Falco Auto Image 3.3

Falco Auto Image is a tool for adding effects to images. It uses a very simple user interface without any fancy buttons. Despite its spartan looks, it is really easy to use, so if you are a rookie you shouldn't have any trouble with it.

The application allows you to blur, sharpen, crop, or emboss PNG, BMP, GIF, or JPG images. It's also possible to adjust the brightness, the contrast, and the color levels of an image. Inverting color channels is done by simply selecting a checkbox. In fact, each image effect can be turned on or off through the use of checkboxes. Some effects that require adjusting have a small button next to them, which opens a separate dialog for customizing the effect.

You can define up to three light sources. These "lights" are always white and their color cannot be adjusted. If you choose to enable any of them an adjustable white spot appears on the image. Falco Auto Image can also be used for resizing images. It doesn't resample the images, so if you resize an image you shouldn't expect great results. The program can save the edited images, using any of the formats supported when opening an image (PNG, BMP, GIF, or JPG).

Pluses: All the effects and their settings can be saved into a file and loaded later. This way you can apply the same set of effects to multiple images. Falco Auto Image can also capture images from TWAIN sources (camera, scanner, etc).

Drawbacks / flaws: If you have multiple images and you need to apply the same effects to all of them, you are in for a lot of work. This program doesn't support batch operations, so you need to open each image individually and apply the effects.

In conclusion: Although the first impression when I saw this software was not great, I must say that it is worth a try. It has a nice set of features, which may come in handy when editing images.

version reviewed: 1.0