Perfect Effects

Even with the best camera on the market, a picture's quality depends almost entirely on the photographer's skills and imagination. If you wish to do something beyond your camera's capabilities, then you would need a specialized editing program. A good solution is Perfect Effects. The software comes with numerous predefined effects, which you can instantly apply on your pictures and adjust them according to your needs.

It takes about a minute to install Perfect Effects, but the program works only 64-bit Windows 7 and Windows 8 platforms. It is available for Mac OS X as well and it is offered free of charge. Although the announced hardware requirements seem a bit high, you should not encounter any problems if you run it on computers with less resources.

Mastering the program's controls does not require any special knowledge or skills. All you have to do is load a picture, select one or more effects and adjust them, which can be done without any effort. The available effects and filters are neatly categorized in a series of collapsible lists, on the left side of the user interface, where you can toggle between different view modes. A preview of the edited picture is displayed in the central region of the window and you can adjust the applied effects on the right side.

Besides scrolling through the effects list, you can also use keywords to filter them. Furthermore, recently used effects and favorite ones can be viewed separately, on separate tabs. Certain filters are applied instantly, when selected, while others involve using a brush in the preview area or rotating an axis. Applied effects are displayed in a stack, on the right side of the interface, along with various adjustment options.

Images can be edited in safety, without risking any damage to the originals. When loading a picture, the program will display a few options, for editing the original image or on a copy. What's more, the copy can be created in JPEG, TIFF or in Photoshop PSD format, if you want layer support.