Digital Photographer's Software Guide - Bertemes - Net

Comments
Photobie boasts over one million downloads worldwide, and it is not hard to see why
it has become so popular. It has a huge number of features, offers a good introduction
to the use of layers and transparency, and, most importantly, is free. This makes it especially
appealing to people (including children) who have the time and patience to learn
how to use it but who are working with no real budget.
Some reviewers have been too effusive about Photobie, one of them describing the screen
capture tools as being “by far the best I ever encountered.” This is going too far, considering
there are specialist tools such as SnagIt that offer 32-bit capture plus a dedicated
interface that allows you to select the window to be grabbed. Photobie has not reached
these dizzying heights, yet. In fact, it remains something of a “homespun” project, but
with serious aspirations now that professional designers and software developers are contributing
their support. Its natural market is the digital scrapbooking community. It
would have been included in that chapter of this book were it not for its powerful imageediting
capability (and the skill level required to use it).
Version: Photobie 4.8 (2008)
OS: Photobie Windows 2000, 2003, and XP with .NET framework 1.1; Photobie Design Studio
Windows XP with .NET framework 3 or Vista
RAM: 256MB
Supported file formats: Major image formats
Price level: Free for personal use
Address: Photobie Design, Boston, MA, United States
www.photobie.com
STOIK PictureMan Pro
Vendor: STOIK Imaging
Purpose: Image processing, editing, and retouching software in 48-bit color
Chapter 10 ■ Image Editors 135
Description
STOIK PictureMan Pro contains dozens of image-correction tools for advanced image
processing in 48-bit color mode. The program also has all the functions of a full image
editor, including multilayers, advanced painting, and plug-in support. It has over 120
image processing filters and special effects including a range of artistic simulations.
PictureMan Pro’s retouching filters include dust cleaning, scratch removal, JPEG denoising,
despeckling, sigma filter, sharpening, smoothing, shadow lightening, and a stamp
brush. PictureMan Pro supports pressure sensitive tablets and has infinite undo-redo.
It accepts Photoshop-compatible plug-ins on-the-fly without program restart.