What makes Filter Forge stand out from most average plugins are three main features. The obvious one is that via the simple editor, you can create your own filters. Although it is quite straightforward with an excellent user guide, Filter Forge still requires some knowledge of creating filters to be used effectively. Note that all filters support 16- and 32-bit modes only in Photoshop.

Additionally, Filter Forge is very much a user oriented application. There are thousands of free filters created by other users and if you become a contributor yourself, you receive the full version of Filter Forge absolutely free. It's not clear how good your filters have to be to qualify but it seems like generally anything goes.

Filter Forge is an excellent filter creation tool with a strong community spirit that will enhance your Photoshop creations.

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In this sense, Adobe After Effects is like Photoshop for video. It features tools that are similar to Adobe’s popular image editor, only adapted to video. As an example, one of its newest tools, RotoBrush, works as Photoshop’s Magic Wand, enabling you to select silhouettes and place characters against any background without requiring a chroma screen.

Adobe After Effects also includes more video-specific tools, such as Auto-Keyframe, which creates key frames automatically where you apply a video effect, and the Mesh warp effect in 3D, thanks to which you’ll be able to warp and distort your video as it if was a plain image.

But if there’s something outstanding about Adobe After Effects, that’s its third-party plug-ins. Mocha, for example, is an advanced tracking system that helps you in the creation and adjustment of scenes. Another excellent Adobe After Effects plug-in is Color Finesse, with which you can work with color in your video like you’ve never done before.

The most recent version of Adobe After Effects has noticeably improved its performance. On the downside, now it’s only available for 64-bit computers.

Adobe After Effects is the most powerful, complete solution for motion graphics and video effects.

Download Adobe After Effects Professional C6 11.0.1 in Softonic

If you do a lot of web tutorials or reviews (like we do), then a screen capture program is a must. By default, Windows requires you to hit print screen and paste the image into an editor like Microsoft Paint or Adobe Photoshop. Programs like SnapCrab and Snagit provide a more elegant solution with powerful capturing tools.

SnapCrab for Windows has the ability to snap the entire screen, a single program, or a single window. It also allows you to take captures with transparent or colored backgrounds. SnapCrab for Windows includes many different customization options, like defining your own hot keys and modifying how the program takes snapshots. Another feature we really enjoyed was SnapCrab for Windows' ability to give us HTML color codes of anything on the screen.

Unfortunately, SnapCrab for Windows doesn't include an editor so the captures you take will have to be thrown into a secondary app for modification. However, sharing captures is easy as it integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and Evernote for quick sharing within the app.

While SnapCrab for Windows is not nearly as easy to use as Snagit, it is certainly the right price (free!) and offers a much more elegant screen capturing experience than Window's default method.

Download SnapCrab for Windows 1 in Softonic

If you want to display your drawings online, you have two options: either scan hard copies of your drawings or draw them directly on your computer. TwistedBrush Pro Studio lets you do the latter in impressive fashion once you learn how to use it.

If you're envisioning designing sharp looking graphics for a new website, turn back now. TwistedBrush Pro Studio and its free version TwistedBrush Open Studio has not been developed to create clean crisp graphics. It will frustrate you unless you use it for what it was designed for, which is drawing and art. As a result, one of the best and most effective ways to use TwistedBrush Pro Studio is with a pen and a drawing tablet.

When TwistedBrush Pro Studio starts, a quick-start guide designed to gently introduce you to the features will pop up. While this has the potential to be useful, some users might be frustrated that the guide is largely made up of screenshots with information bubbles. If you have difficulty understanding a concept, there're no links to click on to obtain further information.

Thankfully, TwistedBrush Pro Studio is relatively easy to navigate through. A lot of effort was put into making it a realistic substitute for actual painting, and when you start working with the various brushes you'll immediately see that they interact well with the colors to create a convincing portrait. Undoubtedly TwistedBrush Pro Studio's greatest strength is the vast selection of brush types and styles that are available to use. From simple fine pens, to wet oil brushes and progressive 3D designs, users have a lot to choose from in TwistedBrush Pro Studio. The beauty of each brush is that it can be used quickly and easily, with stunning results.

Users will also find support for all the major image file formats in TwistedBrush Pro Studio, including TIFF, PSD, JPG, GIF, and PNG. Unfortunately, it seems TwistedBrush Pro Studio doesn't have a select tool. After using Adobe Photoshop for so long, many users will view this as key tool in any imaging software. Alternatively it could be the very omission of the select tool that sets TwistedBrush Pro Studio apart, with the production process being more of an evolution than a construction.

TwistedBrush Pro Studio is a quality painting and drawing tool that works best for users who have a drawing tablet handy.

Download TwistedBrush Pro Studio 18.14 in Softonic

Download Adobe Photoshop CS2 update 9.0.2 in Softonic

If you want to display your drawings online, you have two options: either scan hard copies of your drawings or draw them directly on your computer. TwistedBrush Open Studio lets you do the latter in impressive fashion once you learn how to use it.

If you have already tried the full version of TwistedBrush, you may find TwistedBrush Open Studio quite limited. While it has many of the same features, TwistedBrush Open Studio has conspicuously fewer paint brushes available. Several of the more detailed brushes are available for add-on with a purchase however. Some of these include Fractal Brushes, Pro Clips, Pro Trees and Plants, Blender Brushes and Art Tool Brushes.

TwistedBrush Open Studio can also be a little tricky to learn how to use. While it comes with a quick-start guide that opens upon start-up, this guide is primarily made up of screenshots. If you need more information than what's provided within each shot, there are no links to click. There's also no select tool, which many users have become accustomed to with Adobe Photoshop. This could take some getting used to.

That said, the brush selection is still pretty impressive, and you can create some fantastic pieces of digital art with TwistedBrush Open Studio. It just takes some practice!

Despite including only basic tools, TwistedBrush Open Studio offers a great means by which to create digital artwork from scratch on your PC.

Download TwistedBrush Open Studio 17.24 in Softonic

The build-in Zooomer allows user to snapshot screen regions and windows objects in DragDrop and timer modes and copy them to clipboard and to.

bmp file. ColorPicker takes colors from any screen part with ability to store up to 16 colors in color collection and send them directly to Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw.

ScreenDiscoverer performs the full mobility to efficiently use available screen. Users can easily configure all necessary settings and use the tool in the very way they like it.

The smart design of ScreenDiscoverer and ever useful features it presents convey its simplicity. This user-friendly tool can be used by design professionals but it does not require any special technical or computer knowledge.

Hot keys combinations that users can customize to assist in navigating their creativity make possible defining own system for processing actions.

ScreenDiscoverer minimal requirements: Microsoft. NET framework v1. 1, Pentium-II 266 CPU, 64 MB RAM, VGA video adapter, 10 MB free disk space.

Download ScreenDiscoverer 1.0 in Softonic

It has two basic features to help users with efficiency: LastMenu and FlaxMenu. The LastMenu function allows the users to press any designated shortcut key to repeat the last menu option the user had used.

This feature can be helpful while working with intensive programs like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, where users need to go to menu options continuously for using various effects.

The FlaxMenu function, on the other hand, provides the users with a customizable panel of shortcuts, where users can keep the most used menu options as shortcuts in a floating panel.

This feature allows the user to recall a menu option quickly, and users can hide or unhide this option anytime they need to. FlaxMenu is basically the program that can help users work with enhanced productivity.

Download FlaxMenu 1.2 in Softonic

First of all, you get an overview of who and how many has aninstallation of i. e. Adobe Photoshop, Access or Kazaa. AssetFocus? recognizesmore than 11.

000 applications and versions. Secondly, you get hardwareinformation on for instance CPU type and speed, monitor, size of hard disk, netcard, RAM memory from all computers on the network.

Furthermore, you getan overview of i. e. music- and film-files on the network, where they are andtheir size. Software license controlWith AssetFocus?

you can control your licenses intelligently. Via the build-inlicense module, you can register all vital license information, i. e. number oflicenses, license keys, serial numbers, purchase dates etc.

AssetFocus? documents how many installations you have per application. Thus, the systemcan compare the number of licenses with the number of software installationsand you can generate reports.

We recommend that AssetFocus? scans thenetwork every month. The scan runs automatically via the login-script andwithout installations on the client?

s network. The actual scan runs withoutinterfering with the normal routine of the computer ? it is invisible ? and uses only 5-20 % of the CPU. Approved procedureAssetFocus?

comes with the largest signature database recognizing more than11. 000 applications. The database is updated via the Internet. The recognitionof application is done by analyzing exe-files.

This is the method that BSA(Business Software Alliance) recommends. Other products typically only scanthe registry database ? and this is only rarely sufficient.

Hardware and file statisticsAssetFocus? gives you the possibility to compare software and hardwareinformation. For example, you can get a list of computers running Win98 andwith less than 128 Mb RAM.

AssetFocus? can generate file statistics fromevery PC. Among other things, you can see; how many JPG-, AVI-, MP3-, ZIP-files etc a user has; what size the files have; where they areThe administrator decides which files to scan for and how often.

Why use software license control? ; You save money when you eliminate redundant licenses. You avoid infringement on intellectual property rights You avoid unwanted software and files; You get better security; You get quantity discounts when you know your exact license need; You get an overview of all hardware and software thereby makinginformed decisions easier.

Download AssetFocus Network Inventory, 100 PCs 2.0 in Softonic

The key features of Animated GIF producer include support for such image formats as BMP, JPEG, TIF, GIF, PNG, ICO, PCX, CUR, Adobe PhotoShop PSD and Windows Metafiles, and for video formats like AVI, DAT, MPG, MPE and MPEG, a built-in snapshot capture tool, transition effects for images and multiple animation output settings.

Other features include importing frames from other GIFs, reordering and duplicating images, defining offset and delay either globally or for each separate image, resizing frames or editing selected images in external image editors.

Animated GIF producer is a fully-featured animated GIF creator for the user who would like to create his or her own buttons, banners and general animations of any kind.

Download Animated GIF producer 4 in Softonic

It has to be said that PhotoImpression pulls this off pretty well, and its colorful interface manages to marry some of the advanced features of programs like Photoshop with the simplicity of an app like the GIMP or IrfanView.

PhotoImpression's GUI is laid out in a way that leads you intuitively through the process of organizing, enhancing, and creating interesting looking photos and graphics, whether it's to share on the web, email to your pals, or print out.

Clicking each of the tabs that represent these stages of production will bring up a series of controls that help you perform a variety of tasks, from fixing problem photos to applying effects and frames to your images.
It would have been nice to see support for more advanced manipulation tools such as layers and gradients in PhotoImpression, but for someone who's just retouching or revamping their snaps, this is ideal.

PhotoImpression performs admirably compared to the wonderful, if strangely-named, GIMP. However, perhaps the key difference with this and its open source rival is you must part with cash for the full version of PhotoImpression.

Download ArcSoft PhotoImpression 6.5 in Softonic