Screenshots must be saved before the program is closed because captures are initially stored in a temp folder and are not automatically saved. The default image format can be changed from *.png to *.jpg, *.tiff or others. After a screenshot is captured one can resize it to preset sizes like wallpaper or any other arbitrary size – using the what the program calls a box to hover over the capture and keep only what the box sees – by right clicking on it inside the Capture View window or using the Crop menu.

    Capture View does not have the most intuitive of work flows but does the job and with a few extras. The Description page on the program author’s site has a lengthy explanation of the more unusual features of Capture View.

  • Shotty: All In One Screenshots Freeware

    Shotty strives to be an all in one screenshots program. It takes screenshots of whole screens, specified regions and windows. It has basic features to edit the captured shots and a few options for places to upload them too.

    Left clicking the tray icon of Shotty presents you with capture options for the whole screen, region or specific window (for Windows Vista and 7 a high quality, aero enhanced option is given as well). After the capture a basic editor with a Microsoft paint like interface features things like cropping and adding text, highlights and shapes. A blur or diffuser can hide sensitive parts of the screenshot as well.

    Further efficiency can be gained by using the default, but configurable, Ctrl + PrintScreen hotkeys in place of clicking the tray icon for the capture.

    Finally the image can be saved or uploaded to one of the chosen locations online, Shotty in turn provides a window with the address of the uploaded image.

    Right clicking Shotty’s tray icon exposes its other features:

    The upload location can be chosen from one of Images.Devs-On.net (Shotty’s own hosting), ImageShack.us, DirectUpload.net, Imgur.com and UploadScreenshot.com.

    The aforementioned hotkeys can be configured and assigned to save, copy or instant upload instead of the opening the capture or image editor.

    A history of screenshots taken using Shotty can also be seen.

    The optional delay – to take the screenshot – can be changed here as well.

    Shotty requires the .Net Framework 2.0 and should run on Windows 2000 and newer versions.

  • JShot: Freeware Screen Capture And Upload

    JShot

    JShot is useful if often capturing (parts) of a screen and needing not only a program that does the capturing but one that automatically uploads it to the web. JShot can capture full screens, active windows, rectangular sections, the task bar and the desktop among others. It has a built-in editor with undo and redo support in addition to adding text and other effects to the captured image. The image editor does a lot more including but not limited to lines and shapes and other operations like resize, rotate, crop, merge and blur.

    JShot comes pre-configured to upload anonymously to imageshack but out of the box it also supports uploading to FTP, Skype, Twitter, Picasa and Dropbox. These require setting up login details using the configuration wizard (accessed via the Ctrl+F12 keys by default). For example the Dropbox plugin tries to open the dropbox site and add the capture to the your Dropbox’s private or public folder. The aforementioned configuration wizard (also accessible via the tray icon) includes settings for such things as capture delay – how long after clicking to capture does it actually happen – output format – default is *.png – and multi-monitor support and more.

    Plugins can be developed to support other sites to upload to. JShot keeps a history of of its captures (View—>History). When installing the user can choose to integrate it to the Windows right click or context menu. JShot requires Java Runtime Environment 1.6 and is free for personal use.

  • 5DFly Free Photo Editing And Viewer

    5Dfly Free Photo Editing And Viewer

    5DFly is a freeware image viewer with a set of basic and few extra and useful features. It loads single images (after double clicking them) into a tabbed interface making working with several images easier. It supports creation of slideshows in powerpoint (*.ppt and *.pps) formats. 5DFly also has built-in support for uploading pictures to Flickr and Facebook.

    5DFly can convert an HTML page to an image. Here the user enters an URL which the program fetches to an internal viewer and generates an image from. This, in effect, is an alternative method for grabbing web page screenshots, one which grabs whole pages all the way to the bottom without the need to scroll down for longer pages.

    The more readily available elsewhere features of 5DFly are batch processing for resizing photos and others like converting to gray scale, cropping freely or to predefined sizes, rotating, removing red eye and others.

    Of further note are the history features available in the individual image view which lets the user undo any operations done on the image and also a web page history to keep tab on sites visited (for the *.html to *.jpg operation for example) using the program. Copying images to the clipboard and setting them as wallpaper are also possible with 5DFly.

    Upon installation 5DFly associates itself with *.jpg and other image formats without prompting the user for input and it sports a Mac-like theme or skin. These two shortcomings will not be held against it today however!

    5DFly runs on Windows 2000 and newer versions.