Picasa is the indispensable image cataloguing program. When dpexpert reviewed Picasa in March and gave it 4.5 stars it cost U$29. Since that time the application has been acquired by Google, and for reasons best known to themselves, is now available for free download. Picasa does only one thing – it scours the hard drives in a system for all image files and it catalogues them into folders. It will auto-launch at start-up and do its job constantly in the background. It was a must-have bargain at U$29, so at zero pennies what more can be said?

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements utilise a form of macro that any user can create called an Action. Actions are portable, so routines made by one user can be given to another for installation in the Photoshop Actions folder. All over the world Photoshop users are beavering away creating routines to apply to pictures, text or any other element of an image. Adobe maintains an exchange web site for creators of Actions, Plugins, Filters and Templates to display and offer their macros. There are hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of automated functions available here. Most of them are at no cost. There are a few commercial operators offering samples on the site. Most of the routines are useless, but in amongst the dross there are some gems.

One of the best, albeit limited, collections of Photoshop Actions is at atncentral.com The Frame and Matte actions offered here are well-designed to add a nice finishing touch to pictures for emailing or posting to web sites. The three dimensional framing effects achieved by the authors are realistic and elegant, better than those on offer on the Adobe Studio Exchange site. The on-screen demonstrations of the effects are particularly helpful.

Atncentral has one particular action which is so useful that it should be in every Photoshop Actions folder. It is called Glamor Blur and it is an electronic equivalent of petroleum jelly on the lens. It softens images as effectively as an expensive soft-focus lens. Digital cameras tend to produce sharp images that are hard and unflattering, particularly in portraits of women and children and more so when the on-camera flash is used. Every wrinkle and skin blemish stands out in gruesome high fidelity. Few faces can stand that sort of photographic scrutiny, which is why professional photographers have a kit full of devices, from makeup and soft-focus lenses to soft-box flash units, to blur the skin texture of even the loveliest model.

Glamor Blur does electronically what the professionals’ devices do physically. It creates a second layer on the image with an overall romantic softening effect, the opacity of which can be controlled in the layers palette. Then the Eraser tool is used to remove the softening over the eyes, resulting in a glowing portrait with luminous, sharply focussed eyes.

For those interested in tarting up text there is a good collection of effects available at Action Addiction. Most of these actions are free, but regrettably the green slimy offering called Snot Nose Punk costs U$10.89 Ah well, we must expect to pay for quality.

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