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Ultimate Utilities! Small FREE applications! (PC & Mac)

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My vote goes to several programs:

Picture Cooler which is a noise killer pgm that works like Noise Ninja (some reviews on the web say better than). They have a FREE version that works well, and the full version is only $15 !

It appears that the URL is in the block list, but you can Google "Picture Cooler"

FDR Tools which is a FREE HDR creation pgm.

Essential features:
  • Combine several differently exposed photos of an exposure series into an HDR image
  • Prepare your HDR images for display or print with high quality tonal range compression (tone mapping)
  • Import the RAW images of your digital camera
  • Export and archive the optimised HDR image in a format of your choice
http://www.fdrtools.com/fdrtools_basic_e.php

FastStone Image Viewer (which I think has already been listed in this thread).

I don't think anyone's mentioned that you can use multiple monitors, and you can view, compare and tag files then send them directly to Photoshop or any other processing program. I use it daily to view my pix then choose the ones I want and send them to Lightroom or Photoshop. Very indispensable tool for me.

http://faststone.org/

FastStone also has a FREE FastStone Photo Resizer that enables users to convert, rename, resize, crop, rotate, change color depth, add text and watermark to images in a quick and easy BATCH mode.

Jalbum is a FREE web photo album software. It works very well and looks great. I'm currently in the process of re-creating my website using Jalbum. (My current site is my old one, not Jalbum).

http://jalbum.net/


Not free, but only $15 is PTLens, a Windows software that corrects lens pincushion/barrel distortion, vignetting, chromatic aberration, and perspective.

http://www.epaperpress.com/ptlens/


C.A. Fields

http://www.cafields.com

 
That was a great list thank you. Free! Let's really keep it free! I'm tired of getting nickled and dimed (besides... Nikon takes all my nickles and dimes!) Thanks for posting!
--
Jessie
http://jessie3photography.com



“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.”
  • Ansel Adams
 
I forgot to include Pixmantec RawShooter Essentials. It was one of the best (IMHO) RAW photo conversion programs until Adobe bought them out, and it was FREE. I loved it and bought the premium version and used it all the time until I sold my D50 and bought a D80. When they were acquired by Adobe (right when I bought the D80), Pixmantec stopped adding to their list of supported cameras, so the D200 was the last Nikon that the program supports, and the D80 is not supported. If you have a camera that this software supports (D50 D70 D200, Canons, etc), you can use it to process your RAW files.

RawShooter Essentials is still available for download from many sites (Google RawShooter Essentials) and it is the full version with no restrictions

Here's a couple of FREE Depth of Field programs, one that prints a calculation wheel and one that prints a hyperfocal chart:

http://www.dofmaster.com/index.html

C.A. Fields

http://www.cafields.com

 
There's a website that each day provides a different full version licensed commercial program that ordinarily costs $$ for free:

http://giveawayoftheday.com/

I try to check the site every day and have found many photo utilities, file utilities, disk management pgms, watermarking pgms, and other various pgms, etc. etc. Many days' programs have nothing to do with photography or would be of no use to photographers, but on some days there are some programs that could be useful to photographers. Many are basic, but some are keepers and some are not, it depends upon the eye of the beholder, but in any event, the price is right. Some of these sell "normally" for $9, $29, $39, etc. The catch to these is that you have to download and activate the program on the day that it's made available to be free. Their site says that they guarantee 100% clean, no adware and no spyware. I thought this might be useful to someone out there.....


C.A. Fields

http://www.cafields.com

 
Noiseware community edition is a very good FREE noise removal program.

http://www.imagenomic.com/

You need go to the download part of the website and the Free version is down at the bottom of the page.

Darin
 
Jessie Anderson said:
That was a great list thank you. Free! Let's really keep it free!
I'm tired of getting nickled and dimed (besides... Nikon takes all my
nickles and dimes!) Thanks for posting!
--
Jessie
Click to expand...
I appreciate the purpose of the "free" thread and the desire for links to "free" programs as I personally seek them out diligently and use them whenever possible. I have found many of them to be very valuable, and thanks for starting this much needed thread that will be of great use to many of us.

I too don't like to be nickled and dimed (and downright cleaned out) by some of the big software companies that seem to have the same marketing mentality as the big oil companies which is to squeeze the maximum amount of $$ from the consumer just because they can.

With that in mind, I feel that it's important to recognize and make known good software provided by developers who charge a very low price for an excellent product, as well as developers of the free stuff. This helps support them in their efforts to continue to make great programs and plugins available to us as an alternative to the high priced equivalents (or nearly equivalent). In my most humble opinion, $15 is a bargain for programs like ToneUP, Picture Cooler, PTLens and probably many others that I'm not aware of, as I'm sure many would agree and I believe that the developers of these need our recognition, appreciation and support, as well as the developers of the free programs and utilities.

I'd personally like to see a Discussion Forum category at DPReview created for Free and/or Cheap Software so that we can keep posting these for other people in the future to be able to view and add to.

OK, back on topic... Free! Let's see some more free stuff posted here, folks!

Thanks again for starting this much needed and interesting thread that I think we all will be able to benefit from.


C.A. Fields

http://www.cafields.com

 
It seems to have installed correctly, but when I select multiple photos, even though the dialog show I have, say, five photos selected, it will only change the field (specifically, I want to add a Description to the selected files) in one. In fact, when I click Apply button, the resulting confirmation even tells me I'm about to change one file.
Am I missing something?
 
XNView - freeware

works like IrfanView and as far as I know has the most and best algorithms for scaling ( http://www.xnview.de/ ;)

AutoStitch - freeware

creates panos from multiple overlaying images and I might add, that I would love the HDR programs to have as sophisticated algorithms as those stitchers ( http://autostitch.softonic.de/ ;)

Hugin - freeware

stitching software as well, not too easy to use but there are enough online tutorials ( http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ ;)

Inkscape - freeware

a vector graphics program which I find very nice for making ones sign to put on a pic (well it's scalable :) ) ( http://www.inkscape.org/ ;)

ImageJ - freeware

don't know why noone seems to know it. It's fully featured like Gimp and PS (not as nice I have to admit) but can work with 32bit data and stuff and has good batch features. There are now 2 versions (only tried the first one), java based; this one is mainly designed for scientific purposes (like making 2d images from tomographic cuts and NR on those). There are a lot of addons and quite a few contain highly sophisticated algorithms (from scientists for scientists). If their NR algorithm wouldn't be sooo memory consuming, the commercial ones would have quite some competition. ( http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij/ ; http://www.rawak.de/ij2x/imagej2x.html ; this site's text is German so if anyone needs help...the program not!)

Ok that's it from me, ain't got no more.

Oliver

--
http://www.schurwool.smugmug.com

 
With or without theGimp this is a great RAW converter. The only program I like as much for RAW is Capture NX, but this one is FREE !

From the website...
SchurWool said:
The Unidentified Flying Raw (UFRaw) is a utility to read and manipulate raw > images from digital cameras. It can be used on its own or as a Gimp plug-in. It > reads raw images using Dave Coffin's raw conversion utility - DCRaw. UFRaw > supports color management workflow based on Little CMS, allowing the user to > apply ICC color profiles. For Nikon users UFRaw has the advantage that it can > read the camera's tone curves. Even if you don't own a Nikon, you can still apply > a Nikon curve to your images.
Click to expand...
http://ufraw.sourceforge.net/
--
Photography > http://www.stretchedimagination.com
Skateboard > http://www.thegrindsyndicate.com
VideoGames > http://www.fracturezone.com
 
Another quickie here: Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet for Windows XP

Once you've your monitor/printer/scanner ICC profile you can see and install, change and generally manage your XP colourmanagement easily.

Can be tricky getting the right monitor profile off the web, but it can make the world of difference if you're seeing slight colour differences across monitors etc

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=1E33DCA0-7721-43CA-9174-7F8D429FBB9E&displaylang=en
--
http://flickr.com/photos/daveyr

 
I have several, most of which are of the "file management" type.

First-off there is Exiv2. I finally settled on a file-renaming pattern for all my images, which (in its most basic way) is the EXIF date/time of the shot followed by the model of the camera. An example is 20050823_152456_d50. Combined with some MS-DOS commands I put in a BAT file, Exiv2 does this automatically very quickly.

But there are other variations, and also when I owned the D50 it was known for putting the ISO information in the "maker" fields rather than the "universal" area. Exiv2 copies/pastes that information into the "universal" area, and handles the other variations--i.e., I put " raw" as a suffix in the NEF files, and put "nbj" (Nef + Basic Jpeg) as a suffix in JPEGs shot in RAW+JPEG mode.

http://www.exiv2.org/

Then there is Explorer XP, a file manager that has a batch renamer built-in, so I can fine-tune any renames, or undo mistakes more easily. It also makes it easy to assign "speed-dials" to common paths (so I can browse to C:\Pictures\CurrentCameras\NikonD40 in 1 click) and drag-drop from one path to the other in the same window.

http://www.explorerxp.com/

Then there is Infranview, you've heard of that one I'm sure. Great batch renamer and resizer, extremely minimal usage of computer resources. The only problem with it is that verticals don't show up that way, guess it doesn't recognize the "tag" in the JPEG.

http://www.infranview.com

The Nikon D40 hack. What a great work-around. Thanks to this little utility, which edits the EXIF data of the NEF files to read D70 instead of D40 (in order to fool RAW editors not current enough to know about the D40), I don't have to use Capture NX to edit my D40 NEF files. I can use Capture 4.4 without a problem--and, also, if I wish, Photoshop 7 or Nikon Editor (the latter I now almost never use for that purpose) or even the now no-longer updated (but free) Pixmantec RAW Shooter Essentials.

You can read about that D40 hack at my "D40 tips & tricks" website:

http://www.pbase.com/larrytucaz/d40_tips_tricks

Dare I say it--Nikon View, 6.2.5 (I think). Great for browsing JPEGs and marking favorites to copy/resize for the web--by the way, it has a good batch resizer (and renamer, which I never use anymore due to Exiv2) built right-in. Easy to trigger the proper image editor (I have 5 to choose from, Photoshop 7, PSP8, Nikon Editor, Nikon Capture, Infraview) for a given file without having to open that program and browse to the image manually.

---



LRH
http://www.pbase.com/larrytucaz
http://larrytxeast.smugmug.com/
 
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