Adobe Reader has been in existence for over a decade and has gone through various evolutions during this time. One result of this is that it has been increasingly loaded with plug-ins and extensions which mean that it's consistently criticized as being bloated and slow.

The truth about Adobe Reader's speed

It is true to a certain extent that the extra plug-ins and extensions can make Adobe run more slowly. Adobe Reader is still a PDF reader that has much to offer though. With the latest version of Adobe Reader, Adobe have addressed some of the speed issues and the memory footprint has been improved consistently throughout the development of Adobe Reader XI.

Interface and stand-out features

This version of Adobe Reader is not only slightly faster, but also displays a clearer, simpler interface that makes it easier to use. Adobe Reader XI still features the classic tools from previous versions (Zoom, Text selection, Snapshots and Read out loud), but now it also includes renewed features such as the ability to leave comments as sticky notes. A new feature you’ll find in Adobe Reader X is the Share tool, with which you can easily share the document by email or via the Adobe SendNow service.

Built-in security precautions

If you were worried about security issues in Adobe Reader, fear not: Adobe Reader XI is probably the safest version ever released, thanks to the new Protected Mode than loads images, code and 3D objects in a special area in memory, isolated from the system.

Adobe Reader XI is undoubtedly an important update in the history of this popular PDF reader – an essential tool to open, read and print PDF documents.

Download Adobe Reader XI 11.0.03 in Softonic

Single cleaning: This feature allows you to select a single file and clean it from sensitive metadata. View metadata: You can open a photo or graphic and look at all the metadata stored behind the scene. Filter: Besides the possibility of searching in certain folders, AntiPhotoSpy offers a filter for file types too. This allows a faster search with large datasets.

With AntiPhotoSpy you can easily search on your computer in batch mode for photos and graphics with meta data and remove those sensitive data, also in one go. You can also simply store all your files without metadata in a separate folder.

AntiPhotoSpy is the ideal tool for everyone who takes cares about sensitive data stored in photos and graphics and who wants to protect his privacy.

Download AntiPhotoSpy 2013 in Softonic

If you're not familiar with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, it's a photo processing app that's designed to be used by professional photographers for the post-production of batches of photos, and it's often used in conjunction with Adobe's seminal app, Photoshop.

Download Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Beta 5.0 (32 bits) in Softonic

If you're not familiar with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, it's a photo processing app that's designed to be used by professional photographers for the post-production of batches of photos, and it's often used in conjunction with Adobe's seminal app, Photoshop. It's an incredibly accomplished image processing suite that's aimed mainly at professionals.

Download Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Beta 5.0 (64 bits) in Softonic

Photo editing

Massive photo editing tools like Photoshop are great, but some find them too heavy and complicated for everyday usage. PicPick is definitely a better choice if what you need is just a simple image editor. With PicPick you can easily perform simple photo editing tasks, including brightness, contrast and color adjustment, grayscale, blur, pixelate and other special effects.

Screen capture

But PicPick isn't just an image editor: it's also a full-featured screen capturing tool with which you can capture the image on your monitor in several ways: full screen, active window, user-defined area and more. Plus, PicPick can work with several documents simultaneously and captures can be triggered with customizable keyboard shortcuts, which makes it even handier.

Other tools

PicPick has a selection of othet tools that you're not going to need every day, but when you do find yourself with a need to, say, pick a specific color on your screen, magnify something, or use a virtual whiteboard to "draw" on your screen. There are 7 of these tools, and although quite niche, they're a nice touch.

PicPick is a lightweight yet full-featured image editor and capturer, perfect for simple daily image editing tasks.

Download PicPick 3.2.4 in Softonic

Viewing

While the viewing functionality is a no-brainer, FastStone Image Viewer comes with a range of methods with which to browse pics. First off, there is the standard file browser that displays thumbnails of your images with a preview window for the file that is currently selected. FastStone Image Viewer also offers an option to check out individual pictures in full-screen. When you're in fullscreen, remember, you'll also have access to the full range of FastStone Image Viewer tools.

Editing

However, FastStone Image Viewer goes beyond simply displaying images. You can perform quick edits to really bring out the best in your pics, such as adding a stylish frame that acts as a mask to reduce the sharp edges or, if you happen to be working with 3D, FastStone Image Viewer also offers a very effective bump map option that will serve you well for texturing. There are of course the standard tools of brightness/darkness adjustment, sharpness/blur, grayscale, red-eye removal and more.

Batch tools

Further great features come in the form of batch rename and convert options. These could prove invaluable to many web developers looking for a quick way to prepare their PSD files for the web. With the inclusion of these batch functions, it would have been good has FastStone Image Viewer pushed the boat out even further with an option to apply batch effects, for example to brighten up a group of photos that were taken in a dark space but alas, it's not there!

Looking for faults with FastStone Image Viewer is like looking for the corner of a circle, although if you insist on nitpicking, you can say that in the thumbnail browser view dragging and dropping should be possible for moving files. However when you realize that it is possible to drag and drop with the left nav bar that argument looses its legs.

There's healthy competition in the image viewer arena, but thanks to the innovative features of FastStone Image Viewer the bar has been raised to new heights.

Download FastStone Image Viewer 4.8 in Softonic

Professional and mid-range photo cameras offer support for RAW format, a kind of digital negative that lets you tweak the images with great control and flexibility in order to obtain the perfect result before saving it to JPG. And now with Adobe Camera Raw you can work on RAW images directly in Photoshop.

Adobe Camera Raw is a Photoshop plug-in that launches automatically every time you open a RAW file in Photoshop. It enables you to work on the original image with plenty of tools, all conveniently organized in several tabs: basic adjustments, tone curve, grayscales, split toning, lens corrections, camera calibration and more.

While using Adobe Camera Raw, you'll be able to see the results of your adjustments in real time in the preview pane, and also take several snapshots along the editing process, and save custom presets for later use.

Adobe Camera Raw is very easy to install. Simply unzip the archive and copy the 8bi file into the Program Files/Common Files/Adobe/Plug-Ins/CS4/File Formats folder. The only con is that it's only compatible with Photoshop CS4.

Adobe Camera Raw is a handy plug-in that lets you view and edit RAW images in Adobe Photoshop.

Download Adobe Camera Raw 7.4 in Softonic

What is Lightroom?

If you're not familiar with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, it's a photo processing app that's designed to be used by professional photographers for the post-production of batches of photos, and it's often used in conjunction with Adobe's seminal app, Photoshop.

The new interface

This latest version of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom looks great. It's divided into seven sections - Library, Develop, Map, Book, Slideshow, Print and Web- which let you easily flit between different stages of management, processing and presentation. There's also some awesomely configurable options, running from how the app looks to how it acts, before and after processing. There's only one thing - the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom interface is vast, and to get the most from it, you'll need a large screen.

Photo management

The upside to using a dedicated photo processing app is the ease with which Adobe Photoshop Lightroom allows you to see, categorize and manage your photos. Adobe Photoshop Lightroom is no exception, with a great import features and options, and, new to this version, location-based organization. You'll find the tools to manage this function under Map.

Photo processing

In version 4 of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe's self-stated aim has been to "extract more detail from highlights and shadows, make a wider range of targeted adjustments, and easily share your images and video clips on social media and photo sharing sites". It certainly provides some interesting options to do this, including highlight and shadow recovery, white balance features and local noise/moire tools. This is in addition to all the usual editing tools, which are present and easy to apply.

Presentation options

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom really excels when it comes to presenting your photos and passing them on. You can email directly from this new version, as well as sharing with a variety of social networks and photo sharing sites. The Book feature is also new, allowing you to create a variety of beautiful photo books from templates. This complements Adobe Photoshop Lightroom's Slideshow option, giving you even more scope for creating en eye-catching and imaginative end product.

Video management

In this version, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom really ramps up video support, further increasing its versatility. This means that you can make even more complex edits to video clips, as well as easier video publishing.

Conclusion

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4 is an exceedingly promising piece of software. It can look complicated - and even overcrowded - on first glance, but once you become more familiar with app, you'll see everything adds up to offering you one of the most comprehensive photo processing apps around.

Download Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 4.4 in Softonic

Aviary Photo Editor is a straight forward and concise graphics editor for Windows 8. It doesn’t have the level of effects and customization as Photoshop or GIMP, but is intuitive enough for novice users. Aviary Photo Editor is powerful for a free app and will be a practical, no frills addition to your library.

Features

Aviary Photo Editor contains several staple features found in most image software. You can change a picture’s orientation, crop, or adjust contrast and brightness. Aviary Photo Editor has filters and effects to uniformly change hue or create lighting. These filters can be applied multiple times, further magnifying the intensity. Overuse of Aviary Photo Editor’s filters will quickly make pictures appear surreal or haunting.

There is a sticker option to add rasterized images such as hats, ties, and arrows. However, all of these stickers are so blatantly cartoonish that they contrast any photo, regardless of filtering. Aviary Photo Editor contains text and drawing tools, but the lack of feathering and limited color palate will generally result in unbelievable images.

Finally, Aviary Photo Editor has tools to remove red-eye, whiten teeth, and add blemishes. These tools have rather large diameters, making it difficult to precisely edit on smaller images. Aviary Photo Editor is better for fast and simple jobs rather than detailed projects.

Usability

Aviary Photo Editor’s layout is unusual for a photo editor. The image you’re editing in placed in the middle of the screen with the utility bar underneath. The most obvious omission is a lack of zoom or scrolling an image. This makes it very difficult to properly edit small images, or apply detailed editing to larger ones. Aviary Photo Editor's drawing tools only have six sizes, with the smallest size generally being too big for most jobs.

Aviary Photo Editor’s strong point comes from it other tools such as crop and sliders. The crop tool is separated into a three by three grid, making it easy to see just what will be included and cut. If you don’t wish to draw out an area you can also quickly select a preset dimension.

Brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness are all controlled by large sliders. Using these will offer a preview of the applicable adjustment. It’s very easy to back out and cancel any changes you’re not happy with. You don’t need to save or name any images as each job is saved automatically.

Quality

Aviary Photo Editor’s appearance matches other Windows 8 Modern UI apps. Large rectangular icons are presented against a dark gray background. As more edits are saved they will appear in a grid on the right. You can scroll through this to easily compare images or find what you’re looking for. The quality of finished images depends on the original image. Even without any save settings images are compressed into small size PNG files.

Conclusion

Aviary Photo Editor is a good editing tool for novice users that want to edit quickly. It lacks the detailed precision of other photo software, making it unsuitable for complex projects. If you want to simply crop, adjust levels, or change orientation and want good compression Aviary Photo Editor will prove to be a handy app.

Download Aviary Photo Editor 1.0 in Softonic

Whenever I review a browser I have to take a deep breath and put my prejudices firmly to one side. I'm a Firefox fan, and generally feel (tongue-in-cheek!) pity for people who use other browsers. I'm especially suspicious of Internet Explorer, which is why when Maxthon landed on my screen for review, well let's just say I wasn't hopeful.

In fact, it's just as well that I decided to be objective, because Maxthon really surprised me. If you are a person who likes lots of options, you should really check Maxthon out - the IE-based browser has more buttons, menus and configurations options than Photoshop, and you can really customize it to the max. All aspects of the browser can be re-sized, moved or taken away and there are multiple skins, interface styles, and language options.

Maxthon generally opens its configuration options in new tabs, rather than windows. This means they are easy to see and modify, which is just as well, as there are so many of them. These options Maxthon gives you, including the standard File, View, and Tools types, can be found in the Menu Bar, while there are even more in the lower Status bar. If things are beginning to sound a bit crowded, you can disable most, leaving the whole interface much cleaner.

It would take a very long time to detail all of Maxthon's options, so suffice to say that as well as the standard ones (tab behavior, display, encoding), there are a multitude of other features, from content control to image and script disabling, an in-built ad-blocker, auto form-filler and advanced screenshot function. In fact, some of the options are quite complex, and you might want to take a look at the user manual before jumping straight in.

If you like a simple browsing experience, or are a big fan of your Firefox add-ons, Maxthon probably isn't for you (although there is a good selection of Maxthon add-ons). If you are an Internet Explorer user who wants more options, however, or are just interested in life beyond Mozilla, give Maxthon a try. You might be as surprised as I was.

Maxthon is a great choice for those looking to expand their browsing options.

Download Maxthon Classic 4.0.4.1200 in Softonic