FotoSketcher

Maybe you've seen photos that have been edited to look "old" or like they were painted by an Impressionist, and thought, "I'd like to do that!" Major image editing tools like Photoshop apply filters to images to create such effects, but suppose you don't have a major image editing tool like Photoshop? And even if you do, do you have the time to learn how to create these effects? Maybe you should try FotoSketcher, a simple tool for applying all kinds of visual and drawing effects to your digital images. With a huge range of filters and options, a simple split-screen layout, and familiar controls, FotoSketcher lets you focus on the image rather than the process.

FotoSketcher's user interface features a main window with identical before-and-after panes above a fairly standard but well-rendered toolbar. But this simple layout doesn't mean FotoSketcher lacks features: The Drawing parameters dialog that appears when you load an image has plenty of options and settings. We started simple, dragging and dropping an image into FotoSketcher, which displayed it both windows. We clicked the Drawing style list and selected a filter type from an extensive list of options. Even Photoshop users won't feel shorted by FotoSketcher's filters, which include six pencil sketch effects, eight painting effects, and all kinds of textures, frames, and borders. Many of the filters can be customized by sliders. For instance, we selected Vintage Photo. We could customize the strength of the effect, the blurring, the sepia coloring, and even the simulated old paper defects. Of course, we could also lighten and darken the image, change the texture, add text, and even use a manual brush. When everything was ready, we pressed Draw, and FotoSketcher previewed our changes in the right-hand pane. After that it was simply a matter of fine-tuning and saving our image, which looked like it was taken in the 1800s and found in an attic trunk.

We've used Photoshop for years and so can recommend FotoSketcher to anyone who wants to do some of what it does (jazz up photos) more quickly, easily, and cheaply; FotoSketcher is totally free.