Easy Photo Effects

Easy Photo Effects is an application with a pretty self-explanatory name - it allows you to apply effects to pictures by providing simple-to-use tools. It supports the JPG, BMP and PNG file types for the output.

This is a portable piece of software, so installation is not a prerequisite. You can just drop the EXE file anywhere on the hard disk and run it, as well as save it to a USB flash drive or similar storage unit, in order to run it on any computer with minimum effort.

The app does not strive in the visual department of the GUI, but Easy Photo Effects is easy to work with, whether you are a first-time or advanced user.

Image files can be loaded into the workspace using either the file browser or “drag and drop” method, as long as their resolution is larger than 100x100 pixels. Batch processing is unsupported, so it is not possible to add effects to multiple pictures at the same time.

There are plenty of effects to choose from, and you can adjust settings for each one of them. For instance, you may apply a black and white filter and select the greyscale method (e.g. average, luminosity, green), or add the emboss effect, set its strength and pick the color channels to ignore.

Other image filters include movie grain (set letter box thickness and grain amount), sketch (with or without color), mirror (set orientation), waves (set amount and height), pixelation (set pixel size) and sparkle (set threshold), among numerous more.

You can apply multiple filters to the same picture, as Easy Photo Effects provides an undo function. However, it is limited to only one level. Beyond this point, you can remove all filters from the picture (i.e. restore to default). Once you are satisfied with the results, you can save the new file to the JPG, BMP or PNG format.

The image processing program uses a moderate amount of system resources, has a good response time, quickly applies changes, and works smoothly, without hanging, crashing or popping up error dialogs. Unfortunately, the app does not integrate a feature that lets you compare the output image to the original one before applying changes. Nevertheless,  Easy Photo Effects comprises an impressive amount of image filters, and it is easy to learn, thanks to its intuitive layout.