unless I find something new.
Today it is Photoscape. This one looks different, and I found it took a bit of getting used to. The circular menu looks nice but is a bit off-putting if you don’t know what ‘Raw converter’ or ‘Splitter’ mean. The ‘Help’ comes in the form of videos – am I the only person in the world who loathes trying to watch videos on my computer?
If you click on ‘Editor’ you get a more friendly looking screen. On the left there is a list of all your files and folders – scroll and click your way through that to your pictures. You will see lots of thumbnails appear below the list. [Well, you get lots if, like me, you've got lots.] Click on the picture you want to work with – the thumbnail will grey out so you know which one you’re working with, in case you’ve altered it so much you’ve forgotten. I really like this because it is very easy to find the image you want, and change to different images as needed.
Click on ‘Home’ at the bottom of the page just next to the thumbnails. The options for editing the photo are all shown at the bottom: there are square buttons for B&W, sepia, greyscale and negative at the left and ‘Undo’ and ‘Save
’ are over at the far right.
It is worth playing around with all the options – for example this is the result of increasing ‘Auto Level’, ‘Auto Contrast’ and ‘Sharpen’ to the maximum.
You can also add a [fairly simple] frame if you wish. Here's one for Mrs Cheddar …
although she’ll probably prefer this one.
There are 25 filters, many with further options and most tuneable. Some are quite unusual like ‘Cellophane’ – which looks like an idea for appliqué with sheers.
I’m not usually very interested in distortion filters – but I made an exception for ‘Illusion’ under the ‘Distorts’ heading. You can have up to 12 repetitions of the image.
And ‘Distorts - Window’ 
makes your image look as if you’ve printed it on a sheet of labels – you can vary the arrangement of the labels and the background colour.
If you click on ‘Region out of focus’ you can adjust the size and degree of the unfocussed region – but you can also apply another filter to that region – like ‘Crystallize’.
If you fancy doing silly things with your image click on ‘Object’ next to ‘Home’. Then you can add other images, text, or symbols – or draw on your image if you so wish. The daisy image came from the program – i think you can add your own images but I haven’t worked out how to do it.
‘Crop’ does what it says on the tin. ‘Region’ removes moles and redeye, but also allows you to pixelate a selected area – useful for protecting the innocent in your images.
This is ‘Distorts – Illusion’ applied to the daisy-dahlia before I added the text. Isn’t it pretty?
When you’ve finished exploring the tabs along the bottom, have a look at the ones along the top. ‘Batch Edit’ lets you do the same thing to lots of photos at once, should you wish to.
‘Page’ is great fun. You can make a range of collages, add borders, change the background colour etc. ‘Combine’ seems to do something similar, but there may well be some subtle difference which escapes me.
‘Print’ allows you to arrange images for printing, and gives more options than Picasa.
And ‘Anigif’ does this. Very easily. [Just hope it still works when I publish this.] [If it does you may well see more of them – you have been warned.]
And one little extra. Click on ‘Photoscape' and then ‘Paper Print’, and print your own graph paper, lined paper, calendars etc. If you, like me, have a desire for landscape paper with lines – this will print it for you – although I would prefer not to have a margin.
I like Photoscape. There are lots of interesting filters and other things to play with, and It is easy to navigate once you get used to it. The paint section seems quite limited but I’m not really into painting my pictures anyway. I just wish I could read the help section instead of having to watch it.
And finally – Ronaldo the Wonder Dog just made the dizzy heights of the local TV news – which is the best thing I've seen on it, ever. Well done, Ronaldog!
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