User’s Manual to Vextractor

• Create a raster image of your choice by simply scanning a hard-copy drawing with your scanner.
• Use Vextractor to convert the specific raster file created to vector format.
• User can then easily import the saved vector file to vector graphics application software like AutoCAD, Corel Draw etc.
• Editing of the vector file can be done as per the user’s choice using this AutoCAD or Corel Draw.

Key Features

• Vextractor supports almost all raster graphic file formats available in the market, including GIF, JPEG, TIFF/GEOTIFF, BMP, TGA, PCX, WBMP< PPM, PGM and many more.
• Vextractor also supports a wide range of vector formats including: AutoCAD DXB and DXF, Windows Metafiles EMF and WMF, MapInfo MID/MIF, ASCII XYZ text format, Adobe Illustrator, Encapsulated Postscript, ILDA Data Transfer format and many more.
• Vextractor has added several graphics element for design drawing. These include arcs, circles, orthogonal lines and many more. The software allows users to create a uniform grid which can be used for keeping elements of the vectorized object.
• There is a Built-In Graphics Vector Graphics Editor available to users in Vextractor. This has several advanced features to it which allows users to add corrections to the vectors created.
• Another unique feature in Vextractor is Cartographic Information Recognition. To provide effective use of this user provides with coordinate binding system with an additional option, which allows saving of data binding coefficients to GeoTIFF and world-files of ESRI ArcInfo system.
• With Vextractor user can set their own coordinates for the vector images and also the desirable size of the selected image.
• Vextractor has several addition features added to it. Some of them include an original three-window interface, TWAIN32-compatible devices.

The Verdict

Vextractor is powerful software for vector format transformations. User just needs to select the raster image and click the button and the transformation is done in your desired way. It’s just that easy. Try it for yourself.

PhotoPlus 6 is a basic photo editing program, a program suited for beginners which can be ascribed to its very user friendly and self explanatory layout. This program allows you to edit photos, apply effects to photos, add text, and more with a simple click. We will here give you a full in depth review of the software.

Lets Start!

Well, even though this software is free, you have to register which is a easy 5 step process which will culminate to Serif (the developers) sending you an authentication code (which sometimes might take some time). This process is redundant process, attributing to its poor user interface as well as delay in the registration process.

Interface

On running PhotoPlus 6, it will show a window of opportunities (Literally). As soon as it runs, it opens up a traditional photoshop interface asking you whether you want to start a new work, import a file or edit an existing one. PhotoPlus 6 is also compatible with Animation, so there is an option for that too (In fact they want to highlight the feature).

Features

This is the succulent part, a place to vaunt on PhotoPlus 6. PhotoPlus 6 includes a number of options which range from creating a new picture, opening saved work, creating an animation, import your photos, and viewing samples as discussed before. To add cream to that layer, PhotoPlus 6 offers several photo editing tools. This list includes the cropping tool, adjust the color tool, brightness tool, and the resizing tool. These tools are organized in a user friendly manner i.e on the left hand side and the top down menus fashion

Effects

For a serious photo editing, we need to look at Effects offered by PhotoPlus 6. PhotoPlus, like many other softwares offers tools like distortion, blur, edge, and rendering. It also provides popular effects used photo editing like the black and white effect and the sepia tone effect without having going through the trouble of adjusting color using the advanced features.

Text Effects

The Text tool is not a fancy one, but will do a decent job.You can add text by clicking the icon in the toolbar and clicking the photo. A text box will open and you can type your text and change the options at the top of the text editor. If you’re looking to create fancy text, this program isn’t what you are looking for.

Overall, Photo plus 6 makes a great learning software for users who want to learn photo editing. It is a free software and apart from the annoying registration process, you can say this software is as good as the real stuff.

Key Features

• Greenfish Icon Editor Pro supports a wide range of file formats which can be saved and opened with using the software. Some of them include CUR, ICO, PNG, BMP, XPM, JPEG and many more.
• User can create icons in 32 bit format and resolution upto 256×256.
• The interface available to user is very user-friendly, Multilanguage, customizable one. Even mere beginners can adapt to Greenfish Icon Editor Pro’s interface very easily.
• Greenfish Icon Editor Pro has several in-built filters available. Some of them include Glow, Drop Shadow, Bevel, Hue Shift, Remove matte and many more.
• Another unique feature in Greenfish Icon Editor Pro is the extracting tool available. With this user can easily open icons included in exe files and system libraries. User can extract cursors and icons from executable files effortlessly.
• User can create Vista compatible PNG compressed icons efficiently using this software.
• There are many unique selection tools available to users in Greenfish Icon Editor Pro. Some of them include marquee, magic wand and lasso which are equally good as in a professional image editor.
• User can create impressive cursors using this software; and also the created ones can be tested effectively.
• Another unique feature here is the dynamic color depth. With this user does not need to specify the color depth explicitly, the Greenfish Icon Editor Pro does it all for you.
• Painting can be done easily using the new Greenfish Icon Editor Pro. 32-bit support adds another beautiful layer to the feature. Also there is support for drawing different kinds of gradients.
• Greenfish Icon Editor Pro with all these unique features is a freeware!!! Also there are sample icons available which can be used to test the different features in the software.

The Verdict

Greenfish Icon Editor Pro is user friendly and also powerful software that creates cursors, icons and small pixelgraphic images tirelessly. Above all it is absolutely free!! Try it and see for yourself.

User’s Manual To 5 Clicks Screen Capture

• Start the 5 Clicks software.
• Now move the square seen on screen by simply clicking on the black arrows and then dragging it. Now drag the square to a one of the corner such that it touches the cornet of area that you want to capture.
• Now simply click the corner area of square and drag the bordered area to simply cover the region you want to capture and then release the mouse.
• The image is captured now, simply click the button if you need to capture more images.
• Click the close button once you have finished your task

Key Features

• 5 Clicks is a shareware that allows users to use the software for free during a trial period of 30 days. After the expiration date, users need to buy the software for $9.95.
• 5 Clicks supports a wide variety of formats. Captured images can be saved as a JPEG, Bitmap File, and PNG or copied to clipboard (which user can later paste to software like Paint or Photoshop) and many more. 5 Clicks runs smoothly and without much memory consumption in Windows Vista too.
• 5 Clicks is limited to manual area of selection and users are not able to capture the active window automatically, or the client area which can be performed using most of the other screen capture software.
• 5 Clicks gets embedded itself to user’s toolbar and can be activated by a single click on its icon. Thought there are limited special features added, the software provides a good impact on users.

The Verdict

If you are a game freak or just a simple user, looking for simple but effective screen capture software, 5 Clicks is what you are looking for. 5 Clicks allows saving anything on your screen in just 5 simple clicks, nothing more nothing less!! User get a 30 day trial period which is more than enough for them to love this software and buy the retailed version.

Key Feature

• User can create an album and import pictures from a camera or disk effortlessly using Turbo Photo. It has a very descriptive user-friendly interface, which even a beginner can easily adapt to.
• The software provides full control of color and exposure with the tools available which can be used equally efficiently by beginners and professionals.
• With the problem oriented wizard and automatic processing available, user can easy get outstanding pictures as output in step by step.
• Turbo Photo provided several advanced options for users to improve the appearance of their pictures. Some if these features include adding frame, logo, text, signature with templates and many more.
• User can optimize portraits created using a special beauty function available with both professional version and wizard version.
• Turbo Photo supports several special photo effects and also supports external plug-ins. So of them include removing or reduce noise, fog, purple fringing, dark corner, red eyes and many more.
• The software provides with several image transformation features including barrel distortion correction and perspective distortion, shape shifting and many more.
• Another important feature added is the Content-Aware resizing option available. With this feature it automatically keep all objects within the image while user starts changing the image ratio.
• Software provides many new enhancements like color balancing, skin beautification, HSB mode adjustment and many more.
• User can select the best format and quality as per their liking when they save the file.
• Turbo Photo supports a variety of formats including JPEG, TIFF, GIF, BMP, EXIF and many more.

The Verdict

Turbo Photo is very easy-to-use, powerful image editing/processing software that is designed especially for digital camera owners. It provide users with such professional enhancement features that doest require them to be professionals to use. With this software we can easily edit and view our images in the best way we need it to be.

Try it, See for yourself!!!

Key Features

• The interface of new 11view is much user-friendly and with many powerful features. Some of them include customizable controls, high quality print function with preview option, the Acquire option, file management tools, Send by e-mail function and many more.
• Another important feature here is that 11view allows users in creating GIF animations from a group of regular sized images.  Also we can perform lossless JPEG rotations, add overlay images, batch convert images and many more.
• The Batch Convertor Tool allows users to select different advanced features like color depth, transparency options, dithering method, destination palette and many more.
• 11view comes with several advanced editing features with which images can be given a new-look. Some of these features include rotating image, tweaking gamma, adjusting contrast and brightness, adding a photo-negative effect and many more.
• Loading-time interpolation feature makes image appear more clear and smooth when stretched onto full-screen. This makes editing possible in the easiest and clearer way possible.
• It has many other special features including: icon/cursor creation, numerous viewing options, gamma correction, PSD Decompiler., print functionality and many more.
• Supports virtually any formats available in the market including JPEG, GIF, BMP, TTIF and many more.
• Supports Exif tags to be added to images. With this, we can add comments to images in a different-attractive way.
• Gamma Correction feature helps in lighting up dark pictures to bright one while viewing them and vice versa.
• 11view has fully customizable keyboard shortcuts, which helps users, in setting shortcut keys for special functions as their requirements. This helps in making image editing more quickly and efficiently.
• 11view appears a little difficult for beginners. The features in this software are quite advanced, but once you become acquainted with them, it really saves you a lot of your valuable time.

The Verdict

11view is a freeware that is really small in size but has a variety of powerful features. The product from 11view.stratopoint.com, can edit images in the way you want it to be in the easiest way. The software has been thoroughly tested and is free of any adware or viruses. Do try it today itself.

The Positives

• Creates the most visually appealing slideshow on your TV from your pictures and video clips.
• Supports most of the image and video formats (like MOV, MPEG, AVI, JPEG, Gif and many more)
• Comes with built-in DVD and VCD authoring which supports burning to DVD R/W and CD R/W.
• Use of Windows like interface to develop DVDs.
• The audio features used in this are of very good quality. We can import simultaneous background music which can be played sequentially in the slideshow created.
• Many new exciting visual effect features like zoom effect, documentary style Ken-Burns Pan, audio synchronization and fading, and more.
• The original photos and videos can also be saved on the same CD/DVD which makes them accessible for printing anytime needed.
• The new features added in this software are much easy to use and can be performed effectively even by beginners.

The Negatives

• Many pan-and-zoom features used in this software are not that intuitive as in software like ArcSoft product. For example, you cannot preview the effects that have taken place in your control window.
• Transitions applied on images can be previewed only when applied to the entire slide show, but cannot be previewed for individual images.
• The menu templates used here are not as effective and customable as those used in DVD slide show. Also the encoding controls used in this software are not that good since they sometimes create disturbances on mp3 audio files.
• Does not offer any brightness correction, color correction or red-eye correction features. Because of this the user need  to use a different image editor fro editing images.

The Catch

Though there are many slideshow software that perform the task for us, the new MemoriesOnTV allows you to create slideshows more easily and effectively. The features added in this software are very user-friendly and unique, those can be used by beginners as effectively as professionals. So what are you waiting for? Grab the new MemoriesOnTV today itself.

Picasa is a much simpler and user-friendly image editing software, which can be used for sharing, organizing and editing of digital pictures effectively. Once installed it search and finds all pictures on your hard disk and organizes them together. This software can not only organize picture formats but also video files.  The newer version Picasa 3.5 released by Google is even better and is added with many new exciting features.

The previous versions of Picasa have acted separately from the Windows file tree, but the newer version goes hand-in-hand with Windows file tree.  Here one section of the library shows how the photos scanned by Picasa are organized throughout the hard disk. This makes organizing of pictures more efficiently and effectively. The new Picasa also has name tags feature which is same as that used in Picasa Web Albums.

Name tags helps in organizing picture based on the people in it. Sounds interesting? In the new Picasa 3.5, the name-tagging feature helps in identifying similar faces, with which they can be sorted accordingly. Picasa identifies all similar faces and organize them all in the “Unnamed people” album. By tagging the picture in it we can even search for pictures which have two persons in common and so on. This feature added is really innovative, which makes it sorting and viewing of pictures in most efficient way.

The new version has got all the features included in the previous ones too. One can easily modify and change highlights, fill lights, color temperature, shadows and more. It has got multilevel undo feature which helps in undoing your changes effectively. Though Picasa does not offer the transferring of pictures to handheld devices as in Adobe Photoshop Album it still goes toe to toe with any other image editing software.

The Picasa 3.5 also has Geotags integrated with Google Maps. This feature makes adding of geotags to your pics even easier.  Pictures can be imported faster and in a single step from your memory card or camera. The editing information is stored in ini format which make editing reversible without having the need of saving multiple versions. Picasa is available for Windows, Mac and Linux Platforms.

In short Picasa 3.5 has got everything a normal user needs for working with personal digital pictures. It is the best choice of selection as it has got everything you need to do with digital pictures, and is absolutely free.

Well, this software might be able to shed more light on the Adobe Photoshop. If you haven’t used Lightroom, we highly recommend that you start using it. This product is a brainchild of the Programmer and the user. Unlike most products, which start with the programmer programming and then asking whether it suits the professionals, this product did the exact opposite.

Lightroom has been developed with constant, continuing and intense feedback from all users via Adobe’s beta system. Way to go Adobe! In fact, this review will most of the time will not criticize Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, instead will be supportive of the product. Why? Lightroom is exactly what we all wanted. We voiced and we got want. Lightroom 2 is not a pell-mell of all the opinions. It is a perfect blend just works fine for everyone.

From the initial stages of installation to the execution, it just works smoothly. Moreover, for an inveterate photoshop user, using Lightroom will be a glib transition and a welcome one to. All you need to is play around with this software a little bit to get a hang of it. The biggest reason that all photographers love Lightroom is because it’s trivial to apply the same correction, regardless of how complex it may be, to as many other images as you like. If you want to lighten or change or alter properties of 100 pictures, all you need to do is click a single SYNC button and the Lightroom will do the magic.

Now the question arises, what if I make an error? Do i have to undo all the errors click by click? Well, with another click everything will return back to normal! (maybe J.K.Rowling’s Idea) Well, there is more to the Lightroom than it looks. Lightroom is about five different programs all rolled into one, all of which work are in concord with each other.

The responses that the Lightroom 2 got from the serious photographic community (Not Homer Simpson), it is the world’s first single piece of software that a photographer will ever need. Lightroom library feature is comparable to the iView, which is deemed as the best in the world. Lightroom is an excellent editor as well as optimzer, hence an good developer (And it is easier to use than Photoshop CS2). Lightroom’s unfair advantage is owed to it single feature localized burning,dodging and corrections with a single click.

If you want to create a photomontage, then Lightroom does slideshows, with the Slideshow part. Lightroom can also optimize the images for printing with its Print Function. If you are in to web galleries, then Lightroom will not only help you create mind blowing ones, it will also help you upload it using its FTP! All you need to do is to enter your own web server information, or you can publish directly from Lightroom 2 to your SmugMug, Picassa, Flickr and other accounts by linking it. If you are more of a flashy guy and got frustrated with Dreamweaver 8, then you can supplant with Lightroom! Now with all of these attractive facilites, features as well as adaptability what makes Lightroom so irresistibly cute icons! (inspired by the red girl in the Matrix )

The present day demands need of software that could capture and save whatever is needed from our surfing or capture certain pictures or videos from our desktop, SnagIt delivers them all. SnagIt helps you produce clear and effective graphics and videos with its complete capture solution effortlessly. It can grab an entire area in your desktop outlined in freehand by the user with the mouse pointer. SnagIt has got it all; whether it’s pictures, videos or mere text you need to capture, SnagIt makes it so simple and efficient.

TechSmith: The creator of SnagIt, first published it in 1990, and till now their newer versions always come with innovative new features that seem to be of no use before, but seems indispensible once we start using them. The new SnagIt v9 is a very handy tool. Unlike the previous versions  this one is compatible with Vista too in addition to windows XP. Although there are snipping tools used in vista, SnagIt makes screen capture more modest and simple. Capturing with SnagIt is as simple as entering the Hot Key and selecting the windows area. Then the task is done, and you just need to save it to the various file formats or email it directly as an attachment.

SnagIt captures automatically and allows you in combining multiple captures very effectively. The SnagIt Editor feature in it provides with many special and advanced features. This provides an amazing wealth of functionality. It’s also provided with certain enhanced features like image editor, image format conversion, stamps etc. It also capable of automatic image-tagging, which is a library for saving and indexing every capture. There is also an image tray which helps in finding the most recent opened captures

SnagIt can be used for Windows only. It can grab any portion of the screen; i.e. single objects, entire screens, even those windows that scroll off screen. It captures editable text from the dialog boxes and other screens where copying cannot be done in normal cases. The Auto-scroll feature in this helps you in copying from Windows that extend beyond the visible screen area with horizontal and vertical scrolling. The Web Capture feature enables capturing of all image files from a website where even the linked pages can be included. SnagIt catalogs and saves all captures automatically which even includes the source information which is used for easy reference.

Though SnagIt is one of the most expensive one of the dedicated screen-capture applications, it is also by in all means the most versatile one too. If taking windows screenshot is your need, then there is no other software better than this. With its efficient and ease-to-use format and elaborate help support it makes it easy for even a simple user to handle it effectively. In short SnagIt has it all and is by no doubt one of the best screen captures we’ve seen to date.

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