Fast, cheap and good

A common saying is “Fast, cheap, good. Pick any two.” Here are some exceptions to that rule where you do get all three:

Photographers often have to resize pictures smaller or create thumbnail-sized images for their web site. For Mac users, there’s a free application called ThumbsUp, from DEVONtechnologies, which makes this resizing process fast and easy.

Also free from DEVONtechnologies: (i) EasyFind searches your hard drive better than Apple’s Spotlight because it doesn’t have the restrictions that are built into Spotlight; and (ii) WordService is an indispensable tool when working with any text in any application.

Another tool that photographers may find very handy, especially when designing web sites, is this wonderful free ruler for Mac.

Photographers who want to create a favicon for their web site or perhaps some custom desktop icons should consider the free ICOformat.plugin for Photoshop (Mac and Windows) and the free version of Img2icns (Mac).

The ICOformat plugin accepts only 256px, or smaller, images. Img2icns can create 512px which is the current Mac standard (except for apps being submitted to Apple’s App Store which requires 1024px icons).