One is likely to find lots of neat software that helps day-to-day. Let's hear about it. There are three major operating systems to consider: Windows, Mac, and Linux. Some software is cross-platform, others tied to a particular operating system. Bear these in mind when making entries. Identify which is which.

Open Source or Platform Neutral

Platform Neutral means it'll run on a variety of platforms, maybe even all.

PTLens - plugin and external apps for Photoshop, Lightroom, Apeture. Neat stuff...things like perspetive control, barrel and fish eye correction, chromatic abberation. Not expensive!!!


WordLE - an online, web based word graphic generator. Enter text, hit random over and over until you see something you like. Then, do a screen capture or print to PDF. It's all explained on the site.

The sample on the right was done by entering something like...

Worcester Photography Center Worcester Photography Center Wiki Wiki Wiki Photographers Meetup

...and the site makes words that repeate larger in the design.

Audacity - a free, open source, cross-plaftormsound editing package that supports a variety of plug-ins.

GIMP - a fairly powerful, free image editing package that's open source and cross-platform.

Mac Only

Cocothumbx and Cocoview - are a couple neat, free apps for the Mac. Cocothumb, in particular, is a nice way of generating small images with shadows quickly. (Note - sometimes cocothumx chokes on many large files.)
GraphicConverter - not free, but pretty powerful. It has a nice way of utilizing multiple monitors where you can see closeup detail of an image quickly.
LiveQuartz - free with lots of filters for making adjustments.

Windows Only

FastStone - wicked cool app that lets you manage/edit images. We use it at 7HCC when going through digital images during competition. Highly recommended.

Irfanview - image browers with some very nice batch editing features.

Linux

Linux distros usually come with lots of nice packages, so you usually don't need to go looking for anything.