As the hard drives and Flash memory cards of the world’s burgeoning photography community continue to fill up, there is increasing demand for low-cost methods of keeping their images in some kind of order. With some snap-happy enthusiasts taking hundreds of pictures a week, there’s a danger that the fun of photography will be replaced by the mundane task of finding the shots you once they’re on your PC. While programs such as Photoshop Album and PaintShop Album are pretty good at helping you sort images, StudioLine aims to take things one stage further – by not charging you for the privilege.

You might expect that by not demanding a fee for a photo organizing program, you’d have to settle for a largely scaled-down version of its costly equivalents. We were pleasantly surprised to see this wasn’t the case, and the application is brimming with features that not only make it easier to sort and search for photos, but which can instantly improve the appearance of your images.

The main premise of the program is to help you whip your photo collection into some sort of order, and it does this admirably. You start with an Image Archive, which is basically a database where you can load in all of your images. From here, you can create a hierarchical tree system of folders based through an Explorer-style interface, making it a painless process. Sorting through your images is aided by the capacity for adding information about a photo using the ‘Descriptors’ data, photos, allowing you to categorize by image topic, date, location or person. You can even enter a star rating for each image to help you later in the sorting process. Another nice inclusion is the ability to change the size of thumbnail previews using a slider when viewing all the images within a folder.

As if the slick sorting facilities weren’t impressive enough, the program boasts a range of editing tools that rival many priced image editors. There’s a diverse variety of tools ranging from preprocessing, through photo correction, to special effects, all of which can be previewed and applied with ease. The fact that you can apply changes you’ve made to one photograph to hundreds of other images in one click is another major boon, and is ideal if you want to turn a batch of images into black and white, or apply an auto-colour correction to an entire album of photos, for instance.

The user interface is generally a joy to use, with lots of customizable options, and draggable palettes like those you see in professional editing suites. There are a couple of bothersome aspects of the interface which could do with changing though, such as the fact that an image loads in a new pop-up menu when its thumbnail is clicked on, rather than in the main window (as a tab perhaps). The tips boxes that spring up a little too frequently can also get a tad irritating, especially as there seems to be no way to permanently disable them.

Apart from these minor niggles, this is a fantastic program which, is arguably the cheapest way of effectively managing your image collection. The addition of features for creating slide shows, web galleries and emails only serves to raise its status as a serious contender to its big budget rivals.

Download StudioLine Photo Basic 3.50.54 in Softonic

If you like your CD and DVD burners to support drag and drop then CyberLink Power2Go might be the right solution for you.

CyberLink Power2Go features everything you'd expect from a burner produced by a big developer such as CyberLink, including the ability to burn onto double layer DVDs and Blu-ray discs. It's also been designed to produce photo slideshows with Digital Dolby audio and even extract audio tracks from video files.

The ease of access and speed of use is what impresses with this burner. If you want to burn any DVD or CD, simply drag them into the desktop shortcut and CyberLink Power2Go whizzes into action. It even takes it's image seriously with the option of downloading fresh new skins and templates online.

CyberLink Power2Go is a powerful and extremely quick burner that will handle all your CD/DVD and Blu-ray burning needs.

Download CyberLink Power2Go 6 in Softonic

As far as open source multimedia entertainment centers go, Elisa is a very impressive effort although it requires a lot of processing power and RAM.

Elisa has an intuitive interface that gives a professional feel and can be used to view both TV streams and most major video formats. You can even access it remotely from another computer if need be. Elisa also makes a pretty good audio player and displays album covers and other band related images as it plays your music in the same way as iTunes does.

Indeed, some of the inspiration for it appears to have come from iTunes although unlike iTunes, it extends itself to photo viewing and even browsing the Internet. The latter two functions are not the strongest areas of the package, although the browser is mainly designed for watching videos.

If you've got plenty of RAM to spare and fancy doing all your multimedia functions under one umbrella, Elisa is a beautifully presented and free open source solution.

Download Elisa 0.5.10 in Softonic

ACDSee Pro is one of the most comprehensive image viewers you'll find. Elegant and full of features, it's an essential for anyone working regularly with images.

To discuss and review all the features of this program would require an essay but from the quick viewing of images to support for a vast amount of image formats, audio and video, the possibility of examining within compressed files, retouching images, batch processing of images and mass conversion formats it's an impressive piece of software. This Pro version, as its name suggests, is particularly focused on the professional end of photography. It offers excellent support for RAW format images, new tools for editing and retouching images, more possibilities for processing huge images (now you can also apply sepia effects for example) and the interface has changed slightly to make the work flow even better.

Probably one of the best image programs out there outside of Adobe software.

Download ACDSee Pro 2.5.333 in Softonic

These days there are so many more things you can do with your photographs than just putting them in albums, which are then stored in the loft. Software such as Microsoft AutoCollage allows you to get more creative with your images.

It may look very simple when you first launch the application, but actually, a lot of research and development has gone into Microsoft AutoCollage. The project is an advanced computer vision and imaging program that gathers a selection of your photos and knits them together seamlessly to produce eye-catching collages.

The level of automation in Microsoft AutoCollage means that you don't really have to lift a finger. You just select the folder you want the program to collect the photos from, choose how many images you want incorporated into the collage using the slider, then click 'Create'. You can then save, email or even set the picture as your background wallpaper, directly from within AutoCollage.

The technology in Microsoft AutoCollage is certainly very impressive, particularly the face detection element, which automatically picks out peoples heads, allowing you to draw attention to these. If anything though, I felt AutoCollage was a little too hands-off as there are no real image editing tools for you to refine your collages yourself, or add text, frames, etc. What's more, there were a few bugs that cropped up in testing, such as when setting the image as a desktop in XP.

Microsoft AutoCollage is a powerful collage-rendering tool, it's just a shame it doesn't give you more control over the finished output.

Download Microsoft AutoCollage 2008 1.0.2008.0716 in Softonic

There are many ways to share photos with your beloved ones, both offline and online, but few of them are as spectacular as PhotoSynth.

PhotoSynth is presented by Microsoft as an innovative and original way of publishing and sharing your photos on the Web. It's as easy to use as other photo sharing websites, only that its photo player includes special 3D features that makes PhotoSynth especially suitable for panoramas.

After logging in with your Windows Live ID and creating a PhotoSynth profile, you're ready to start using the program. Use the client to choose and upload photos, and then check your creation on the web browser (you'll need a special plug-in for this, but this is automatically installed with PhotoSynth). You'll be able to navigate the panorama in a three-dimensional environment by dragging and clicking your mouse around the stitched photos.

While Photosynth is definitely an easy yet impressive way to share your pictures online - especially with the full-screen viewer - it lacks all the social tools you find in other similar websites, such as being able to rate pictures or leave comments, just to mention a couple of them.

With PhotoSynth you can create, publish and share online your photos in a nicely design interface, with special support for 3D panoramas.

Download Photosynth 2.0.1403.6 in Softonic

The major developers might not agree with us but the rise of open source equivalents to large, expensive packages has arguably been the most exciting development in the software industry in the last few years. The GIMP and Mozilla Thunderbird are two leading lights of the open source phenomenon and have collectively saved users millions as alternatives to their big-budget rivals.

Artweaver certainly has the credentials to take on the big players and comes stacked with an ample range of brushes, which can be tweaked and customized easily to suit your designs. Just like its more illustrious rivals, the brush selection can be beefed up through plug-ins, although the range of available brushes is pitiful compared with those you can download for Adobe Illustrator. Nevertheless, it's promising to see freeware products embracing extendability in this way.

Other welcome features include a mighty effects selection, layers and transparency functionality, plus support for a range of file formats. You can also add text layers, making it great for creating logos or promotional material. However, it's when you put pen to paper that Artweaver stumbles somewhat. The fact is that the app renders certain brush strokes much slower than its major rivals, and unless you're packing heat processor-wise you're likely to be frustrated by the lag time waiting for the strokes to appear on the page. For such a polished program otherwise, this drawback threatens to stifle its attempts to win over the graphic design market. This said, for a pre-release version ArtWeaver is an impressive piece of kit.

Download Artweaver 0.5.3 in Softonic

You'd be surprised to see how much disk space you're wasting with duplicate files. In fact, you can actually check it with this tool. Duplicate File Detector scans your system and finds all duplicate files, no matter how hidden they are.

You can analyze the whole drive or set several specific folders, but beware of the filters the program uses as default, as they may sort out folders that you want to include in the scan. The process takes a while, but in exchange for your patience the program delivers a complete list of all duplicate files in your system. This list also offers a preview of each file, so you're sure of what you're going to delete before marking them.

Duplicate File Detector works with a wide range of file formats and can detect duplicates based on a large variety of criteria. In fact, there are so many configuration settings that it may feel a bit overwhelming at the beginning.

Download Duplicate File Detector 4.5 in Softonic

Would you like to impress your friends with an impressive presentation of your last holiday pictures and are you looking for a special way to do it? What could be better than having a whole art-gallery just for you, maybe set in an ancient castle, or in a modern skyscraper or, why not, in a Chinese garden?

Photo! 3D Album is a simple free program that lets you upload your photo collection in very nice 3D settings that you can choose from a menu that pops up when you create a new project. If you don't like your original selection, don't worry as you can change the template later. It's like a first-person computer game, where you navigate through the gallery and you attach your photographs to the available canvases. Although there are many, frames are limited and this is a real problem for medium-size collections.

When you have finished navigating and uploading, you have several options in order to export your photo-collection. You can create a screen saver or a stand alone gallery which can be run with a double-click, or alternatively a web gallery in VRML or Shockwave format. For the latter format you will have to register, for free, on the developer's web site. When you launch the final video, press F1 if you want to navigate freely around the gallery.

Photo! 3D Album is great to create cool animations with the photos you want. Unfortunately the spaces available in the art gallery are limited, as they would be in a real one. It's also an interesting program to create your own personal screen savers.

Download Photo! 3D Album 1.1 in Softonic

Slideshows are one of the best ways to add colour and life to a photo collection no matter what the subject matter is.

Slideshow Magic is aimed at both home users and business professionals who want to impress friends or colleagues with their photo slideshow creations. Best of all, it doesn't require the viewer to have the program installed as all slideshows can be saved in any QuickTime compatible format.

The easy to use interface is somewhat like that of a video editor allowing you to add music or audio tracks either for the whole slideshow or just specific segments. You can add some impressive transitions and titles much in the same way as you do with Windows Movie Maker for example. The program also features a useful guide to help you get your photos online or burnt to DVD. However, unfortunately the program doesn't provide either it's own webspace or burner for uploading and saving photos. For uploading, you'll need an FTP client and web host and for burning, a third party burner such as Nero.

In addition, although it's a cross platform application, sharing with other platforms requires some form of network solution between clients (although this needn't be something complicated - a program like MSN Live Messenger is enough

Slideshow Magic is a relatively cheap but powerful way to get your photos either online or burnt to DVD.

Download Slideshow Magic 5.0.5 in Softonic

Creating collages with your photos is an easy way to breathe new life into an ageing or rather dull photo collection.

With PhotoCool, you can print multiple photos in one page and arrange them in custom designed collages. Alternatively, you can make photo albums, passport photos, mini ID card photos and CD covers via simple templates. Most templates have wizards which take you through the setup process in 4 steps.

However, note that you'll need glossy paper for best results when it comes to printing. PhotoCool can be used as a TWAIN app too which means that I will retrieve photos from your external device or camera without the need for using third-party software. Once detected, you can drag-and-drop images into PhotoCool or alternatively, you can arrange them by thumbnails and allow PhotoCool to extract them automatically on it's own.

PhotoCool makes it easy to create collages, passport photos, ID photos and just about any other kind of photo template you can think of.

Download PhotoCool 2.01 in Softonic

Esmas Player is a truly multimedia application that provides the user with almost any tool they may need to enjoy image, music and video files on the computer.

The program's interface is suspiciously similar to that of iTunes, which makes us wonder why is it that developers weren't able to come up with a more original design. Similarities to iTunes don't end here, though: as you'll see, you can organize your library, play your favorite songs, edit tags, listen to podcasts, synchronize contents with your portable music device and even buy music online. Some people may find this resemblance somewhat uncomfortable – like a cheap imitation – but it's also a way to make the program look familiar and be easy to use from the very beginning.

Leaving comparisons aside, Esmas Player goes a step forward and also enables you to organize photos and videos, and also features extended functionality such as a disc burner, a DVD player and support for online TV channels and radio stations. During our tests, however, I had the impression that some of its functions were not properly implemented or at least not as easy to use as I expected. Also, though the program's language can be set to English, both the installer and documentation haven't been translated from Spanish yet.

In all, Esmas Player works fine as an all-in-one multimedia organizer, but it still needs some improvements in usability – as well as adding the necessary distance between iTunes and itself in order to avoid odious comparisons.

Download Esmas Player 11026 in Softonic

When you first start up FxFoto it searches your entire hard drive for images and imports them into a handy thumbnail viewer. From there it’s as easy as a drag-and-drop operation to add pictures to your collage. You can also import you pictures directly from your scanner or digital camera.

If some of the pictures need a little tweaking, FxFoto provides you with all of the basic image adjustment controls and also has an impressive collection of filters which are all easily accessible from the well laid-out interface. You can add frames to individual pictures in your collage or to the entire creation.

FxFoto can also be used to make scrapbook pages and slide shows and has a great number of ways to publish your creations including, email, print, web sites and slide shows. This makes a brilliant for non-techy users or even small kids to use. There are a few more advanced photo management tools out there, but FxFoto provides a cheap alternative that is more than equal to most tasks.

Download FxFoto 6.0.070 in Softonic

I'm sure we've all come across hundreds of awesome high quality photo collections or impressive image galleries online. The trouble is, if you want to transfer all of these beautiful shots onto your hard drive, it takes forever, as you need to save each one seperately. Don't lose too much sleep over this though, because you can always use Bulk Image Downloader to do this task for you.

The app lets you schedule downloads of entire online image collections through a dead simple interface. Or, you can even choose to dispense with this altogether by taking advantage of the built-in IE and Firefox integration to grab multiple pictures even quicker. Although there are no options for editing the resulting images or categorising them into galleries of your own, the program does contain settings for things like blocking pop-up windows, restarting incomplete tasks and repairing broken downloads.

Download Bulk Image Downloader 1.36 in Softonic

RGB MusicLab is probably the most strange – or should I say original – music software tool you've ever seen.

Instead of letting you compose music by using your computer keyboard as a music keyboard or writing notes right on the tablature, like you may have seen in other music composition apps, RGB MusicLab creates music automatically from any image you load on the program.

Yes, that's what you read: music out of images. RGB MusicLabs reads any photo you load on it, turns it into a mosaic and creates the music all by itself based on the color, brightness, saturation and other elements from the picture. Being an automatic composition there's not much you can do to change it (and sometimes you do feel like changing it because it sounds really bad). Luckily there are some settings you can tweak, such as the number of tiles in the mosaic, the length of notes and the kind of instrument, which can help you improve your musical piece of art.

RGB MusicLab provides you with a whole new way to create music, where you don't have that much control over the creating process but which proves to be really original.

Download RGB MusicLab 22 in Softonic

There are a myriad of programs out there to manage your photos but some seem to do the job better than others.

IDimager Personal Edition is designed for those who deal with a huge quantity of photos on a daily basis and need something ultra powerful and organised. Normally, I only use Picasa to organise my photos because it's simply well integrated with the internet for uploading photos. However, this program comes with all the tools and basic features you need to get yourself organised with your photos. It can import images from a digital camera, browse, organize, catalog, control versions, archive, edit, e-mail, print, find and make slide shows. However, what really impressed me was the ability to publish images to the internet which is not always common in such programs. I wouldn't say it was as well done as with Picasa because it doesn't link to any kind account but it does prepare you very well for uploading by optimising photos into more manageable resolutions for speedy uploads.

This won't really impress professionals but amateur photographers could find that it helps them organise their collection.

Download IDimager Personal Edition 4.1.0.2 in Softonic

One way to make your photo collections less boring for others is to turn them into presentations with music etc.

ExeShow is a user friendly program that takes your photos and turns them into impressive presentations in just a few minutes. There's not much to it other than selecting the photos you want to use (although it can only handle BMP, JPG or GIF formats) and ExeShow processes them and then creates an EXE file that you can send to anyone to watch. The advantage of this is that they don't need to have ExeShow or any kind of presentation software installed to view it - the EXE show comes with it's own player. You can preview the slideshow at any moment and change the way the transitions work (from top left to top right, bottom to top etc). However, while you have a lot of control over the way the transitions work, you don't actually have much choice over how the style of the transitions. In addition, it would have been nice if you could add a few special effects to your photos and presentation but there are none on offer. On the plus side, you can add a soundtrack to your presentation to make your friends really impressed with your design skills.

Very easy to use and producing impressive results, ExeShow is a useful program for anyone who needs to send their presentations without relying on third party presentation software.

Download ExeShow 2.0 in Softonic

There are a few utilities out there which can make your life so much easier, you wouldn't contemplate living without them. As someone who works on the web, I'm taking screenshots all the time and SnagIt is the only tool I'd use for this vital element of my job.

In its latest incarnation, SnagIt has added a lot of new features and a jazzed-up interface. While the old familiar 'big red button' remains, much of the UI (particularly in the Editor window) has been completely overhauled. Gone is the XP blue of previous versions, replaced with a Vista-friendly charcoal look which works pretty well.

The program's key features (taking and editing screenshots) remain pretty much unchanged. You still have a huge amount of power of just what type of screenshot you can take, with timers, cursor settings and profiles all still playing a major role. I was pleased to see that my profiles from the last version of SnagIt were kept as it would have been a real nuisance to have to re-program them.

The biggest improvements to this new version are certainly connected to the Editor window. For example: whereas previously, you had to take a capture, work on it, save it and then take your next one; now you can take as many screenshots as you like, using whichever profiles, and work on them all as you wish. This is a huge time-saver and a very welcome addition to the program.

Another feature that has been added is of less obvious use. SnagIt now supports meta-tagging and labeling of captured images. The idea behind this feature is that you start to use SnagIt to categorize your images as well as capture them. I can understand the thinking behind this addition but I'm not sure if it's really much more than feature-creep. I can't see myself changing my workflow to fit with SnagIt, nor do I want to lose the capability of moving image files around at will (if you use Windows Explorer to move tagged images, the tags and labels are lost).

SnagIt 9 represents a big step forward for a great utility. While some of the new functionality may not appeal, the most significant changes are major improvements to what was already a very good piece of software. Strongly recommended.

Download SnagIt 9.0.0.351 in Softonic

Enhancing photos is an essential part of any professional photographer's day and while this is no professional tool by a long stretch, it gives amateurs a chance to add enhance their photos in a professional manner.

Pos Free Photo Editor is a very simple, free and user friendly photo editor that allows you to easily view and enhance your photos. In terms of flexibility, it accepts just about any conceivable format so no conversions are required. There's very little to pick up or learn with the program - most of the learning is done on the job via trial and error with the handy preview function. The enhancements are mainly focused around changing the focus and altering the colours of your photos although you can't shift photos on their axis which is a bit annoying if you've taken a slightly badly angled photo.

What it's really useful for though is creating collages. You can add multiple images to the same sheet meaning you can print them all out on one page. This not only allows you to create some pretty impressive designs but it saves on printing out multiple images on expensive photos and then sticking them together.

Pos Free Photo Editor is a far cry from Photoshop but it's completely free and allows beginners to add simple enhancements and effects that are sure to improve your photos.

Download Pos Free Photo Editor 1.0 in Softonic

If you can't wait to show off the photos from your last vacation in the Fidji Islands, this program is what you're looking for.

There are already many slideshow tools out there, but Slideshow Creator HD is one of the first ones to offer support for HD video, so that you can enjoy your photos in the highest quality, be it on a website, on your TV set or right in your computer.

The program features a user interface with the classic video/audio editing design, including your hard drive's folder structure, a built-in video player and the image/sound timelines at the bottom. In any case, if you find this too confusing, you can always use the program wizard to create the slideshow.

But what Slideshow Creator HD stands out for is the amount of filters, special effects and transition effects included in the program. There are literally dozens to choose from so that you can create a really customized slideshow.

Slideshow Creator HD is not the first program with which to create photo slideshows, but certainly one the first ones to offer HD support, besides an impressive array of filters and special effects.

Download Slideshow Creator HD 5.0 in Softonic