Fotor: Awesome Full-Feature Photo Editing for Free

As I might have mentioned before, Netted by the Webbys is pretty cool. I get a daily email from them with cool websites and things to try. Sometimes the stuff doesn't apply to me, and sometimes you can only get the cool stuff on devices I don't have. But sometimes, they mention something that I really want to try, and Fotor is one of them =D

As the name might imply, this is another photo editing system. But, the cool thing is that it is available for Windows, Windows 8, Mac, Android, iPhone, and is also absolutely free. Typically the free systems want you to sign up for an account, but I just loaded it for Windows and it didn't require any login. You can share your creations via social media, but Fotor says that it doesn't store your account information.

The other part that was cool about it is the comprehensive nature of the program. Some freebies want you to purchase the upgrade to get all the features, but Fotor seems to have everything you need absolutely free. I've just played with one photo (original on the left, Fotor version on the top), but I was impressed with the amount of things you could do.

In addition to the normal stuff like filters, frames, crop, straighten, and tilt, you can also do photo cards and collages. One other cool thing is the HDR (High Dynamic Range) feature. Basically, you take photos at different exposures and Fotor combines them into a photo that has the perfect exposure for those nasty shadows or over-exposed areas.

But don't take my word for it. Try it yourself...for free!!

PDFescape: Edit Those Uneditable PDFs

What do you think of PDFs? Kind of an odd question, but there is a reason for it. PDFs can be really nice if you need to reach a wide variety of computers with a single file type. Pretty much anything can read a PDF while other file extensions can't be opened unless you have that exact program.

For example, I work on a Windows, and I normally create posters in Publisher and then create a JPG file. Unfortunately, when I send that to our Community Resources Administrator who uses a MAC, it won't open the Publisher file, or the JPG extension.

So, PDF makes that problem go away because both MACs and Windows will open it. But, therein lies the rub! PDFs don't like to be edited.

When you are sending information back and forth that two people have to edit, or the PDF is actually a form you have to fill out, some PDFs don't let you edit them, and it is SO ANNOYING!

But, PDFescape has an answer to that problem. It allows you to edit a PDF by whiting an area out, and then adding text, images or web links. PDFescape can also be utilized for viewing PDFs, filling out forms, annotating PDFs, or designing PDF forms. While the premium version (the pay-some-money-version) has no ads, the free version has a few. But, they aren't overly obnoxious.

Personally, I have only used the edit side of things, and even though it was very useful, it didn't have a copy and paste feature! Once you create an element by whiting something out and then typing into it, it wouldn't let you copy it.

Now, the poster I was trying to create had a lot of repeating text, so this particular lack of feature was very agitating. But, if you are only filling out a form or fixing one area of a PDF, PDFescape is going to be awesome!