Two Free Software Sites

I have always been a fan of free software. I recently have come across two excellent sites for free or almost free software. The first site is Shareware On Sale This site offers a new piece of free software almost everyday. A good many of the titles are of interest to photographers. I have downloaded resizers, pdf editors, image editors, and other interesting software. Usually, you have to download and complete the installation in the 24 hrs that the software is available. You get a valid license. Most does not come with support or upgrades. You can pay a little more to get that if you want. All that is required is that you create an account.

The second site is Bits du Jour. Again, there are many free giveaways, almost everyday. This site seems to have a broader range of titles of interest to a bigger audience. However, there are still many titles available of interest to the photographer. All that is required is that you create an account and like Bits du Jour and the software maker on Facebook. You can always change that later.

I frequently get useful software from both of these sites without issues.

Another free peeling paint texture

Free peeling paint texture by Wesley Phillips

Fotosketcher Software

FotoSketcher is neat software. FotoSketcher can turn your photos into pencil sketches or oil pantings. It is a free (free as in beer) program by David THOIRON. It is an automatic rendering program. That is, the user does not have painting tools. The program renders an image based on a few global settings. The results are very good. Better than the Auto Paint function in Corel Painter Essentials. There are some tools for adjusting the image before adding the paint effect. Tools like brightness and contrast.

I have found that uncluttered photos with homogeneous background work best. The subject should fill the frame. Good contrast and color saturation helps too.

This is a windows only program which works very well and is all the better because it is free.