Bargain basement photo editor

It’s a stereotype, of course, but Scotsmen have a reputation as being tight with a buck. My kids often use the word cheap. I like to think that I simply have an eye for a bargain. And there’s a lot of real bargains to be found on the web in the form of freeware. Not adware, spyware or trialware, but fully functional, no strings attached freeware.

The graphic which accompanies this post was created in an application called Photo Filtre. In fact, all the graphics you see on this web log were either created, or edited, in Photo Filtre. I picked up the program a year or so ago, and it’s one of the best I’ve ever used for image editing and special effects.

And, what’s just as amazing as its’ intuitive interface and ease of use, is the fact that it’s free.

The application was developed by a guy called Antonio Da Cruz and the man deserves a five star rating for making the program available free for personal use. The application itself gets a five star rating from most distributors and users.

I’ve tried a lot of commercial programs, including some of the high cost “professional” applications with their steep learning curves. They just don’t compare. In fact, since picking up a copy of Photo Filtre, I’ve removed all those commercial programs, to save some space, since I no longer used them; I found that I could do everything I wanted to do in Photo Filtre with a lot less effort and a whole lot less frustration.

The program offers all the standard editing features (selection, clone brush, paint brush etc.) as well as a large selection of image effects, photo masks, image adjustments, thumbnail browser and much more. The program also supports batch processing to apply filters, sizing, adjustments and transformations to a large number of images at once. PhotoFiltre comes with a modern, well designed interface and is well suited for everything from simple resizing to advanced photo editing. You can also add text captions to your photos.

And, did I mention that it’s free!

The only criticism I’ve been able to find involves the fact that Photo Filtre doesn’t support “layers” or PhotoShop filters. Neither drawback is likely to be considered a major flaw by most users. PhotoShop was one of the programs I removed after installing and using Photo Filtre for several months.

So whether you think I’m “tight with a buck”, just plain cheap or you fully appreciate the fact that I really do have an eye for a bargain, check it out. If you like messing with photographs, it’s a handy-dandy little program to have lying around on your desktop.

You can find a copy of Photo Filtre by typing “Photo Filtre Free” into your browser search engine, or just click on the following link.

Photo Filtre Free