Mac OSX's Preview - hidden jems

For the most part, there are certain workhorse applications I use daily, such as Adobe Photoshop & Acrobat for heavy lifting on my projects. That said, for most of my other regular everyday computer usage, I don't require the power and overhead of those applications. Enter Mac OSX's PREVIEW.

The Preview application does quite a bit more than just reading PDFs or viewing common image formats. Most users never bother browsing through it's menus. In actuality, Preview is a very versatile little program. For instance, without having the Adobe Acrobat suite installed, you can Annotate PDF's, Delete Pages, Rearrange Pages, even Merge PDFs.

Most importantly for me though, are it's image editing capabilities. From basics such as Cropping, resizing, and rotation to color/exposure adjustments, and Alpha Mask Extractions. For producitvity purposes, it's capable of doing many of these operations in Batch mode as well.

An added benefit to using Mac OSX's implementation of PDF in preview, is that you are not subject to the same recent security flaws found in Adobe's PDF product. Don't forget there's also PRINT to PDF built right into the operating system.

Edit, Convert, Organize images for free in Windows

Looking for some simple FREE applications to view, organise, edit, convert images/photos in Windows? There are literally TONS of applications for this. Although I tend to do all my media manipulation on Macs, there are times when Windows is all that is available. That said, here are my picks which are totally free & reliable for use in Windows.

First a classic, IrfanView. Irfanview supports MANY file formats. Great for batch conversions, cut/crop/resize, thumbnail preview/organization and more.

Next is XnView. A utility for viewing and converting graphic files, much like IrfanView. It supports over 400 file formats, batch resize, rotate, crop, color adjustments, batch renaming, and more.

Finally, and this one is more photography oriented. Google offers it's free software called Picasa. Organize and edit your digital photos. Additionally you can create online albums to share. If you like Picasa, you will be pleased to learn that it's also available for Mac and Linux.

• IrfanView
• XnView
• Picasa

Pixlr: The FREE Online Photo Editor

Ever been out of the office without your set of favorite Image editing utilities? Not to worry, Pixlr has got you covered. All you need is a flash enabled web browser and access to the internet. It's not exactly Photoshop (altho it has a striking resemblance to the Interface), but it gets the job done. Just upload your image via your browser, and start using the basic tools. Give it a shot at: www.pixlr.com