Recently in Apps Category

With every new iPhone model, I find myself saying that the camera is the best smartphone camera I've ever used. The iPhone 4S camera is so great it outperforms many low end point-and-shoot digital cameras. What Apple still needs is better software controls natively available in iOS. Thankfully there's an app for that.

I was recently asked by Wondershare, makers of many great desktop video apps, to take their iPhone app, PowerCam, for a test drive. PowerCam successfully combines some important basic enhancements to your iPhone camera with some amazing special effects.

Download FotoCrop II

Designed to make cropping photos in Paint Shop Pro easier, this tool performs calculations to make sure you get accurate crops for standard photo sized prints. Both North American (4x6, 5x7, 8x10) and European( A4, A5, A6) sizes are supported, in addition to any custom sizes you set in the program's options pane. FotoCrop's selection constraints work with both the PSP selection and cropping tools, although setting the print area only works in conjunction with the selection tool. Tested for both Win2k and Windows XP, FotoCrop should work with most Windows operating systems. [Windows 2k/XP $0.00]

Download XFile

Reduce pixilation when you magnify images or portions of images. The Bicubic and Bilinear Interpolations built into Photoshop and other similar imaging editors start blurring and pixilating images when they are magnified much beyond 150-200%. This plugin uses a proprietary Interpolation method that allows you to enlarge images by as much as 400% with marginal pixilation. Preview your magnification before you commit, making it easy to optimize your images to their maximum size before committing to the resize. [Windows 9x/2k/XP $49.95]

Download FilterMeister

Have you come up with a perfect configuration for making a particular effect? Share it with the world using FilterMeister, a tool for creating Photoshop compatible filters. Include things like mouseovers, gamma correction, sound effects, and tons of other features that will let you distribute your filters royalty free, without the challenge of programming your own effects completely from scratch. A selection of tips and tutorials is available on the Web to get you up and running quickly, as well as a user discussion list for getting assistance from other FilterMeister users. [W9x/2k/XP $24.95]

Download Photo Rescue

Not only will this application find files you accidentally overwrote during a reformat, or the ones you deleted "by accident," you'll also uncover photos you really did intentionally delete sometime in the past. I was amazed to discover some of the photos I took several months back, still completely intact. Another thing I like about this product is availability for both Windows and Mac OS X users - especially since I qualify as both. Essentially, this app allows you to recover files you thought were destroyed, from SmartMedia, CompactFlash, Memory Sticks, and Microdrives. In many cases, you'll also be able to recover files from other types of physical drives as well. A preview window allows you to decide which found images you want to keep, before you actually rescue them from your media. Geared more specifically toward JPEG and TIFF images, PhotoRescue will recover most common image file types. [9x/NT/W2k/XP $29]

Download Image Doctor

Image Doctor, a set of image-retouching filters, removes blemishes and defects, repairs over-compressed JPEGs, and replaces unwanted details and objects. Professional and amateur photographers, photo editors, service bureaus, graphic designers, and Web designers can restore, retouch, repair and reclaim their images more quickly using Image Doctor. The interface is quite easy to navigate, and although this is quite a departure from the usual special effects stuff the Alien Skin crew puts out, the quality is outstanding as always. If you need professional quality retouching, this plugin will do the trick without wiping out your wallet. [Windows 9x/2k/XP Mac OS X 10.2.x $129]

Download Krusty's FX

Three different sets of plugins are available here. Volume I assists in editing the transparency data of images, and could be a little more intuitive. Volume II features a variety of textures for your images, and is probably the best of the three offerings, with a slick looking 3D interface. Volume III has some image editing basics and a 3D creation tool that's worth some consideration. While I found Volume I to be quite confusing, the other two volumes are a worthy addition to any image editing arsenal. All three plugins are compatible with Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and other Photoshop compatible photo editors. [Windows 9x/2k/XP $0.00]

Download db-T tempo delay

Stereo echo that works the way you do - in beat divisions, not milliseconds. As a drummer, I can subdivide a beat into all kinds of phrases, but I've never think of rhythm in fractions of a second; I think of rhythm in terms of the way it subdivides the beat. This stereo echo lets you apply the same concept. Forget about guessing how many milliseconds will accomplish the phrasing you want and use a measure that makes sense. This plugin also includes high and low pass filtering. The plugin works in any VST compatible app, like Audacity, Adobe Audition, Cakewalk Sonar, etc.

Use the JPEG Wizard

Shrink and edit JPEG images without the loss associated with decompression and recompression. Pegasus makes this online tool available free to demonstrate the abilities of their desktop optimization software. In addition to optimization, image rotation and mirroring can both be accomplished, without loss of image quality, from this Web interface. After submitting your JPEG image, the Wizard generates a temporary web page with multiple optimized versions of your image, including comparison data with size and download time for each version.

Composer Philip Glass is best know for reviving opera, contributing works to the minimalist movement, and composing some of the more haunting works in this century. Through dedicated research, IBM has developed an engine designed to analyze and play sixty compositions from the huge body of Glass's work, with a unique playback engine that categorizes music through a series of relationships and emotions in groups of sliding bars. By moving the bars on the page, you can find types of selections you'd like to hear. Currently the plugin only works with IE.

Play Glass Engine