Free Software File » Graphics and Photo

Changing Dimensions of Your Pictures with Minhs Free PhotoResizer 1.61

randi — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 06:43:25 +0000

This is a very simple utility to allow you to batch resize digital photos. No one wants to open a huge suite of photo editing tools just to perform one simple task like resizing an image. with tools like Minh’s Free PhotoResizer, we don’t have to. This basic program can resize and convert images, and that’s about it. It’s the perfect tool for anyone looking for a quick, no hassle way to resize images. You simply indicate your maximum width or height in pixels and drag and drop your images (or folder containing images) onto the window. The program will then batch resize all images into a subfolder.

Minh’s Free PhotoResizer interface is plain with just a small gray square with three menus across the top. A text box lets users enter the desired maximum width or height of their image in pixels. Users can select JPEG quality on a scale of 1 through 10, have the program scale up images of a smaller size, and select between JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, or TIFF output formats. Once you’ve adjusted the settings to your liking, just drag and drop the image or images you want resized onto the program’s interface.

Minh’s Free PhotoResizer creates a subfolder within the original files’ directory and deposits the resized images there. We liked that the program gives users the option of adding it to the Windows context menu, allowing them to right-click on any image and select it from the Send to menu. There’s no Help file, but that’s not a huge drawback; everything about the program is fairly intuitive. Minh’s Free PhotoResizer isn’t fancy or feature-packed, but if you need a program that can resize your images quickly and with little fuss, it’s a great choice.

Version 1.61 allows for choosing the output file type. Extended support to TIFF, JPEG, BMP, GIF and PNG codecs (input as well as output). It can’t get any easier than that.

With Minh’s Free PhotoResizer you’ll be able to change the size of your digital images on the spot. Minh’s Free PhotoResizer requires no installation, and at only 68K, you could easily keep it on a USB drive for portable use.

ScreenGrab 1.1 : Effective Screen Capture Utility

randi — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 02:36:35 +0000

Screengrab is an useful tool for those who need to be constantly taking screenshots, but also for those who only capture their screen from time to time and need only a simple tool to do the job as quickly as possible. Screen captures can be incredibly useful, whether you’re trying to share an error message with tech support or want to save a ridiculous comment exchange on Facebook. There are plenty of utilities to help you do this, too, ranging from the bare-bones to the highly customizable.

ScreenGrab falls somewhere in the middle of this spectrum; we’ve definitely seen screen capture utilities with more features, but ScreenGrab still brings quite a bit to the table. ScreenGrab interface is plain, just a rectangle with some drop-downs, radio buttons, and check boxes. You can set ScreenGrab to capture either the entire screen or just the active window.

The program can either automatically save the image, save it to the clipboard, or prompt you to enter a file name. Images can be saved in JPEG, BMP, TIFF, and PNG formats. You can set hot keys to both take a screen capture and to bring the interface back up, and the program can be set to hide its icon in the task bar, ensuring that it won’t appear in the screen captures.

The program can optionally include the cursor in the image and play a sound when a screen capture is taken. We took several different kinds of screen captures with ScreenGrab and we were pleased with its performance each time. The built-in Help file provides a brief overview of the program’s features, but it’s really not necessary; everything about ScreenGrab is intuitive. Overall, ScreenGrab isn’t the fanciest screen capture utility we’ve seen, but it will be perfectly adequate for many users’ needs.

Needless to say, the auto-save feature is the one that allows a faster work. You can save images in four popular formats, but unfortunately you only have two capture modes: either the whole screen or the active windows.

Resize and Put Copyright Info on Images in batch mode with Merge 2.2

randi — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:32:35 +0000

Merge 2.2 takes the process of merging two images something that can be done easily in countless other programs and makes it a confusing, frustrating, nonsensical mess. You can merge the two images in different ways as well as smooth blending in of just part of an image to the final result. No need to worry about image relative positioning, size or scaling differences. Version 2.2 features a new ‘macro’ button; adds surreal effects, explicitly set image size.

Merge 2.2 interface is both unintuitive and extremely unattractive. A dockable toolbar on the right side of the interface contains a series of unlabeled buttons and collapsible menus that represent the program’s features. We had an easy enough time selecting the two images that we wanted to merge, but everything from there was a process of trial and error. The program comes with a rather thorough Help file and a quick-start tutorial, but the way these documents are written makes them hard to understand.

MERGE main features :

Merge whole pictures with adjustable blending modes.
Fade out one image and fade in the other image towards the edge of the final picture.
Batch Merge files with a single image – useful for watermarking your favorite images.
Type up to ten lines of text of any font, size and color and merge it with an image.
Smoothly blend in just part of a source image to the final result.
Using the clipboard: copy back result back to a source image and rescale or reposition it for remerging.
Set any relative positioning of the images on top, side by side or overlapping.

It’s unfortunate that the program is as user-unfriendly as it is, because it actually has a decent set of features; images can be scaled and flipped individually, and there are special effects and controls for brightness and contrast. But even very simple tasks are harder than they need to be.

Think you’re going to move an image by clicking on it and dragging it? Not so fast, you’re actually going to have to right-click on it, draw a line to where you want it, and then let go. Such strange behaviors make Merge annoying to use, especially when there are plenty of alternatives out there that actually make sense. Merge installs a desktop icon without asking but uninstalls cleanly.

Finishing Touches to your Images with Photo Finesse 2.03

randi — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 05:23:34 +0000

Lot of photo editing programs are meant to make serious improvements to images, while others handle the finishing touches. Photo Finesse is made for the latter, letting users add borders and effects to images that are otherwise ready to go. It’s far from being a full-featured editing suite, but the features that it does offer can add attractive polish to your images.

This freeware interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, making it appropriate even for inexperienced photo editors. The program’s features are arranged in tabs. Users can first crop or zoom in on their image. The next step is selecting a border, a feature that we thought was pretty cool.

Users can choose the color, width, curvature, and fade of the border, and can even use a second image as the border, merging two images into one. This feature was a lot of fun to play around with and can lead to some really interesting results.

Three Photo Finesse main tools :

Color

Blend Sepia Tone (warm antique reddish brown tint), grayscale, and the original photograph colors.

Border

Add borders to photographs. Photo Finesse gives complete control over border width and curvature, and also provides the ability to create beautiful Vignette style fading borders.

Crop/Zoom

Crop your photograph to a standard size (for traditional or digital photo frames). Zoom in, and drag the protograph to show the desired area. Zooming uses a high quality bicubic process to render sharp and crisp clear image magnifications.

Your photograph will look great when framed. It prints photographs at exactly the required size, and also allows images to be saved at the correct aspect ratio for professional printing or displaying in digital photo frames. Photo Finesse does not provide an overwhelming array of functions, but has a simple user interface.

Make Pencil Sketches Effect to Your Pictures with FotoSketcher 2.10

randi — Mon, 30 May 2011 02:25:20 +0000

FotoSketcher is a 100% free program which can help you convert your digital photos into art, automatically. Some photo editing programs are utilitarian, concerned only with the basics of correcting images and making them look their best. Other programs, like FotoSketcher, are a bit more fun. This easy to use program allows you to add all kinds of artistic effects to your images, turning your photos into drawings, paintings, and more. Thanks to FotoSketcher you can create stunning images to make original gifts for your friends or relatives.

All you need to do is open the image you want to convert into a sketch and select the drawing effect you want to apply. The preview window, though a bit too small, lets you check the result before clicking the “Draw!” button. FotoSketcher will then apply the effect and display the final image beside the original one, so that you can compare both.

FotoSketcher also includes basic editing tools to modify the source image, supports skins to customize the program’s interface, and can work in batches with several photos at the same time.

The FotoSketcher interface is sleek and quite intuitive, with the key features represented by icons across the top. The original image and the edited version are displayed side by-side, allowing you to easily compare your new work of art to your source material. There are a wide variety of effects that can be applied, including various types of pencil sketch, pen and ink, and painting effects. Each of these has characteristics that can be customized, including the size of the brushstrokes, the color intensity, the strength of the effect, brightness, and so on. Users can also crop images and add text.

Overall, we thought that FotoSketcher was a lot of fun to play with. You’re unlikely to fool anyone into thinking that you actually painted the image in question, but the results are quite good for what they are. We especially like the fact that the program is so easy to use, making it appropriate even for image-editing novices. There’s no Help file per se, but we didn’t really think one was necessary; everything about the program was self-explanatory. If you enjoy experimenting with special effects, FotoSketcher is worth checking out.

Light Image Resizer 4.0.5.6 : Perform Various Transformations to your Images at Once

randi — Wed, 04 May 2011 02:58:50 +0000

A free program designed to resize images and convert them to a different format. Light Image Resizer 4.0.5.6 is useful to those more efficient, who often need to reduce the size of photos, for example, to send an e-mail, and Web masters or those who are going to put pictures on the Internet. The program supports the format bmp, jpeg, gif, png. If you want to convert the picture for viewing on the iPod, Sony PSP, HDTV and DVD, simply select the appropriate preparation, and the program automatically converts the images to the desired format.

This free program initially impresses with a colorful screen that looks professional and simple to navigate. However, a little playing around soon shows that users are in a canoe without any paddles. The simple-looking screen morphs into something far more complicated as option boxes expand with more confusing command choices. Not only are the options for adjusting picture size and save location less than intuitive, we found no Help file to hold our hand through the learning process.
Adjusting pictures was eventually figured out through trial and error, but could come at a serious cost to some users. VSO Image Resizer doesn’t offer any way to preview the changes you are making, but makes sure you are informed that these are permanent changes. Our fear is that users will alter a picture in ways they don’t intend without a preview option.

Key Features :

New v3 : new filters, top quality and new algorithms
New v3 : Smart digital frame transfer assistant, to optimize the digital photo frame experience
New v3 : New resize method seam carving
New v2 : new engine, 2x faster, support multi-core CPU
New v2 : works on file, folder and subfolders
Configurable compression/resolution ratio
Support file formats: Jpeg, gif, bmp, tiff etc see more formats
Support Digital Camera RAW formats: Canon .CR2, Nikon .NEF , .MRW Minolta etc see more formats
Customizable templates for renaming files : Iphone wallpaper, PAL , NTSC, Ipod etc..
Webmaster tool : Add your logo or watermark file
Reduce photos size, perfect for web publishing/share photos by email
Integrate in windows explorer or works as a stand-alone application
Import directly from your memory cards
Save history of destination folder
Variable options and settings for advanced users
Multilingual support (available languages…)
Works with 32 and 64bits edition of Windows XP, Vista, 7

Light Image Resizer 4.0.5.6 allows you to apply effects to your photos: you can insert a watermark, invert colors, sepia effect applied, add a border or convert to grayscale. Another option is to change the metadata also copy, or retain the date on which the image was created. Light Image Resizer 4.0.5.6 does all the changes you want to images easily and quickly.

PicPick 3.0.3 : Friendly Editing Image Software

randi — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 03:54:21 +0000

There are all kinds of helpful tools here, and i think PicPick would be useful to Web designers, graphic designers, and even the average computer user who occasionally needs to work with graphics. This program makes us think of a Swiss Army Knife, or perhaps a well stocked, well organized desk drawer. PicPick describes itself as all in one design tools,” and indeed it is.

PicPick 3.0.3 minimizes to the system tray, and accessing its features is as simple as clicking on its icon. A menu appears listing the program’s many useful tools: an image editor, screen capture, color picker, color palette, magnifier, pixel ruler, protractor, crosshair, and whiteboard. We especially liked the image editor, which is basic as far as its features are concerned but which features a clean, intuitive design.

New in PicPick 3.0.3 :

Improved Windows Control Capture
Added Delay before capture
Improved Upload to Web function
Fixed : Print Preview bugs
Language updates
Small known bugs were fixed

The screen capture function was also impressive; we loved that it includes a scrolling capture option that lets users capture Web pages and other scrolling documents all in one image. A well-organized options menu lets users specify how images are saved, which hot keys to use for specific tools, whether to support dual monitors, and much more. PicPick even includes an FTP client that makes it incredibly easy to load its content directly to a Web site. We were a little disappointed that the program didn’t seem to include a Help file, but most of the features should be fairly easy to figure out for anyone with basic design or image editing experience. Overall, we found PicPick to be an extremely useful set of tools, and we were impressed with both its features and its attractive design.

PicPick is provided as freeware for only personal (non-business) and non-profit educational use. In this case, you are granted the right to use this program free of charge. Otherwise, you need to pay for a license for commercial use. It has not only everything what you need, but it loads fast, sits quietly in the system tray until needed.

Easy Way to Resize Your Image Files with Image Resizer Powertoy 1.0

randi — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 03:41:22 +0000

Microsoft has developed a number of small utilities specially for Windows XP, and grouped them together as Microsoft PowerToys. Image Resizer Powertoy for Windows XP provides resized images with a few simple button clicks. You want to change the size of a picture from 1024×768 to 800×600, with the help of this plugin you can do it within no time.

This freeware interface is very easy. All commands are performed via clicking a radio button to choose the size. There are a few other options, but all are presented the same way. The program provides no Help file, but is so easy to operate we are confident people will not need it. Users simply find a photo that they want to resize and right click it.

In the menu of options is one for resizing. Here a new menu appears with options to create a new size ranging from small, middle, large, or handheld PC. There is also a customized option where the user inputs the dimensions. Once this is selected, a resized copy of the photo is created instantly in the same folder as the original. We were pleased with how quickly and effectively this process happened. In addition to resizing, the program offers a feature that allows users to resize the original picture and not create a copy. We felt this was a considerate option for users without a lot of spare room on their hard drives.

The most important feature of this plugin is that using this plugin, multiple images can be resized simultaneously, you have to select multiple images in Explorer before opening the Resize Pictures context menu. It is as simple as that. It is a boon for web developers & photographers, who usually spends much time in converting the size of the image.

This freeware program is a dream come true for users who have to resize on the fly. Users should not expect fancy graphics or tutorials, but instead will find an intuitive feature that makes sizing much simpler.

Sweet Home 3D : Free Interior Design Application

randi — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 07:23:52 +0000

This program is aimed at people who want to design their interior quickly, whether they are moving or they just want to redesign their existing home. With a fairly simple premise and impressive results, this slightly flawed program is certainly something to get the imagination going. Each change in the 2D plan is simultaneously updated in the 3D view, to show you a realistic rendering of your layout.

Sweet Home 3D offers users a chance to see a remodeled room or a brand new home before a single nail has been driven. Numerous visual guides help you draw the plan of your home and layout furniture. You may draw the walls of your rooms upon the image of an existing plan, and then, drag and drop furniture onto the plan from a catalog organized by categories.

The program’s interface is intuitive and very easy to use: it includes the main menu of the application, synthesizing its most important functions and also a toolbar with buttons for each relevant action. You can also interact with Sweet Home 3D through its context menu that is available from each panel of the application.

The left side of the screen contains a file tree for every room in the house, and clicking on each room presents a list of all appropriate furniture you can drag into the adjacent box. The area is a grid with measurements corresponding to room size. Below the file tree is a space for each item in the room and its approximate size. At the bottom of the screen is a small box that provides the 3D view.

It might have been difficult in the past, when you had to settle for whatever sketch the architect came up with. Now, you can be your own architect and create the perfect house plan that will exactly fit all your needs and preferences.

Designing a room is very simple. By dragging furniture into the grid and positioning it as you envision your redesigned room, a clear picture appears below, providing an impression of space that two-dimensional sketches cannot. In addition, there is an exciting Virtual Visit option that lets you walk through your home and its rooms. The application offers many 3D models that you can work with.

It’s so easy to use that even a novice computer user can work with it. The application is free and in continuous development. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to redecorate your house without the need of actually moving the furniture around! Sweet Home 3D helps you customize some options of the application in the Preferences window. You can change the program’s language, the measurement unit, whether the Magnetism should be enabled or not and other elements. You can also set new values for the default wall thickness and height.

STOIK Imagic 5.0.6.3156 : Easy Image Editing Program

randi — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 03:19:31 +0000

Combines functions of thumbnail browser, photo viewer, image and video editor. STOIK Imagic is a large, feature-packed photo album, organizer, manager, and editor. It’s also a retouching tool, a calendar maker, a media cataloger, a video editor, and a drawing tool.

Even if your digital photos and videos are scattered all over your computer, STOIK Imagic 5.0 automatically organizes them all for your convenience. New very fast indexing algorithm scans thousands of image and video files on your computer in few minutes. You can access your media files either using the Folder Browser, or switch to Calendar Browser (new) which displays your photos and videos organized by years, months, and days, or use Tags Browser mode to easily locate files you stamped with certain tag or category.

STOIK Imagic’s interface is finished in mod dark-gray tones with white lettering. Imagic automatically scanned our system and displayed the results in a left-hand tree view under the Browse tab. Clicking any directory of images displayed thumbnails; clicking a thumbnail opened the image in a separate view. We could create customized slideshows easily from any selection of images. Tabs labeled Photo and Video let us edit images or video using a wide range of tools, effects, brushes, stamps, filters, and image fixers.

We could frame images; use them to create calendars, jigsaw puzzles, wallpaper, and clip art; distort, warp, blend, pinch, punch, and explode images; add text, images, colors, shapes, and textures; simulate charcoal, pencil, mosaics, and other artistic styles and effects; and correct for a wide range of photographic defects, even correcting spherical and trapezoidal lens defects via horizontal and vertical sliders.

The warp tool superimposed a grid view that we could pull and tug to distort the image, creating Pinocchio noses and fun house mirror effects. We also liked the Improvement Wizard and the way Imagic offers advice for correcting and improving images.

In short, it’s a full-featured graphics suite with an emphasis on digital photographs. At 80MB, it’s a big download, but since it’s compressed, it’s a fast one, too, and setup is virtually automatic, including scanning your system for images. Anything else? You bet: it’s free.