Imagia

Professional image editors can fix almost any photography mistake, if you can figure out their interfaces. In certain cases, you could spend hours trying to make a few adjustments, because you can't find the appropriate options in the program's menus. If you don't want to spend more time than you have to with your pictures, then you should consider using Imagia. It makes image adjusting and editing much easier and it allows you to share your pictures over the Internet.

Imagia is available in a Lite version, which is offered free of charge, as well as a Pro version, which comes with additional features and a price tag. The software can be installed in a few moments, on Windows XP, Vista, Win 7 and Win 8. It does not ask for powerful hardware and it doesn't have any special requirements.

The user interface is displayed in full screen mode at all times. You can load several pictures and switch between them on a film strip, in the lower region of the screen. Selected images are displayed in the largest area of the interface and you can manipulate them with various tools, which are located in collapsible menus, on the left side of the screen.

All operations, from basic brightness or contrast adjustments to creating masks or layers, can be done on the same panel, on the left side of the user interface. All you have to do is click a few check boxes, move sliders or specify a few numerical values. Your changes will instantly affect the selected image, in the preview area. You can also glance over the original image at any time, by hovering with the mouse cursor over a small icon.

The software provides support for RAW images and you can choose WIC or dcraw for RAW development. You can also set Imagia to open RAW files at all times or when tones are clipped. Edited images are saved automatically in a separate folder, in the same location as the originals. Furthermore, loaded pictures can be uploaded to Facebook, Flickr or Picasa, just by clicking the corresponding icons, next to the tool pane.