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Make your pictures better without the brain strain
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| Common editing chores, such as color-cast correction, are effortless with Elements 6.0. |
Sometimes the ends do justify the means. Take Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 6.0, for instance.
Normally, after we complete a software review, the app is uninstalled and the disc filed away. Not so with Photoshop Elements 6.0. We often find ourselves reaching for this program even over a full-fledged photo editor such as Photoshop CS3. It simply gets us the results we need with less time and hassle. That’s a big win in our book because less time editing means more time shooting. And frankly, unless you’re a Photoshop CS3 whiz, Elements may actually yield better results. And the app isn’t lacking advanced functionality, either. You still get access to Adobe Camera RAW updates, for example—a major leg up over other newb-centric photo editors.
$100, www.adobe.com
Ripping DVDs can be fast, easy, and free!
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| Quick DVD-to-DivX rips are great, but the power-user features are what really get us excited. |
Ripping DVDs used to be a major hassle. It took ages and required pricey software—and at the end of three hours of work you may or may not have created a file that played properly. AutoGK (along with cheap multicore systems) has changed that.
AutoGK works its mojo by corralling a motley collection of utilities into a cohesive package. One app extracts the video from the VOB file, one syncs the audio with the video, and yet another recompresses the video down to a fraction of its original size. While this might seem complex, AutoGK makes it simple enough that any user can rip a disc. Still, hidden away in a secret menu (press Ctrl+F9 to access it) there’s a whole host of power-user-friendly options just waiting to be tweaked. That’s what the Softys are all about!
Free, www.autogk.me.uk
Kiss Vista’s crappy defragger goodbye!
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| We don’t actually know how long Vista’s defrag takes because we always lose patience with it. With Disk Defrag it takes a mere 15 minutes. |
What’s worse than Apple not giving its users defragmentation support in OSX? The support in Windows Vista—clearly the slowest defragmentation application ever. We’re talking since the Winchester hard drive was invented in 1956. It’s as though the sectors are first squeezed through a quantum singularity and then beamed back and reassembled into a contiguous file by an angry shop of sector elves two steps away from a strike. For those of you who are mad as hell and unwilling to take it anymore, there’s Auslogics Disk Defrag. Install this free defragger on your Vista OS and your blood pressure will drop instead of rise every time you defrag. XP users can benefit too—the app is also much faster than Window XP’s freebie tool.
Free, www.auslogics.com
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