Tech Spotlight

It can be tough without breaking the bank to find a good graphics and image editor.  IrfanView might possibly fit the bill.  This software will let you view, convert, optimize, print, scan and create slideshows with all your graphics files.

IrfanView is a small and fast application that supports a myriad of file formats, for example, BMP, GIF, JPG, TIFF, PNG, PSD, EPS, ICO, CLP plus many others.  Also included in this free package is multiple language support, thumbnail and preview option, paint option to draw lines, circles and the like, file search, email option, cut and crop, color depth changing and the most interesting is plug-in support for adding advanced features to IrfanView.

This software has been around awhile and has a vast user base that really like the product.  According to their website IrfanView is downloaded more than a million times a month which is quite impressive.  For a complete list of features or to download IrfanView, follow this link.

A common and popular item for CD and DVD Burners nowadays is something called LightScribe.  With this technology you can burn pictures and text directly on a LightScribe medium by flipping over the optical media and running the appropriate software.  Although the output on the disc isn’t the greatest (black and grayscale only), it does save you from making standard paper labels.

More than likely any CD and DVD Burner manufactured in the last year or so will be capable of LightScribe, but check on the drive itself to make sure.  You will need the LightScribe software on your computer system to make this work, and it can be downloaded from here.  With that package you will also get a handy Contrast Utility which can lighten and darken the graphics burned on the disc.  Overall, LightScribe saves ink and labels, but in the process you sacrifice color and in-depth graphical images.