IrfanView 4.10 - Full-featured Graphics Viewer

IrfanView is one of the most popular and feature packed free image viewer, editor and converter for Windows. This fast and compact program is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.
IrfanView supports all important graphic formats, as well as multiple media formats.
In addition it includes many additional features including image editing, image adjustment, slideshow, batch conversion and editing, multipage editing, drag and drop support, TWAIN support, fast directory browsing, IPTC edit, capturing, numerous effects, multiple language support, and much more. Moreover, the functionality of IrfanView can be further extended via plug-ins that are widely available.
Lets take a closer look at this program.
The user interface of IrfanView is not streamlined, but it is simple and quite easy to use.
As I mentioned above IrfanView allows you to open image files, as well as sound and video files of multiple formats.




Thumbnails shortcut on the toolbar lets you view thumbnails of images in the specified directory.




IrfanView allows you to create slide shows. There are several options for slideshow. For example, you can set time interval for changing slides or use MP3 files (with installed plug-ins) as background music. You can also save the current slideshow as self running EXE or SCR file (standalone executable/screen saver).




IrfanView is not only the viewer, but also a converter of graphic files. In the program there is a batch processing option with the possibility of converting incoming files of different formats into a single output format. You also can apply many special operations to the images during conversion. Furthermore, IrfanView has batch rename feature that lets you rename original/input files or copy/move original files to output directory and rename the files in the output directory. For renaming, you can generate a name pattern for new names and the starting index for numbers.




Another IrfanView’s useful feature is called Copy Shop. It allows you to print an image directly from a scanner or any other TWAIN compatible device (digital camera, TV card, etc.).
Though IrfanView is not a professional graphic editor, it still allows you to do some useful image editing tasks. You can cut and crop images, paint or draw objects into an image, insert text. IrfanView also lets you to rotate, flip, resize images, create panoramas and apply different effects like sharpen, blur, emboss and others.




The program has many others useful features.
IrfanView is my favorite image viewer, because it offers really good options and features for free and because it is the fastest picture viewer I can find.

You can download IrfanView from this page or from the official web site irfanview.com.

See also: XnView 1.92 – The Universal Graphic Viewer and Converter

FastStone Capture 6.0 – Powerful Screen Capture Software

The new version of powerful, flexible and intuitive screen-capture utility has been released recently. I talk about FastStone Capture 6.0.
Taking a screenshot of your desktop is quite easy if you simply want to capture the entire screen, using the 'Print Screen' key on your keyboard.
But what if you want to capture a specific area of the screen? Of course, you still can use the 'Print Screen' key to copy your screen to the Clipboard and then paste it into the image editor where you can crop a certain area of the image. However, it is not very convenient. There is also a Snipping Tool for Vista users that allows them to grab a particular area of the screen.
If you don’t have Vista or don’t like its Snipping Tool, I recommend you to try FastStone Capture. It is fast and easy to use screen-capture software.
FastStone Capture allows you to capture anything on the screen including windows, objects, selections, scrolling windows or web pages as well as full screen. It has integrated image viewer and capture editor where you can modify the captured image before saving. FastStone Capture’s editor enables you to apply additional editing tools like resizing, sharpening, brightening, cropping, rotating, text, watermarks, sepia and more.



You can select the destination for the captured image. This image can be sent to image editor, clipboard, print dialog, default email client program or directly saved to file. FastStone Capture also can sent captured images to Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents or even to a Web (FTP) server.
FastStone Capture saves captured image in BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, PCX, TGA, and PDF formats.



FastStone Capture has floating Capture Panel that offers fast access to its capture tools and output options. It’s worth to mention several additional features like global hotkeys, support for external editors, automatic filename generation, a color picker, a screen magnifier and a screen ruler.
The latest version of FastStone Capture offers several improvements and new features like improved "Draw" tool, ability to sent images to Web (FTP) server, enhanced screen ruler and some others. There are also some changes in the user interface and bug fixes.
FastStone Capture 6.0 can be downloaded here. (1 Mb)

VSO PhotoDVD v2.6.4 - Create Your DVD Photo Slide Show

VSO Software has just released the new version 2.6.4 of PhotoDVD. PhotoDVD is probably one of the easiest applications to create an animated slideshows on DVD.
It takes your digital images and animates them to make a DVD photo slide show. The program is able to add multiple soundtracks and comments as DVD Subtitles.
As you can see PhotoDVD has simple interface. It is very easy to use.




This is the first screen on PhotoDVD. From here you can add pictures, soundtracks and adjust the global settings of the slideshow.




PhotoDVD supports a great number of various digital image formats, including JPG, GIF, BMP, ANI, PCX, EMF, WMF, and so on. The list of audio formats supported by PhotoDVD isn’t so impressive but it includes all popular audio formats such as MP3, WMA, OGG, MPC, WAV and APE.
Once images have been added, you can select each image and adjust what happens with it. PhotoDVD takes care of all the animation factors for you and can analyze the picture’s size and orientation to automatically create a movie with cool fade, zoom, and pan effects.




Once all editing tasks have been finished, you can add soundtracks to the slide show and define the desired video format and output destination. PhotoDVD supports Fullscreen (4:3) and Widescreen (16:9) output and can write the created slide show to your hard drive as well as burn it to DVD disc (Single or Double Layer).




I think it is very good software that will be useful for anyone interested in creating DVD photo slide show. DVD slide show created by PhotoDVD has impressive quality and the animation and transitions have calming effect increasing the viewing pleasure.
The new VSO PhotoDVD v2.6.4 has added the ability to automatically rotate image based on EXIF information.
VSO PhotoDVD is shareware. You can download it from this page.

PhotoFiltre 6.3.0 – The Best Free Digital Image Editor

PhotoFiltre is an excellent tool for anyone who wants to retouch their digital photos. Actually, I think it’s one of the best free digital image editors for Windows PCs that is available today. Though PhotoFiltre is not for professional use, it may be a good alternative to such programs as Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.
PhotoFiltre has simple, but elegant user interface that is very easy to use.
The program has a well designed set of toolbars. You easily notice the toolbar with the most frequently used tools, with easy recognizable icons. Other toolbars give you access to more advanced tools such as gamma correction, dust reduction and another standard filters with just a few clicks.





PhotoFiltre supports almost all image file formats. This application offers all standard editing tools such as paint brush, clone brush, selection etc. But these basic features will no longer seem attractive after you find a large number of image effects, photo masks, and image adjustments. Among numerous PhotoFiltre image processing features you find effects and filters like sharpen, blur, soften, noise, texture, color, flatten, stylize and much more.
One of the most useful features of PhotoFiltre is batch processing capability. This feature allows you work with a great number of images at the same time and apply image effects, rotate images and perform other image processing tasks in one fell swoop.
Another great feature of PhotoFiltre is that it supports 11 language, including English, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Swedish, Spanish Catalan and Czech.
The new version 6.3.0 of PhotoFiltre has been released recently. In new version some bugs was fixed and compatibility with Vista was improved.
PhotoFiltre 6.3.0 is free for personal and non-commercial use. I recommend it for anyone who needs to work with digital images.
PhotoFiltre can be downloaded for free here (1.68 MB).
See also:
5 Best Free Alternatives to Popular Programs
XnView 1.92 – The Universal Graphic Viewer and Converter

DVDFab Platinum 4.1.0.2 - Great DVD Copy Software

The new version of DVDFab Platinum has been released recently. This program combines the functionality of DVD copying, video converting and DVD burning software.
DVDFab Platinum offers you 7 DVD to DVD copy modes: Full Disc, Main Movie, Split, Customize, Clone, Merge and Write Data.
Full Disc mode allows you to copy all movies, menus and trailers to DVD with just one click. Moreover this copy mode can automatically compress DVD-9 movie to fit on a DVD-5 single layer disc. But if you want to preserve original quality of DVD-9 movie, you should use DVDFab’s Split copy mode, which copy a DVD-9 onto two DVD-5 discs with 100% quality, and preserve original menus.
Main Movie mode lets you copy the main movie only, excluding all the additional features like unwanted audio and subtitle, etc.
If you want to make a DVD with only your favorite titles, and without those annoying commercials, just use the DVDFab’s Customize copy mode.
DVDFab Platinum also allows you to make a perfect 1:1 copy of DVDs, merge several movies of several sources into one DVD and burn disc from an existing DVD folder or image on your hard disc drive.



The program has strong set of mobile device conversion options. DVDFab Platinum can convert DVDs to formats supported by mobile devices like iPod, PSP, Xbox 360, PS3, NDS, Cell Phone, ZUNE, PVP and PDA. So you can copy your DVDs to your favorite portable device.



DVDFab Platinum is also able to change the region codes, remove all DVD copy protections such as CSS, RC, CPPM, RipGuard, APS and many others.
DVDFab Platinum has very simple and clear user interface. The program also supports many languages. It is very easy to use and navigate.
The new version of program has added "Crop" feature to remove the black bar on many widescreen movies. Added feature that allow user to resize output from letterbox to pan&scan. There are also several others new features, improvements and bug fixes.
DVDFab Platinum is a powerful and very easy to use DVD copying software that takes everything you love about DVD coping and puts it in one clearly organized location.

Download DVDFab Platinum (Size: 6.0 MB; License: shareware; OS: Windows All, Linux with Wine)

Nero CD-DVD Speed – The Best Free Way to Test the Quality of Your CD/DVDs

There are many optical disc recorders and great number of brands that sell CDs or DVDs, and you shouldn’t count solely on a brand name when you require long term data reliability. You can verify written data in your favorite CD burning program, but it’s not enough. If you want to be sure in the quality of your home-written media, you need a program to test your optical drives and media.
One of the most popular programs for this purpose is Nero CD-DVD Speed that is part of Nero Toolkit.
Nero CD-DVD Speed is a powerful tool for testing optical drives.
The program has simple tabbed interface that is very easy to use. The first tab is called Benchmark. It allows you to check the read speed of a disc, DAE quality (for Audio CD), disc access type, access times, CPU usage at different speeds, and data interface burst rate.





After scanning a disc you will see the curve of reading speed. If this curve isn’t smooth, then you should worry about reliability of your media and written data quality.
Nero CD-DVD Speed allows you to perform test of writing performance of your optical drive (Create Disc tab).
On the tab “Disc Info” you can find such information about disc as disc type, manufacturer, write speed, number of layers, disc capacity, disc status and others.





One of the most important features of Nero CD-DVD Speed is its disc quality test. When this test is complete, you will obtain report about the discovered errors and will see two histograms that demonstrate the errors encountered. And finally Nero CD-DVD Speed calculates cumulative quality score. The higher this score, the better quality.





Nero CD-DVD Speed also includes a ScanDisc function with File Test & Surface Scan to check the integrity of the optical disc and allows to perform TA jitter test.
The are several others features such as overburning test, advanced quality DAE tests, etc.
Nero CD-DVD Speed supports for CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and HD DVD drives and media. And finally this good and very useful program is absolutely free.
The latest available version of Nero CD-DVD Speed is 4.7.7.15 that has been released recently.
Downloand Nero CD-DVD Speed 4.7.7.15 (733 KB)

DAEMON Tools Lite 4.11 is available

The new version of DAEMON Tools Lite has been released recently. It is DAEMON Tools Lite version 4.11. DAEMON Tools Lite is free and well known application for cd/dvd-rom emulation. This program is able to emulate almost all known copy protections on the market today, allowing you to run backup copies of Laserlock, SafeDisc, CDCOPS, Securom, Protect CD and StarForce protected games.
DAEMON Tools allows you to create a virtual DVD-ROM drives. So you can mount and use nearly any CD and DVD images without the need for the physical disc.
DAEMON Tools supports all popular versions of Microsoft Windows including Windows XP and Windows Vista. It also supports more CD/DVD image types than any other optical disc emulation program.
The program has simple and well designed interface. It creates a small system tray icon that gives you quick access to all its commands. Here you can select the number of virtual drives that you want to have at your disposal and mount images for each of them. You can assign each virtual drive any letter of English alphabet which is not yet in use. There is also a capability to select the regional code for any created virtual drives. I want to note that mounting and unmounting of virtual drives occurs almost instantly and without the need to reboot.





The features of the DAEMON Tools can be extended with additional modules, which are produced by third-party developers.
Major improvements of the new version:

• included DT Panel with Internet search box and "Mount'n'Drive manager"
• DT tray behaviour changed to DT Pro style
• Languages are now changed more easily and more convenient
• Fixed several bugs

Before you begin to download this good and very useful application, I would like to warn you that DAEMON Tools Lite contains an optional adware toolbar. I recommend you deselect this option during installation.
You can download free version of DAEMON Tools from this page. (2.4 MB)

AnyDVD HD 6.3.0.0 – The Easy Way to Remove Copy Disc Protection

SlySoft Company has announced the release of the new version of AnyDVD HD. It is AnyDVD HD 6.3.0.0 – the universal utility for removing the copy disc protection from any dvd, hd or blu-ray disc. It fully supports HD-DVD and Blu-ray, including Decryption of HD-DVD and Blu-ray movie discs.
This utility works in background and watches for disc to be inserted. As soon as the disc is inserted, AnyDVD HD scans it and automatically removes the copy protection of DVD movie, allowing you then to backup the disc data using any DVD backup tool. It also removes any region code restriction, thereby allowing you to watch movies with non matching region codes with every DVD Player Software you like!
AnyDVD HD can remove all unwanted movie features such as non-skippable commercials, subtitles and prohibition messages. Just check in the settings things you don’t want to see, and you’re done.
But decryption is not all that AnyDVD HD offers. It can help you to control speed of your drive to reduce the noise level.
Program frees you from the necessity to buy new equipment with the HDCP support. It allows you to watch movies over a digital display connection on your pc.
Another additional unique special feature is the ability to remaster any commercial movie disc using simple XML scripts, which can replace files on the physical disc. With the help of this feature you can customize discs as you like without even making a copy to hard disk!
The new version has improved support of HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. The support for new copy protection was included. There are also some minor bug fixes.
I think AnyDVD HD is great utility and it is must have for almost everyone who plays DVDs movies on his pc.





The licence of this program is shareware. You can download the last version of AnyDVD HD by clicking on this link. (1.97 MB)