Softener

If you work as a photographer or one of your hobbies are working with photos, you might appreciate and understand the importance of having the right tools for the job.

In case you prefer digital photography, you might consider relying on software assistance to achieve better quality. For instance, Softener is a plugin that can help you tweak a few parameters of your pictures.

Usually, hen you hear plugin, you expect to need a host application that you can attach it to so that you can access and operate its functions. However, that's not the case with this utility.

You get to install it on your computer, launch it and interact with its functions since it comes in a standalone form. Installation can be accomplished easily, as it doesn't pose any difficulty.

As mentioned before, Softener doesn't act as a plugin when installed, but it's not a standalone application either. The installation kit actually packs a basic editor that this plugin piggybacks on.

However, you might want not to get your hopes up as the only things you can accomplish with the editor component are zooming in or out, resizing the pic, rotating it and applying filters (in this case, Softener is the filter).

You can turn to this app if you need to apply a gloomy, dreamy effect to your pictures by using various blur/glow filters. After you select the filter from the list, you can adjust the softness and the strength of the effect and choose a preset.

Among the presets, you can find "Normal Blur," "Alpha Blur," "Sketched," "Glow," "Moody," "Misty," "Soft Focus," "Vibrant Color" and "Over Exposed."

If you're looking for a simple way to make your photos look blurry, gloomy or dreamy, you might want to try Softener. Although a plugin, it comes with a basic photo editor component, so that you can install it easily.