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Picasa Picasa is a nice application designed to simplify the way you manage photos on your computer. With this tool, you can easily view, edit and organize your pictures however you like.
Picasa has been recently updated and a variety of editing effects have been offered. Making use of this particular program, you're still likely to enjoy Basic Fixes options.
Among them, you'll see such functions like cropping, editing in Picnik and retouching. The special mention is related to Sliders in the Tuning tab that assist you in changing colors and shades in your photo. As you know, there's 12 Basic Effects to enhance the picture: for instance, sharpen, saturation or graduated Tint.
In order to sophisticate the photo, employ Advanced effects: such fresh functions as Infrared film, 1960's, Posterize, Duo-Tone, etc. Also in this version, you're able to invert colors and cross the process.
So you see that it is a feature-rich application. Don't be afraid to undertake an experiment on your photo as Picasa keeps photos in its original form even if you make up your mind to save changes.
I find it pretty convenient that you can preview the results of applying effects to choose the most exited ones. The program allows for comparing different edits on the same or distinguished photos. That's the business of side-by-side editing. Sharing photos to Google+ is the most long expected option Picasa offers. It should be noted that this feature is available even for users who haven't joined Google yet. Keep in mind that you're able to upload pictures in a private way, as well. Furthermore, you can tag people who are in the photo and share them nearly with the whole world.
In short, Picasa deserves your attention if there's a need of a rich palette to exert substantial effects on your pictures that later can be shared to Google+.
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Paint.NET Paint.NET is one of the best free image editors I've ever used. With this simple but powerful application, you will be able to create, design, restore, or retouch images, plus many other actions that are usually carried out by important image editors.
Paint.NET works faster compared to other editors, being very powerful and easy to use at the same time. It is not important if you are an experienced designer or a beginner, you will find that this utility is an excellent option to replace big image editors like PhotoShop, and specially because it's totally free.
Some key features of Paint.NET are:
Layers support. If you are an experienced user, then you know how important it is to work with layers, and with Paint.NET you won't have any problem, because the application supports layers, with many properties like blending modes, control opacity, etc.
Effects and Adjustments. You will be able to apply many special effects to your projects, and image adjustments as well. But that's not all. You will also be able to download hundreds of amazing plugins that will add new effects and adjustments to your images. Some of them are so good that will allow you to create 3D images with just a couple of clicks.
Unlimited Undo. Every action performed on an image will be recorded in the small History window. In this way, you will be able to go back as deep as you desire.
Important changes on Paint.NET version 3.36:
The following effects have been improved or changed: “Rendering”, “Add Noise”, and “Fix Ratio”.Some minor problems detecting and working with NET Framework 3.5 have been fixed. Other minor bugs were corrected.
To sum up, Paint.NET is an excellent image editor for both, novice and advanced users.
Important. You will need to have NET Framework 2.0 or higher installed on your PC before running Paint.NET.
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GIMP GIMP is a versatile and free to use graphics manipulation program. With GIMP you are capable of make professional logos and buttons in just a few minutes among other features. Like Photoshop and other design applications, it uses a large number of dialogs.
Its customizable interface, makes you comfortable since startup. The interface is modularized into docks, allowing you to stack them into tabs or keep them open in their own window. You can make a lot of photo enhancement effects in digital photos. Like fix perspective distortion caused by lens tilt choosing the corrective, eliminate lens' barrel distortion, or make digital retouching techniques. You can clone objects with the perspective clone tool, just as easily as with the orthogonal clone.
GIMP is not a design suite, it hasn't so many features as Photoshop, but if you can't spend hundreds of dollars in software licenses, or your work doesn't require complex task, consider add this package to your toolset. Forum has a lot of tips and many questions resolved. So if you are stuck, you can find help pretty fast.
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XnView XnView is a program that allows you to view, organize, convert, and edit image files. It also comes with some useful features that help you take screenshots and create slideshows, web pages, contact sheets, etc.
The application has a user-friendly interface. However, it looks rather cluttered because of the multitude of buttons displayed on the main window. The tool is compatible with many image formats and it can display graphic files and animated formats like .tiff, .gif, .ico etc. To use the program you just need to import you image files. The program enables you to modify the view and the layout of images, as well as to sort and filter the selected files.
You can also adjust other image details. Thus, you have the ability to rotate it, flip it, or to set the level of brightness, contrast, gamma, balance, hue, saturation, and lightness. You can also find some supplimentary information about a picture by using the Properties option. Another useful feature is the one that lets you convert the files to a wide range of output formats.
As I already mentioned above, this app allows you to create slideshows, web pages, or contacts sheets. With the slideshow option you can adjust some appearance items, such as the transition effects and the resolution. If you want to create a web page, you need to select a template and edit the thumbnail, the picture, or the information that will be displayed. A contact sheet is also customizable in terms of dimensions, thumbnails, font, and color.
In conclusion, this is a useful program that helps you edit pictures, convert them to other image formats, and view photos.
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IrfanView InfranView is a free image viewer with image editing tools and multimedia player capabilities for Windows OS. Recently its file support has been extended so that now it is even capable of playing audio, video and postscript files (somewhat similar to Mac OS file previewer).
The interface has been improved, and its simplicity and extensive file support make it one of the most downloaded and preferred media viewers in addition to being free.
With the program users are able to crop, resize, adjust levels, add effects and do basic image editing. With the plug-in support users can play MP3, view AVI, MPG, MPEG, MOV and display postscript files, like PDF/EPS.
Other features allow to: rotate an image, acquire OCR images, send file by email, create wallpapers, make slideshows, create thumbnails, insert text, capture screenshots and more.
InfranView started out as a simple picture viewer and now it is even capable of showing CAD, Flash and RAW files. In summary it supports over 50 multimedia file formats, which definitively make it better than any media viewer, even QuickTime.
The program isn’t going to replace a professional image editor or a specialized media player, but it is surely a great multimedia tool to have installed on the computer.
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Download IrfanView Portable