iMovie '11 works by importing your movie (which for large films has to be in DV format) and then allowing you to cut and paste bits of it together, much as you would with a word processing application. Adding soundtracks is a breeze thanks to integration with iTunes as is images due to integration with iPhoto. Also, if you just want to cut something for YouTube, an integrated uploaded makes sure your creations go online instantly although I sometimes find this fails to upload properly or doesn't tag the video correctly.

There are tons of trailers and templates for you to choose from that make your movie look far more polished that would ordinarily be possible. By the time you've finished, your raw film will look amazingly polished. iMovie '11 can be fussy with formats - it works best with DV format films and trying to import other formats may not work or just crash it completely.

Advanced video editors will find that iMovie '11 lacks specialist editing functions but for most people, iMovie turns you into a pro with minimum effort.

Download iMovie '11 9.0.9 in Softonic

Supports iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom libraries. Extremely fast - based on state-of-the-art technologies and optimized for photo comparison. Beautiful and easy-to-use interface - great photo browsing, reviewing results in different modes, marking photos with just one click, etc.

PhotoSweeper Lite helps photographers (professional or hobbyists) to get rid of tones duplicate photos that they usually have.

Download PhotoSweeper Lite 1.9.3 in Softonic

It's fully integrated with iPhoto, Aperture and Adobe Lightroom and does an impressive job of removing duplicated photos. It features a very slick interface and fits in very well with OS X. It also gives you greater peace of mind if you edit photos with applications, such PhotoShop, Pixelmator and are worried they may have merged with your current collection.

PhotoSweeper uses 6 different methods to find similar or duplicate photos, even those edited in external programs such Photoshop. PhotoSweeper is very fast at finding duplicates even with large collections. You can regroup results on-the-fly by changing a matching level of similarity. You can preview images, drag and drop them, display ratings, labels and much more.

Note that PhotoSweeper is generally extremely reliable at finding the right duplicates but it should be used with care and you should backup your collection in case it deletes photos that you want to keep.

Overall, PhotoSweeper is a very effective tool for finding duplicate photos.

Download PhotoSweeper 1.9.3 in Softonic

The interface is very slick and iPhoto features tons of tools to help you manage your library. In fact, the real strength of the program resides in the organizing options such as organizing by events, create a gallery, print out calendars and books etc. In particular, the unified search function allows you to quickly find any photo based on all sorts of criteria like date, name or keywords and now, even faces.

One of my favorite features of iPhoto are the photo montages which allow you to select a style of presentation with accompanying music. These look great and are a nice way to view your photos and reminisce on the past. However, I dislike the way iPhoto has to build a library file of your photos. If you've already got several GB of photos on your system, you don't want another huge iPhoto file taking up space on your hard drive.

Of course, iPhoto is also very well integrated into other Apple apps such as iDVD so your iPhoto images can easily be used in videos that you're editing. Displaying photos in full screen mode isn't as simple as it should be however - it involved way too many clicks and its hard to get rid of the toolbar.

Overall, iPhoto is an extremely elegant photo application which makes viewing photos a pleasure.

Download iPhoto 9.4.3 in Softonic

Aperture could be defined as 'iPhoto on steroids'. It's a complete photo organizer and viewer, easy enough for the amateur, but with the powerful tools that any advanced user would need. Plus it features a comfortable interface that hardly takes a few minutes to get used to.

Aperture lets you import images from various resources (including your photo camera), organize them in an intuitive way and optimize or fix them if necessary. When ready, sit back and enjoy them in a fullscreen slideshow, or use them in various creative projects such as a book, an album or a web gallery.

When I said Aperture was a bit like iPhoto, I wasn't exaggerating. This new version includes Faces, the popular facial recognition technology implemented in the last version of iPhoto. But Aperture goes a step beyond and also includes Places, another special technology that geolocates your images using the information stored in metadata by some cameras. However, I have to say that this feature wasn't working properly: the map took ages to load and controls were over-sensitive – which made map navigation a real pain. It even caused a program crash while testing it.

Besides these organizational features, Aperture includes a bunch of interesting tools to enhance your pics. You can tweak the image's balance, exposure, color and light values, levels and more with easy-to-use slides. The so-called Adjustment presets let you apply quick, frequent fixes to images in just two clicks. Finally, the all-new precision brushes help you fix the problem with extraordinary accuracy.

Other features in Aperture I found specially interesting were the possibility to share your images online in MobileMe, Facebook and Flickr right from the program, and to create printed copies of your photos – which always works as a nice present for grandma.

Aperture is an excellent photo application, there's no doubt about that. But in a way I felt disappointed when testing this new version. I expected to have more editing and drawing tools, and – why not – support for layers and masks. I found the controls uncomfortable and hard to manage, and my overall impression was one of disappointment.

Aperture is a powerful photo organizer and viewer that includes a handful of features to view, fix, optimize, enhance, share and enjoy your photos!

Download Aperture 3.4.4 in Softonic

Mailplane was originally created back in the days when IMAP support wasn't available in Gmail and you could only access it from your browser. Nowadays you can consult Gmail from any mail client like Mail.app or Thunderbird and there are even browser plugins that will do the checking for you. However, Mailplane is made specifically for the use of Gmail and is one of the best ways of managing multiple accounts at once.

Mailplane works independently of your browser to manage Gmail accounts. Along the top of the interface, you have buttons for replying, sending, printing, forwarding etc much like a normal mail client. There are also buttons for quickly adding photos (with special integration for iPhoto) and viewing downloads. Alternatively, you can drag and drop attachments such as photos and documents onto Mailplane while you're composing it

You can add as many accounts as you want using the Accounts button. When new mail arrives, a Mailplane icon in your Menu bar will indicate how many are waiting to be read and each account features a number next to it indicating the amount of mail in that particular inbox. By clicking on the Menu bar icon, a drop down menu shows you the subject heading of unread mail in each inbox.

The big advantage though is that managing multiple inboxes with Mailplane is so much easier than doing it in your browser. You can't have more than one Gmail inbox open in a browser and while you can't in Mailplane either, switching between them is so much easier.

If you only use one Gmail account, then Mailplane isn't exactly essential. If you do however, it's the best way I've found of managing multiple inboxes.

Download Mailplane 3.0 in Softonic

Comic Life is a really fun application with which you can create comics out of your photos and images.

What I enjoyed most from the application is how easy it is to work with. With this type of program, you're looking to play around and Comic Life feels just like that. You can quickly drag and drop your images onto the interface, arrange them in order onto a page, drag bubbles and then enter your text.

Comic Life offers many shapes, forms and text lettering with styles reminiscent of the best cartoons and comics. All can be extensively customized to your taste from the style attributes tab on the right. I also quite liked the choice of filters, with which you can give a different aspect to your photos, like turning them into a scene from Sin City. If you don't want to get carried away into editing, Comic Life also features loads of page templates and themes that you can start off with.

Importing pictures onto the screen is easy, as you'll only need to drag and drop them from your desktop or pick straight from the preview pane in the application. Even more, you can use your webcam or DV camera to take snaps and post them immediately into your comic strip.

The only little downside to this app is that it sometimes uses up a little too much RAM.

Very intuitive and loaded with features, Comic Life is a great way to have fun with your pictures. It has all the bubbles, styles and fonts you'd expect to make good looking comics. Highly recommended.

Download Comic Life 2.2.6 in Softonic

Download Snapheal 2.3 in Softonic

We've already given you a lowdown on the most important changes in Mountain Lion most of which are features taken from iOS. Here we will take a more in depth look at the features OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion has to offer.

A universal share button has been added to Safari's URL bar for reading later, add to bookmarks, e-mail, or Twitter. Facebook sharing has also been integrated into OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion, as anticipated.

Password Tabs allows you to see passwords saved in Safari.

Omnibar is an added feature to Google Chrome in Mountain Lion. It integrates the address bar and search box including Google searches, favorites and history.

Messages replaces iChat. Lion users can try the beta version of Messages which is the same as iMessage on iOS but the final stable version only works on Mountain Lion. Amongst other things, Messages offers unlimited free iMessages, video conferencing with Facetime and photo/file sending.

Time Machine now allows you to select more than one hard drive to save backups. Time Machine can now also run in PowerNap mode, which allows the operating system to update itself while the computer is sleeping.

Software updates are now fully integrated with the Mac App Store and can be downloaded directly.

Game Center is the same as on iOS. Gaming is becoming increasingly important on OS X and Game Center allows you to download games, play against friends and save your progress. AirPlay will allow Mac and iOS users to play against one another. You can also share your scores on Facebook, Twitter, Mail, or Messages in OS X 10.8.2 Mountain Lion. Additional integration with Facebook includes being able to "like" individual games and challenge friends to beat your high scores.

iCloud Synchronization is far more extensive in Mountain Lion than Lion where synchronization is limited to favorites and history. Mountain Lion extends the capabilities of Mountain Lion allowing the synchronization of documents too. iCloud will also sync settings, tabs, and bookmarks between Mac and iOS devices.

Mail. Contacts and Calender are all in sync thanks to iCloud in Mountain Lion and you can now configure it Microsoft Exchange, Gmail and Yahoo!, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo and AOL accounts. In addition, your Facebook friends' contact information and profile pictures will now appear in Contacts as well.

Other surprises in Mountain Lion

- The screensaver now includes the option to create iPhoto style presentations

- Screen Sharing allows you to easily share your screen with other Mountain Lion users.

- Printing has been simplified.

- Searching for words in the dictionary is simpler. Three clicks have been replaced by one.

- Launchpad and Dashboard include a search tool, making launching apps quicker.

- Mail includes a Safari style search tool but ditches support for RSS feeds.

- X11 goes the same way as Java: you have to install it separately.

- AirPlay now support mirroring to an AppleTV with up to 1080p resolution but only stereo sound. Users can now give presentations or watch video on a TV from their Macs using AirPlay.

Final thoughts

The last major change to OS X was OS X 10.5 Leopard. It was followed by a faster and more subtly improved Snow Leopard 10.6. OS X 10.7 Lion was then released in summer 2011 with most major changes related to how you control OS X via a Trackpad to create a more iOS experience. Everything then points towards the fact that Apple are likely to release a new OS X once a year, the same as iOS for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch with OS X moving closer and closer to iOS with each release. Considering that the price of each OS X update has come down too, it’s foreseeable that future versions of OS X will be downloaded for free like iOS.

Naturally, this increasing move towards iOS will delight those that love using their iPhone and iPad. Those that prefer their mobile device and Mac to be treated as mainly separate user experiences, may not be so enthusiastic but Mountain Lion provides some great new functionality and is well worth the upgrade from Lion.

Download OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 in Softonic

Voila can capture any shape, such as Circular, Polygonal, Triangular, or Freehand objects. You've also got standard capture tool options, such as Menu Capture, Fullscreen Capture, Object Capture, Rectangular Capture and a Timed Capture as well. A lot of effort has gone into integrating Voila with other image applications and sites and so you can send and open files from iPhoto and Flickr. Voila is also integrated with Mail if you want to send your screen grabs immediately.

Voila features all the standard options you expect from a screen capture tool, including annotation tools that allow you to add text, arrows, lines, crop and even add watermarks. There are a few filters too, including blurred, torn and framed edges. Exporting from Voila can be done to PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF, GIF and BMP formats.

The overall accessibility of Voila is what impresses the most. Easily accessible from either the menu bar or Dock, your hand never needs to leave the mouse to reveal it. Added to the fact that recent captures are easily visible along the bottom of the interface, you're never left searching your hard drive for captures.

The most recent useful addition to Voila is the ability to trim screencasts using QuickTime. The editing features could do with a little extending but it's sufficient for basic cutting.

If you've got a steady hand, Voila allows you to grab objects that would otherwise be limited to the square or rigid capture parameters of most general screen capture apps. An excellent screen capture application that's come a long way in a short time.

Download Voila 3.4 in Softonic

It's easy to see why too. NetNewsWire is free and easy to use and filled with viewing modes and feed reading features that make it feel like a very complete and professional application. Not only can you view full screen, in tabs or combined, but NetNewsWire also lets you sort items by attention or create smart lists to keep your items organized.

The RSS reader previews new items in the interface, which saves you the hassle of opening up your browser. You can also sort items by headline column, depending on the date, title and more. NetNewsWire also integrates perfectly with programs such as Spotlight, iCal and iPhoto and allows you to post items to del.icio.us and Digg.

Perhaps most importantly for many, you can also automatically sync with NetNewsWire with Google Reader and your iPhone meaning you can read feeds from anywhere and not then duplicate them later when reading on your phone or in Google Reader.

Although there are no add-ons as such for NetNewsWire, it can be extended very easily using scripts although this obviously requires a certain amount of scripting knowledge. Most of the time, NetNewsWire works smoothly, however if you're following a large amount of feeds, it can take some time to load them up.

NetNewsWire is an excellent desktop RSS reader with multiple viewing modes and synchronisation with Google Reader.

Download NetNewsWire 3.3.2 in Softonic

FotoMagico has a very easy-to-use and slick interface, which enables high quality images to be arranged into stunning presentations. Once you've selected the photos you want to use, you can scale, move, rotate, zoom or pan around your images in order to highlight the most important aspects of your presentation. There are lots of transitions to choose from which are especially suited to large displays, HDTV screens and even VGA projectors.

You can opt to burn DVDs of your slideshows, although the developer recommends using Roxio Toast for this. In addition, you can transfer them to your iPod or export them to QuickTime. Most recently, FotoMagico has been updated to integrate much better with iPhoto. So for example, iPhoto libraries of photos show up correctly instead of a generic icon in FotoMagico.

The only thing FotoMagico really lacks is advanced options for tailoring your slideshow. Some of these are available in the Pro version although that's obviously more expensive.

FotoMagico is a very powerful package for creating stunning photo presentations.

Download FotoMagico 4.2.1 in Softonic

Some say it's a little "too" inspired by Thunderbird but the developers have only basically taken the core code behind it and expanded on it to make what some consider to be a superior mail client. There's no doubt that Postbox features many useful tools that make organizing and tracking your e-mails very intuitive and version 2.0 has made it even better.

Features that particularly standout in Postbox are a slick, Apple Mail style interface, very fast searching for everything from messages to attachments, Gmail style conversation views, tabbed browsing of mail, categories and folders, to-do lists and integration with Address Book, iCal, iPhoto, Spotlight, and Quick Look. Postbox also works with third party apps such as OmniFocus and Things.

Setting-up Postbox is very straightforward. A wizard takes you through the entire import process and Postbox automatically determines connection settings for you. The great thing is Postbox is a lot simpler than Thunderbird and getting your webmail - such as Gmail or Yahoo e-mail onto your desktop - is extremely quick and painless. It can even retrieve your Facebook messages for you using a separate simple setup wizard. Once you've imported, Postbox works behind the scenes to catalog everything including every single bit of text, contact, address, link, picture, document and attachment. Within seconds, you should have a fully searchable and effectively backed-up copy of your e-mail on your hard drive.

Browsing images is a pleasure in Postbox and I liked the way you can scroll through every single image in your inbox in one go. Organizing your mail and work load using Postbox is refreshingly easy and reminds me of a more advanced version of Gmail. It does not however extract labels from Gmail which is a downside because it means reorganising your entire collection once again. You may also receive quite a bit of spam in Postbox because although it has it's own spam filter, it doesn't support more powerful solutions such as SpamSieve.

Postbox is one of the most intelligent e-mail clients you're likely to try on Mac. The latest version is better than ever although now that Outlook is available on Mac in Office 2011, it may have to improve even further to attract more users.

Download Postbox 3.0.7 in Softonic

The developer of Yep says "Photos have iPhoto. Music has iTunes. But when it comes to PDFs and other office documents, you're on your own."

This is true to some extent. Apple has never thought to invent a decent document manager, although as far as locating documents is concerned, Spotlight is more than enough for me. However, there's no doubt that a good document manager wouldn't go amiss and Yep does a pretty good job. Particularly if you're browsing through your documents collection or scanning documents for filing, Yep makes looking at them and managing them a much nicer experience.

When you open Yep, you're reminded this is only a 10-day trial and given a brief overview of the interface. Yep is supposed to auto-import documents on start-up but I found that for some reason, this wouldn't work for me. Once you do manage to import documents, you're offered an auto-tagging feature, which is immensely useful because it takes keywords to identify documents. I don't really see how this is any more powerful than Spotlight but still, it makes organizing files a lot easier. However, it really comes into its own when scanning documents. Yep can auto-tag documents with keywords so that even your scanned documents are indexable.

There are other options out there such as Papers, which do a good job of organizing documents but few do browsing and cataloging PDFs as well as Yep.

Download Yep 3.1.4 in Softonic

Most recently, GraphicConverter has been updated with a slick new Cocoa interface which makes it look more like iPhoto. Regular users may or may not like this shift closer to iPhoto but it does make GraphicConverter slightly easier to use. The functionality is till pretty much the same though. GraphicConverter comes with two browsing views which let you dig in deep in folders and find your images. It can also convert images into most of the popular image formats out there.

Although there clearly aren't as many editing tools as in Aperture or Lightroom, GraphicConverter comes with a very wide list of filters and effects that you can place onto your images all of which are accessible from the menu bar. GraphicConverter lacks the more advanced web sharing features that are integrated into iPhoto however.

Thanks to a revamped interface plus some powerful and accessible features, GraphicConverter is a solid photo application for managing, converting and editing your pictures.

Download GraphicConverter 8.5.1 in Softonic

Picasa for Mac is Google's answer to iPhoto and allows you to easily publish photos from your Mac to the web.

All the accolades that apply to the Windows version of Picasa apply to Picasa for Mac except of course, Picasa for Mac has all the polish and classy touches you'd expect from a Mac interface.

Once you open Picasa, it will perform a full scan of images on your Mac which it then loads into the viewer quickly and efficiently. All images are instantly organized in chronological order. Unlike iPhoto, Picasa for Mac does not create it's own compressed library file thus it saves disk space compared to iPhoto. However, it's obviously not as well integrated as iPhoto with other Apple apps.

Everything that's included in the Windows version is here including simple editing functions, slide shows, and online photo and video publishing as long as you have a Google account.

Slick, polished, quick, logical and easy to use, Picasa for Mac makes viewing and publishing photos and videos easy.

Download Picasa for Mac 3.9.13.29 in Softonic

Although photo software such as iPhoto and Picasa have made making photo slideshows much easier, they're not dedicated tools for the task. Neither handle videos well either when it comes to slideshows and presentations.

PulpMotion however does and allows you to create professional looking and engaging photo-video slideshows that will breathe new life into any photo and video collection. PulpMotion does a lot of the hard work for you by including a number of visual themes with which to work with. Your own media is organized down the right side of the interface and the timeline runs along the bottom very much like a video editor.

To create your own animations, simply drag and drop elements onto the main interface in the same way as you would in iMovie. When you're ready, you need to export it and PulpMotion provides options to do so via Mail, exporting to QuickTime, publishing to a website using iWeb, uploading it onto an iPhone or even creating a personal screensaver with it. Alternatively, you can publish it as a standalone media player that anyone should be able to watch on their machine.

The great thing about PulpMotion is that it does a lot of the hard work for you by providing some impressive themes, automatically syncing music. pacing the presentation etc. The interface tries to pack a lot in meaning it does feel a bit cluttered at times but this is a minor drawback on what otherwise is an excellent application.

Overall though, PulpMotion is an excellent multimedia presentation tool that will make your multimedia shows very impressive.

Download PulpMotion 3.5 in Softonic

Diptic features simpler filters than Instagram such as rounded borders and 56 other customizable layouts. Diptic also supports Multi-Touch and reacts to gestures on your phone or Magic Mouse/Trackpad on your Mac. Amongst the other features of Diptic are the ability to display images in full screen mode, share collages via Twitter and Flickr, save projects and export images in high resolution (3072x3072 resolution).

In addition there are options to adjust the border color and width, create rounded corners with a slider plus adjust brightness, contrast, hue and color saturation. On Mac, you can import photos from iPhoto and Aperture or simply drag and drop images from your favorite photo management application into the Diptic frame.

Diptic is ideal for all those that want a change from Instagram or just want something a bit more fun when adding filters and effects to photos.

Download Diptic 5.5.1 in Softonic

This little app is great – it looks good and adds fun, easy effects to your photos. It’s also got basic editing tools, so with a bit of time and effort, you can really make some fantastic art out of your images.

Flare is really simple to use. Drag and drop your image into the interface, apply one of the 30 presets and, if you want to, use the tools under Edit to add more effects or customize the ones you have already applied.

Flare also offers some basic editing tools along the bottom that allow you to crop or rotate your image. When you’re done, use Flare to publish your mini work of art to Flickr, iPhoto or send in an email. If you’re dying for a taste of Instagram while you’re on your Mac, Flare is the perfect app for you!

Make your even more photos beautiful with Flare for Mac.

Download Flare 1.5 in Softonic

10 years ago, if you'd asked anyone in the publishing world which software they use for DTP layout and design, chances are that the answer would have been QuarkXPress.

Nowadays, it is increasingly losing ground to Adobe's InDesign but its continued use in the professional publishing industry is testament to the power and quality of QuarkXPress.

The reason for its longevity is simply because QuarkXPress is a very powerful design and page layout software package but at the same time, retains an intuitive and versatile interface that lets you combine elegant typography with color and pictures. The end result is highly professional web and print layouts.

However, those looking for major improvements in version 9 of QuarkXPress might be disappointed. The update adds a little more power to your elbow in the form of an App Studio for mobiles and iPads allowing you to create your own interactive publications. Beyond this, many of the modifications and updates are relatively subtle, such as the possibility to export to ePUB for the eBook Market, iPad, Sony Reader and NOOK format converters plus an image grid.

Getting content into QuarkXPress had previously been one of it's major bugbears but the developers had already made it far more flexible in version 9, accepting content from products from rivals such as Adobe Bridge, iPhoto or Extensis Portfolio, allowing you to drag content from QuarkXPress to Photoshop, Illustrator, Microsoft Word or the desktop. Version 9 enhances this flexibility to take into account the rapidly expanding eBook and iPad market.

It's hard top sum up all of QuarkXPress's features in a few words but if you've never tried it and you're into desktop publishing, it's safe to say you won't be disappointed although you should also check out Adobe InDesign too before making any decisions.

Download QuarkXPress 9.5 in Softonic