Freeware Pick of the Week

Oloneo PhotoEngine
Operating systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7
File size: 18 MB
Download times: About an hour and a half on dialup - a few seconds on broadband connections.

OK. So we're still trying to help you with those digital photographs. This time we're going to help you with those underexposed, overexposed, over-shadowed, pictures you've taken in poor lighting - or in a hurry. We can tell you from experience, you can't really get good results with Photoshop or Paintshop Pro when you're working with an underexposed, over-exposed, or over-shadowed pictures. Yes, you can use lighten, darken, use gamma correction, and all those gizmos, but all they do is make your whole picture lighter or darker - or else ruin it all together. Nothing's worse than a photoshopped picture where details are removed by overuse of the lighten, darken, gamma correction, etc. tools.

We all take pictures that could have been great but turned out not-so-great because the lighting was not right. Photoshop and Paintshop Pro are great photo editors but you can't adjust a single light-source or make shadows disappear in a way that looks natural using those programs.

This week's freeware pick of the week is the only program we've ever seen that can take a photo, which was taken in poor light, and make it look like it was taken with perfect lighting. You can get rid of those washed-out skies, make your daylight pictures appear to have been taken in the evening - or make evening photos look like they were taken in the daytime. We're not kidding.

This is beta software. But it's highly polished beta software. It installs well, runs well and works well. The only non-well about it is that once the final version is released it will most definitely NOT be free. That's because this program is a professional photo-editing tool, unlike any other. If you don't mind beta software, you can put this tool in your photo toolbox - free. I have no idea what they're going to charge for it when it's released, but I'm betting it will cost $100 or more. The beta sounds better and better, doesn't it?

The developer of the program is going to help us out here and tell you a lot more about his program. This not only saves us some writing, but it keeps you from yawning too. So without further hesitation, let me introduce you to the developer of PhotoEngine.

"...Turn on and off light sources, deeply re-expose pictures in full 32-bit per channel without compromising details and color appearance. Oloneo invites photographers to take an active part in the final development stage of Oloneo PhotoEngine for Windows by downloading the beta version at www.oloneo.com .

While taking pictures, photographers need not to worry anymore about potentially incorrect exposures, white balances or lighting set-ups. It is now a fast and easy process to modify lighting or to recover details in deeply under- or overexposed pictures. By merging multiple photos of the same scene, Oloneo PhotoEngine not only offers an almost unlimited control over exposure and lighting but also provides a new level of creativity in digital photography.

At the core of Oloneo PhotoEngine is a fully real-time, 32-bit floating-point per channel (96-bit per pixel), ultra-wide gamut, full resolution and non-destructive image-editing engine. Oloneo's color model handles a range of colors that largely surpasses what printers or screens are capable of displaying today. Combined with the suppression of any color shifting and clipping, it guarantees photographers against any loss of image data during the HDR process. With a simple, intuitive and responsive user interface, all image controls work in full real-time at a rate of 1/20 second or less on a general-purpose desktop or laptop computer.

'PhotoEngine is a completely new way to interact with lighting and exposure after photos are taken," said Antoine Clappier, President of Oloneo and developer of PhotoEngine. "And because PhotoEngine works in real time, it is the first high dynamic software that is truly practical and productive: PhotoEngine users can now devote their entire time being creative instead of spending hours mostly waiting for an unresponsive product to refresh images on screen'..."

If you take digital photos and they don't all come out perfect, then I guarantee you that you and your photos will benefit from this classy, professional photo editing tool. Yes it's beta but it runs better than many final versions of software we've tested over the years. And right now, you can get this beta free of charge.

Our freeware pick of the week is "Oloneo PhotoEngine" - and you can learn more about it, see videos of it in action, and/or download it here.

Do you have a suggestion for a future Freeware Pick? Let us know!