Geekery - Photography

I have a bit of geekery for those of you who have a digital camera and a bit of a creative bent. Heck, maybe you're just bent? No matter, this geekery is free. I use a few industrial strength bits of software to juice up some images - expensive stuff that can largely be replaced with FOS (free, off the shelf) software.

VCW VicMan's Photo Editor is a neat little program that packs a lot of punch into a small footprint - it comes with some great filters and can use commercial, free, or ahem, acquired Adobe or compatible filters as well. These fine guys also have Light Artist , a free tool for creative lighting effects.

A free and fully functional set of standalone Adobe Compatible filters from the people who make Filter Forge is a teaser yet handy at times. Three sets with some pretty cool artistic effects in the areas of Metals, Frames and Photo Effects.

One more goodie and perhaps the best of the bunch - Optic Verve Labs'  Virtual Photographer includes over 50 presets that automatically apply combinations of film grain, color modification, B/W, soft focus, high contrast and many artistic effects. Get this one if nothing else.

So - there's a few of my tricks of the trade - now, can someone help me tie a head scarf?