Download PhotoLightning

I've always been a frustrated photographer and even with a home darkroom film was just too expensive for someone that got maybe one good shot out of a hundred. That's one of the reasons I love my digital camera. I can shoot as much as I like and maybe get lucky and if it's a dud, it goes right in the bit bucket. It's even hard to tell the difference between the prints on my inkjet printer to a real photo if you don't look too close.

I've been looking for a good way to edit my digital photos. Oh, I used my bloated graphics programs, but it really wasn't designed specifically for digital photos and while it was okay with some features, it really wasn't as specalized to photos and thus wasn't either very easy or very fast.

Then I ran into PhotoLightning, which I think must have been designed for me. What a hoot. I can load in a bunch of images so I have a thumbnail of my efforts, pick from the thumbnails, and do graphic work that is specific to photos.

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

PhotoLighting does everything I need in terms of graphics; fix the backlighting (a sin I commit often), fix the color, sharpen and adjust the focus (not that I'd ever take an out of focus picture!). It also removes redeye.

Crop, rotate, zoom in or out and if you mess up just click undo and start over.

After you have the image ready to go you can (optionally) label it with a caption and change the file name or just save the improved image.

If you want to share your creation with the world you can:

- Print in a variety of popular photo sizes, including 4x6 and 5x7 and includes templates for specality photo paper from HP, Olympus, Epson and Kodak.

- Email it including a unique feature that reduces almost any photo's size to about 40k then places the photo directly in the email, no attachment to try and figure out.

- Copy a print order back to your memory card so you can drag it down to the local drugstore or whatever to get it printed there.

- If you're not up for a trip to the local photo kiosk there are built in uploaders for Shutterfly and Snapfish so you can order your prints online.

- An interface for FlipAlbum (a different program, not included) that allows you to create photo web pages or to create images that'll play back on most DVD players.

Photolightning hasn't improved my efforts to a hundred keepers out of a hundred taken, but it's getting me close. Now if I could just remember to always get the subject in the photo.... -- Don Watkins

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