If you've ever wanted more information about the photos that you've transferred from your camera to your PC then PIE is for you. It shows you the exposure information relating to each picture and can improve your understanding of your digital camera and improve your photo skills.

The exposure information saved in the JPG file (the meta data) remains as long as the file is not modified. Any modification to the JPG file will destroy this data but PIE works by preserving exposure information in standard text files which also may be imported into a spreadsheet or database. It gives your photos more user friendly file names than just generic numbers and always displays your photos in chronological order. It also allows you to rotate JPG pictures without any loss of quality and this is done without any decompression/compression so there's no loss of quality.

For serious photographers, this is a fantastic little tool. For those that don't need specific information regarding the details of their photo files, it's not really essential.

Download PIE Picture Information Extractor 4.27 in Softonic

Photo Collage is a full featured, easy-to-use application with which you can create beautiful photo compositions in no time. No technical skills required!

The program contains just about anything you need you create the collage – that is, everything except images themselves. The featured material includes background images, frames, clipart, borders and masks, all of them is such a large and colorful variety that you'll find it hard to choose just one. Besides, the program is extraordinarily easy to use: simply drag and drop the different elements of your collage on the interface, resize and rearrange them any way you want with your mouse and you're pretty much done. It's like scrapbooking, but without scissors and glue.

The only drawback I found to this great app is the fact that some frames don’t blend with the background properly, meaning they show a white border around the frame instead of being transparent. Also, I'd like to be able to save my work in other formats (HTML, EXE) rather than just as an image file, but at least I have a few graphic formats to choose from.

Photo Collage enables you to create amazing collages with your digital pictures, but only save them as image files.

Download iFoxSoft Photo Collage 2.06 in Softonic

I've spent many an hour beating my brains over a beastly crossword in a newspaper and have often thought it would be nice to construct my own in order to exact revenge on some of my enemies. Well, as the name suggests, Crossword Forge gives you the power to do just that. Creating a crossword is a very easy task in the program and is simply a matter of writing the question of the clue and entering the correct answer. Of course, the tricky part is to make all the letters and words match up, but with some practice it becomes easy to juggle the words around to fit.

There are some neat ways you can customise your puzzles with Crossword Forge, such as changing the font and colours, adding foreign characters and applying a picture in the background of the crossword. What's more, the grid can be as big as you like, meaning you make the puzzle really easy or really difficult depending on the intellegence of the person you're making the crossword for (or on how much you hate them!) This makes Crossword Forge a perfect way to entertain your buddies or for use a teaching aid.

Download Crossword Forge 5.4 in Softonic

Making your own icons is a cool way to add a touch of class to your desktop without adding any widgets or changing the theme.

Easy Picture2Icon allows you to create snappy and customised Windows icons based on your favourite images and designs. So for example, if you have a favourite photo, Easy Picture2Icon can simply process it and turn it instantly into an icon you can use on your desktop. It doesn't accept all file types but at the moment, Easy Picture2Icon is able to convert digital pictures into BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPG and PNG files to Windows icons (ICO).

However, that's as far as it goes because Easy Picture2Icon then allows you to use your favourite graphical editor to retouch and add your own special effects to icons. Easy Picture2Icon does however allow you to make transparent icons and you can choose which color to make transparent.

Easy Picture2Icon is a great way to get started creating your own icons although it's a shame it doesn't come bundled with a more comprehensive editor.

Download Easy Picture2Icon 2.5 in Softonic

This cool kit is out of your imagination. You can not only use it to paint pictures, but also handle your digital photos, even use it to teach digital painting and image processing skills. Wizardbrush's new layer feature is a great improvement. Since you can compose a picture with several independent layers, you'll work just as effectively as the professional.

Wizardbrush comes with many painting tools, including pencil, Magic Wand, paint brush, and Chinese brush. It gives you the power to undo and redo, so do not be afraid of making mistakes. Wizardbrush contains a great number of tutorial record clips. You can easily learn how to draw pictures of different styles. If you are a teacher, you can make tutorial record clips conveniently.

Download Wizardbrush 6.7.4.7 in Softonic

Kodak Easyshare is a digital photo organizer which gives you access to your Kodak Gallery and make use of Kodak's project and print services.

You'll find it offers what you expect of a digital photo organizer, such as being able to save your photos in albums and show them in calendar view, adding tags, easy transferring from your camera and sharing them with others via email or burning on a CD. You can also create a little slideshow to view albums in full screen.

I did find the application a little counter-intuitive, partly due to the color of the interface, which makes it difficult to set buttons apart. A simple action like adding an album, wasn't easy as it should be.

Although limited, the range of editing tools available was OK. You can enhance your picture, set the balance and add a few effects to make a little snazzier. Both the tips and online guide provided by Kodak are thorough.

You can use Kodak Easyshare without actually having a Kodak account, however you'll find many places in the application where it encourages you to do so. Your use of the application will also obviously be limited if you don't have one as you won't be able to print photos or create projects.

Kodak Easyshare is a digital photo manager, that gives access to Kodak services online.

Download Kodak Easyshare 7.0 in Softonic

Fractals are fascinating things although I don't understand them one bit - I just like the pretty pictures they make.

Fortunately, no mathematical knowledge is required with ChaosPro which generates several fractals simultaneously in different windows but all at the same time. ChaosPro can create fractal animations, generate 3D fractal transformations in 2D, and create true color fractals. Of course, the processing power required to do this so unless you're working on something NASA might use, you'll be best to connect several PC's together and see what happens.

There are many fractal programs available for Windows but it's precisely the huge processing power that they require that usually ends up in crashes or system failure. They also tend to be very outdated and aimed at scientific or mathematical boffins which is where ChaosPro breaks the mould as a more modern and attractive attempt.

If you like pretty pictures or are seriously studying fractals then ChaosPro is one of the more user friendly and spectacular programs out there.

Download ChaosPro 3.3.215 in Softonic

Believe it or not there was a time when using email was something of a novelty, rather than the routine means of communication it’s become today. If you’re yearning for those halcyon days when emailing was new and exciting then maybe it’s time you found a way to spice up your text life. Incredimail is an email client that allows you to inject a bit of fun into your mail.

The application, which has been around in various forms for some years now, allows you to insert audio and visual elements such as background images, animated pictures or humorous (or at least supposedly humorous) noises. It’s clear from the outset that the program is aimed at the less technical user from the set-up wizard that makes it incredibly easy to register your accounts and import your existing mail from either Outlook or your webmail account.

Once you’ve got the app up and running, you’ll find a truly impressive range of backgrounds, fonts, emoticons and all manner of other bells and whistles that you can browse through and add to your messages effortlessly. There’s also a wealth of downloadable extras you can find on the web should you want to add even more variety to your outgoing mail.

In terms of its basic mail features Incredimail is very similar to Outlook Express, though the junk filtering system is a little difficult to set up, which isn’t really in keeping with the rest of the program. Another interesting touch is the addition of a ‘mail servant,’ which notifies you of new mail even before you’ve opened the client. The default is in the form of an animated butler, although this can be changed if, or should we say when, you become annoyed with him.

There’s no doubt that the program provides an interesting way of making your emails appear more interesting. The trouble is, one person’s idea of fun is another’s vision of tackiness hell, and festooning your messages with all these gimmicks means mail takes longer to download, which is doubly annoying for dial-up users. Although we personally wouldn’t want to subject our friends to animated kisses, jumping clowns or burp sounds, Incredimail certainly provides a novel way of making your emails stand out from the rest.

Download IncrediMail Xe 5.85.3718 in Softonic

If there's one thing that Firefox has always lacked, it's a decent download manager but FlashGot gives more power to your favourite browser.

FlashGot is a free Mozilla Firefox (and Thunderbird) extension that ¡s designed for those who do a lot of downloading. It can handle large numbers of batch downloads with it's own intuitive download manager. This simple but powerful plugin can even handle batch downloads for many anonymous or redirected download link services such as anonym.to, tinyurl.com, moourl.com, anonymz.com, shorten.ws and tubeurl.com. This most recent version has been updated to support rapidly growing sites such as megaupload.com, rapidshare.com and depositfiles.com.

The one drawback is the constant update warnings. You'll find that frequently, when it comes to starting Firefox, FlashGot will prompt you for an update which is a bit annoying but a small price to pay for a great download manager. No more clicking multiple links and "Save as" - FlashGot simply scans the page for downloadable links and then you select which ones you need.

A much needed addition to Firefox although some users may find it an inferior choice to DownThemAll!

Download FlashGot Plugin 1.0.5 in Softonic

When you live and work away from your home town (or even your home country), as many people do these days, it can sometimes be difficult to stay in touch with the folks back there.

One of the best ways to keep your friends and family posted on what you're up to is to share your photos with them. This can get a little boring for them though if you're just emailing them the shots, so it's a good idea to create a web gallery to hang your pictures in a more elegant fashion.

If you don't your HTML from your elbow then PhotoOnWeb provides a good way of creating a cool online gallery with ease. All you need to do is load your photos, select a template then publish the gallery on your PC, on your FTP server or on the server provided with the software.

If you've never worked with servers before then don't worry because the program pretty much takes care of the nuts and bolts for you. Although not as powerful as using the Flash authoring tool, it's a great free tool for anyone who wants to communicate with home without actually saying anything.

Download PhotoOnWeb 0.8.6 in Softonic

There's nothing more heartbreaking than losing a large amount of data whether it be photos, music or videos.

Disk Doctors Digital Media Recovery is a comprehensive tool for recovering any kind of digital media from a wide range of mediums including external drives, USB sticks and camera memory sticks. There's absolutely no guarantee Disk Doctors Digital Media Recovery can recover lost data 100% of the time but it simply depends on how thoroughly deleted the data has been from your medium although it can even help in cases of formatted drives.

Disk Doctors Digital Media Recovery simply requires you to browse to the medium that's damaged and quickly locates and restores deleted or lost photos, music and video files. Disk Doctors Digital Media Recovery is particularly attuned to recovering data from memory cards particularly Compact Flash Cards (CF), Smart Media Cards, Secure Digital Cards (SD), Multi-Media Cards (MMC), XD Picture Cards (XD) Micro Drives and Sony Memory Sticks (Duo, Pro).

Disk Doctors Digital Media Recovery can now recover data to CD or DVD and allows you to preview certain files before they are recovered.

Disk Doctors Digital Media Recovery is definitely worth trying if you've lost data especially on camera photos storage cards.

Download Disk Doctors Digital Media Recovery 1.0.0 in Softonic

Poster Forge is a fun tool that enables you to create posters with your own digital pictures in a very easy way. Unlike other similar tools, which only create larger versions of the image for you to print out, Poster Forge adds some cool effects that can turn any picture into a motivational poster, movie poster or a Far West "Wanted" style poster.

The program's interface is divided into three tabs (one for each kind of poster) and includes all the tools you need to customize them. Simply add a picture, type in any text you want, tweak a few settings and you're pretty much done. Unfortunately, there were things I couldn't customize, such as font size. Also, even though there's a tool to move the picture around and make it fit better, it's very limited and sometimes the picture needs to be cropped with a third-party app.

Once finished, the poster can be saved as an image file or conveniently printed as a poster with the built-in printing tool, which enables you to optimize poster printing and make them easier to assemble.

Turn your photos into original posters very easily and in just a few minutes.

Download Poster Forge 1.01.10 in Softonic

I can picture you right now, sitting in front of the computer, without anything else to do... Would you like to play a game? Then take a look at 80 in 1 Best Flash Games and choose the one you like best.

80 in 1 Best Flash Games is a gorgeous collection of Flash games, all accessible from one single interface. They are classified into several different categories to cover all genres and suit all ages: from casino games to kids games, including sports, arcade, racing, action and a lot more.

80 in 1 Best Flash Games is very easy to use and you don't even have to install it. Simply copy the file to your hard drive and you're good to go.

Categories in 80 in 1 Best Flash Games are a bit uncomfortable to browse, but fortunately you can bookmark your favorite games so that they're easier to reach.

80 in 1 Best Flash Games is a complete and varied collection of Flash games, perfect for a short break while working with the PC.

Download 80 in 1 Best Flash Games 1.0 in Softonic

ID-sized photos tend to be something that you never have enough of and, given that it can be a pain to go to the closest mall and get some new ones taken, you could just take a recent photo and make multiple copies of it from the comfort of your PC. IDPhotoStudio is a program that will create and print passport sized photos for you in a snap.

Featuring only the bare necessities, IDPhotoStudio, will handle the job in seconds, allowing you to drag and drop your picture onto the interface. You can then select between three ID Photo sizes: US, Canada or France. Because you often need a certain number of photos printed out, IDPhotoStudio has a little drag meter to let you select how many photos you’ll need, from 1 to 15. Click on the print button to get the paper copies of your photo.

IDPhotoStudio is an original idea, and it’s good to see someone come up with a program to quickly print out ID photos. However, the application left us disappointed for a number of reasons. First of all, it doesn’t respect the aspect ratio of photos, so if you drag a large image there’s a risk it’ll appear distorted. Also, when it comes to editing functions, IDPhotoStudio only includes the option to apply sepia or monochrome color filters. We would have preferred if it included tools like a red-eye remover, cropping or contrasting, which are much more useful for improving the quality of pictures. The program doesn't even include an undo feature, meaning that if you accidentally set your image to greyscale when you'd prefer it in color, you'll need to start over.

If you have a good mug shot of yourself and want to quickly print out a set of passport sized photos, IDPhotoStudio will probably suit you. However, the lack of advanced editing features means you’ll never really be guaranteed with a high quality image of yourself. In all, if you want to be on the safe side, use a proper photo editing application like Photoshop or Photofiltre to edit and print good ID sized photos.

Download IDPhotoStudio 2.4.0.16 in Softonic

It seems that everyone is slowly starting to realise that the future of video broadcasting lies online rather than inside a television.

Following the success of Joost, Babelgum and VeohTV, Adobe decided to get in on the act with the release of the Adobe Media Player. The philosophy of the software giant is that if you use a browser to navigate web pages, why shouldn't you use one to view multimedia too?

The result is basically a version of Joost as seen through the eyes of Adobe. Now out of beta release, the app provides an interesting and immersive way of watching videos online. Navigation is very smooth and feels natural and there are a number of features and services that make it easier to eyeball TV more effectively. For instance, you can create a list of favorites, and keywords add ratings to Flash video, build playlists and use the Dashboard-style interface to check out the latest episodes of your top shows. You can also now subscribe to RSS feeds that tell you when new episodes are online.

Content is king though, of course, and version 1.1 of Adobe Media Player adds a lot more episodes and channels from a broad range of genres. At the time of writing, Adobe estimates that there are around 25,000 episodes available through its media player. Adobe has even partnered with Sony Pictures to offer some movies through the service, such as Jerry Maguire and Men in Black. I was also impressed by the speed and quality of the videos.

One of my main qualms with Adobe Media Player though, is that many of the episodes are not available outside the USA. Fine if you live there, of course, but for those of us in other lands it's so frustrating to see a show you want to watch only to discover it's not available (of course, you don't find this out until after an advert has played in the player).

Glossing over the unavailability of some programs and channels, Adobe Media Player is making all the right strides to becoming the best place to watch TV online.

Download Adobe Media Player 1.1 in Softonic

Sometimes you need a quick and easy solution to your conversion needs whether it's audio or images that are the problem.

Konvertor is a simple multimedia viewer and converter which supports conversion of various formats of images, animations, audio, video and text formats quickly and easily. Konvertor is able to convert just about any conceivable format which makes it extremely powerful. You can also use Konverter to organise your files by labeling them with personalised descriptions and as regards images, add filters. These include such effects as resizing, blurring and charcoal effects and it even accepts Photoshop plugins. However, the program only works alongside Internet Explorer as a plugin so Firefox users will be disappointed. By right clicking on images on any internet page, you can preview them in Konverter and be given options which format you want to convert it to. It also offers you the option to send the photo by e-mail or set it as your Windows wallpaper. The developers claim it supports over 140 formats and while that may be hard to believe, you'll certainly find it hard to catch it out.

Konverter is a great IE add on for anyone that wants to have an all powerful conversion tool for images and some audio.

Download Konvertor 3.66 in Softonic

Zortam MP3 Media Studio is an all-in-one MP3 application that contains an MP3 organizer for performing a range of tasks quickly and easily. Features of the program include searching and cataloging MP3 files into an MP3 library, and editing ID3v1 and ID3v2.3 tags (ID3 Tag Editor).

The program can also be used for converting audio CD to MP3 and WAV format (CD Ripper) using CDDB (Internet Compact Disc Database), complete with support for ID3v1 and ID3v2.4 tags. You can normalize your MP3s (Mp3 Normalizer), search for song lyrics from the internet (Lyrics Finder), and preform a batch lyrics and cover picture update from the internet.

Zortam also facilitates converting WAV to MP3 files and vice versa (WAV/Mp3 Converter), managing M3u playlists (Playlist manager), renaming files using ID3 tags (Mp3 Renamer), searching for duplicate MP3 files, (Find Duplicate MP3s),and listening to MP3's using your favorite player.

Download Zortam Mp3 Media Studio 8.30 in Softonic

Rename Master is a FREE utility for renaming large groups of files with a few clicks. Anyone that has worked with websites, file archives, or collections of music, videos, or pictures has probably spent way too much time renaming hundreds of files. This utility will add, remove, or replace parts of the filename with ease and also supports renaming via file properties, MP3 tags, JPEG JFIF and EXIF tags. Batch renaming that's simple to use, yet still very powerful.

Features:

• Intelligent number sorting
• JPEG/MP3 tag support and many more Meta-Variables
• Auto-Preview support
• "Scripts" to save commonly used renaming options
• [*] and [?] command prompt style wildcards for replacing and remove options
• "Undo" button so a renaming operation can be rolled back
• Floating thumbnail window for viewing pictures and optional thumbnail file list view
• Optional Explorer integration for right-clicking on folders or using "Send To"

Download Rename Master 2.9.0 in Softonic

There are plenty of special effects we can add to IM clients in the form of emoticons, avatars and pictures.

But webcams are generally restricted to nothing but the image you see. However, with WebcamMax Full, you can add all manner of special effects and images to webcam images to make your broadcasts and webcam sessions more interesting. WebcamMax adds videos, pictures and effects to virtual/real Webcams and broadcasts on messenger services.

You can add videos, screenshots, pictures, flash and effects to virtual or real Webcams and messengers including the most popular IM clients such as ICQ, AIM, MSN, Camfrog, Skype, Paltalk, Yahoo, ANYwebcam and Stickam. You can also add special motion effects (Frame, Transform, and Emotion) over your webcam image. If you find that the program doesn't offer you enough effects, you can also download up to 1500 more from the developer's website. Apart from having fun, this program can enhance your YouTube videos or blogcasts by changing the background or environment from where you are broadcasting from.

Perhaps the most useful feature however doesn't relate to effects at all and relates to PinP (Picture in Picture). So for example, you want to talk about a certain part in a film with a friend or discuss it in a review, WebcamMax Full allows you to choose an alternative source which plays in the corner of your webcam in a smaller screen while you talk.

An interesting webcam tool which can be used for fun or more serious pursuits like picture in picture to get the most out of your webcam.

Download WebcamMax Full 5.0.4.8 in Softonic

If you're looking for a webcam that doubles up as a webcam, image capturing device and even a security camera, then you should take a look at CamUniversal.

What's really interesting about this app is that it includes a network server so that you can send images and viewing information from one PC to another which makes it an ideal monitoring device. There is a built-in motion detector which allows you to select which areas of the video are tested for motion, when, where and how. In this way, it allows you to target a specific part of your house or home without worrying about the consequences. The program also features video recording functions, picture capturing, external program execution, log file creation, sound playing, FTP transfer, email sending and there is also a scheduler. You can upload the images to an FTP server, a webpage or use a company LAN to distribute the images. Probably the only major problem is setting-up the software to work with your webcam - it doesn't seem particularly friendly with all webcams and you may not be able to get it up and running at the first attempt.

A useful webcam tool that doubles up as a security camera but may cause some problems during setup.

Download CamUniversal 3.5 in Softonic