There is no freeware that gets more attention than really good freeware that does really magical things with digital images. So today, during some down time, I was playing around with an image editor (free) which I thought did some interesting things without a lot of messing around or learning new tricks. I’m more of a try-it-and-see-what-happens kind of person, so I found this program quite fun to play around with. I’m sure if I took the time to watch one or more of their excellent video guides, I could do a lot more with the program. Alas, I don’t have a lot of free time, so learning more about what Perfect Effects 4 can do, will have to wait. Still, I thought it was interesting enough to share with you, and I hope you enjoy using it to see what you can do with it.
I guess the best way I can tell you about the program is to give you a couple of examples. Keep in mind, I just downloaded the program and installed it, and never viewed a tutorial or read a word of the program’s documentation.
The two images below (courtesy of RGBStock.com) are before and after pictures of tree birds sitting on a branch. That’s exciting, I know, but someone has to do this kind of stuff.
The original:
After using Photo Effect 4
Okay. How good are your eyes? Did you notice that the original is all in color, while the edited one is not. Just one birdie remains colored (and yes I was in hurry and brushed a couple of the colorful bird’s talons gray).
Another example:
The original:
After Photo Effects 4:
Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Note the rough borders too.
With over 70 different effects you can apply with the push of a button, and instant preview and undo, you can open up a new world of photo wizardry — without spending a penny.
Photo Effects 4 is pretty amazing freeware. In this article I’ve barely touched the surface of all the things it can do. One thing I can guarantee you it can do, it can give your creative spirit a boost and make your digital photos even more unique.
Here’s a few words from the developers of Photo Effects 4:
“Get an easy, fast and powerful way to create images with impact with Perfect Effects. Choose from a robust library of photographic effects to add professional looks to your photos instantly, including the popular HDR and retro looks. You can also recreate the look of film and darkroom techniques, add glows, vignettes, borders and correct common photography problems. With the ability to stack, combine and blend effects, and paint in effects to specific areas, your creative options are endless.
Perfect Effects is the next generation of PhotoTools 2.6 and can be used as a standalone or directly with Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, or Apple Aperture.”
There you have it, folks. If you want to learn more about and/or download Photo Effects 4 please visit this page.
Photo Effects 4 works on Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit) and Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit).
We downloaded and tested Photo Effects 4 directly from the developer’s site on August 11, 2013. At the time we tested it, the Photo Effects installer was clean – no bundled malware.
OK, So I downloaded this program and such is my luck, my video card isn’t supported. My question is, if a program gets halfway through the installation and it quits because of an issue like mine, does it remove all of the files that were already installed?
Most programs do a rollback when the computer’s hardware doesn’t support the software. You an always check and see if C:\Program Files\onOne Software\Perfect Effects 4\ folder exists, and if it does, right-click and delete it; since the program never installed, there won’t be any uninstaller either, so you can safely delete that folder and all its contents, if any.
This neat looking program is not compatible with Windows XP. I tried it and website says no
I mistakenly listed Windows XP out of habit. The program won’t work on Windows XP. And this is a good time to remind all XP users that you have 8 months left before all support ends for XP. More and more new programs are not going to work on XP as developers aren’t going to spend time working on software for an operating system that is over 12 years old and no longer supported by Microsoft. It’s sad to see XP fading into the sunset — it was the best Microsoft ever made — for its time. Its time is over and it’s time that all XP users started getting serious about changing to a newer operating system. We don’t want any XP user ending up like some of the Window 98 people who hung onto their 98 systems a little too long and ended up having their computers turned into spam bots. Please seriously considering upgrading to something newer. We will have instructions for all XP users on how to use XP on Windows 8 using on a Virtual Machine — so those who just can’t let it go will be able to use it safely even after support ends.
I couldn’t open Set up exe–when I checked their technical requirements they listed a minimum of 4 GB so I gave up after the 2nd try
Greetings
I would love to have a program like this but as I am using XP it looks like I can’t. Please tell me for future reference what using on a “Virtual Machine” means…..not that familiar with the term. Cheers. Nora
my driver says it supports ‘open Gl 2.0 compatible video card’ & i have more than enough resolution – but would still not install + i am getting emails from ‘Andy’ asking me how i am going with it & now offering me a 50% discount on the pro program….i don’t think this is a good idea folks…i have not had a problem with any imaging’editing program. i can do everything i want to do on PaintDotNet …check it out,
The best thing to do when you run into a problem is to write to their support — and not publickly criticizing a program because it won’t install on your computer.
Your video card may have nothing to with the program not installing; a lot of people using Norton, McAfee, or Trend Micro have a lot of problems installing certain kinds of software. More often than not, if your computer’s hardware meets the minimum requirements — it’s normally a software conflict that causes installations to fail.
We tested the program on two Windows 7 computers and on two Windows 8 computers — one of which was a virtual machine – and the program installed and worked without a problem.
Since we can’t test a program on more computers than we have, we can only recommend programs which should work fine on most computers — but not all.
We were not impressed with Paint-dot-net — we thought Photoscape was much better — but like everything else — software is a personal choice.
There are dozens of free photo editors — some of the online editors are excellent and you don’t have to install anything.
just on the above i am using Windows 7…& if you are interested use the ‘official’ website for PaintDotNet.
i apologize for telling you as it is….i do not have any of the security systems mentioned – i do have Open Gl 2.0 plus DirectX & more than enough space also GPU. & i stand by what i said – it will not install.