It’s been quite some time that I wanted to mention the existence of a powerful HDR tool that is available for Mac: HDRtist is free and seems quite able. Unfortunately, it comes from the family of HDR tools which prefer to produce unrealistic images, but it can be tweaked.

The new version of HDRtist, v1.2, is available for free download.

GIMP is an excellent image edition software which could (should?) attract all those who do not want to pay the full price of Photoshop, while they work with Apple, Windows or Linux. the differences are real, but the most obvious one is certainly the interface (and Adobe clearly did a nice work on it). So, why not try to prep up your GIMP to make it look like a near-clone of Photoshop?

photo credit: See-ming Lee ��明 SML

Blair Mathis decided to reduce the distance between them by the installation of several plugins on GIMP. And the result is astonishingly interesting. All the more because the process is fully documented step-by-step, which makes it little more than a longer software installation.

1. PSPI
2. Layers
3. Separate+ from Yellowmagic
4. Liquid Rescale from Wikidot (for an image rescale without deformation as in CS4)
5. Additional brushes from Blendfu
6. GIMP Animation Package
7. Enable GEGL

But if this is not enough, there are also a few hacked versions of GIMP that have been already prepared for the Photoshop lovers. The most renowned are:

• GimpShop whose interface is specially good
• GimPhoto is slightly less convincing but is based on a more recent (and more powerful) GIMP version

Once again, here is how you can (nearly) download Photoshop for free, while being well on the right side of law.

Aviary, one of the best online graphics edition software, just changed its pricing model. Instead of the subscriptions previously used, they went for a new price structure: 100% free. Supported by new financial partners, they offer their tools for free. Impressive free tool suite.

The announcement on the Aviary blog.

The user manual for the Pentax K-x is now available for free download (at Pentax Japan).

• Pentax K-x User Manual

EXIF date changer

The EXIF data hold a lot of useful technical information about your photos. One of these is the date and hour of the snapshot. This is quite pleasant, useful and nice up to the moment when your camera internal clock fails or starts lagging. Or when you need very precise synchronization with another device (like a GPS geo-marker, for example). Here, you need to correct precisely the hour (or worse, the date) written in your photos and -generally- you have to do it on dozens of photos at once.

How to do this? Under Windows, ask to EXIF Date Changer from Relik Software. This utility program will allow to correct this information in a matter of seconds.

Actually, Lightroom 3 is in beta phase and you can get a beta version for free until April 30th 2010. It already seems like a very long time and if you wanted to test it or to discover this good photographic software, it may be time for it.

But, please, remember that even if this is perfectly legal, beta-quality software may contain some bugs and glitches that are not backed up by a manufacturer’s warranty. You’re just helping Adobe make Lightroom 3 into a better Lightroom.

Download Lightroom 3 public beta for free.

Via DownloadSquad.

Photofunia is a fun way to transform your photos in a way that is technically interesting. You will surprise your friends with dozens of cool (and free) effects.

For example, I created this weirder than weird image of Michael Jackson (from the thumbnail shown below).

Photoshop is not the only photo editing tool on the market, but it is definitely a leader. Despite this, or because it has to be the best tool for so many people, it takes a very long time to start Photoshop on your computer.

On Windows, Photoshop SpeedUp is a freeware that can solve part of this issue. It gives all the tools to reduce load times for the big Adobe Photoshop tool.

Photoshop SpeedUP